Len Bias: The NBA draft star and his overdose - a death that changed America
Bias was described by the New York Times as possessing "an extraordinary combination of grace and strength"
The green Celtics cap thrust into his hand represented ambition and expectation for a side built around ageing champions. His death shook basketball, but the reverberations went far further, touching America's street corners, courtrooms and highest offices for years after. It is perhaps the most memorable moment from Bias' most memorable game. It came in February 1983, when Bias, playing for Maryland University, took on the University of North Carolina and their own phenomenon, Jordan.
Len Bias faces off against Michael Jordan during their college days at Maryland and North Carolina respectively "He was the type of person who strived for perfection - he didn't like stuff halfway. He liked order. As he was developing, he was able to discover the hidden abilities within him." He had college offers from across the United States, but opted for Maryland to stay close to his home and family.
Coleman's prediction and Bias' potential was realised. During his four years at Maryland, Bias scored a mountainous 2,149 points, a school record at the time, and twice earned All-American honours, recognising the best young players in the country. Gatlin saw Bias a couple of days before he set off for New York to attend the 1986 draft at Madison Square Gardens. Both men were overwhelmed by the idea that Bias was officially going to become an NBA player.
Bias decided he would head back to his university campus to celebrate. Gatlin bumped into him as he entered the dorms. One of the group was Brian Tribble. Although Tribble had dropped out of the University of Maryland, he still hung around campus and had bonded with Bias over a shared love of basketball and music.
"So, to 'know' him and then to see what happened was something that I've never been able to wrap my head around. I don't think I ever will because I never saw that side of him." "I said 'Wow, well I'm glad you called me, I have a math class at 8am.' She said 'Are you sure everything is OK?' I said 'Yeah, I'm going to double check on my sister too.'
By the time his mother and father could make it to the correct hospital, Bias had already been pronounced dead."I knew that he played basketball, that he was my son, and he was doing well. I didn't know who he was as a man."People around the world were grieving over the loss of this man and this was just my son that I love. I didn't know the level of popularity he had until he passed.
Bias' death, at his physical peak, with a future laid out before him, was part of the justification for harsher sentences for smaller amounts of certain drugs. "He understood a whole lot of people were terrified that this superstar athlete, this extraordinary fit young man had fallen prey to a cocaine overdose. O'Neill represented Boston, was a Celtics fan. It was really good politics for him to pay attention to the specificity of Len Bias' death."
"Bias didn't use crack, he died of a powdered cocaine overdose, but that's not what people perceived at the time." In October 1986, a little over four months on from Bias' death, President Ronald Reagan signed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act into law in the White House's East Room.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
4 Charts That Tell Us About Homelessness in America TodayA new study from ucsfbhhi asked almost 3,200 homeless people from all over California about what would have helped them avoid losing their housing
Read more »
America’s lavish red carpet for Modi\n\t\t\tLet our global subject matter experts broaden your perspective with timely insights and opinions you\n\t\t\tcan’t find anywhere else.\n\t\t
Read more »
America wants to lower tensions with Iran. GoodIran cannot rival Ukraine and Taiwan for headlines, but it could soon prove as dangerous. Its nuclear-weapons programme has put its regime in a position to dash for a bomb
Read more »
How ESG became part of America’s culture warsA focus on social issues by big business has angered some Republicans
Read more »
NATO is agonising over whether to let Ukraine joinAmerica is not keen for the country to enter the alliance—yet
Read more »
The impact of a vegetarian diet on chronic kidney disease (CKD) progression – a systematic review - BMC NephrologyBackground A vegetarian diet is a popular alternative to the casual diet - it is considered healthy, and was proven to positively affect cardiovascular health. The Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) progression is a major issue in the healthcare system, and constitutes a leading cause of death for 1.5% of the global population. The objective of this systematic review was to investigate the potential impact of a vegetarian diet on kidney function in CKD patients. Method Our systematic review focused on randomized controlled trials (RCTs) which compared the effects of a vegetarian diet (experimental) and a standard omnivore diet (comparator) in terms of the estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) in CKD patients. Inclusion criteria were based on PICO elements, with two researchers involved in browsing the Cochrane and Pubmed search engines. The investigation was performed using the PRISMA 2020 Checklist and PRISMA 2020 flow diagram. The search terms included: ‘vegetarian diet’ AND ‘nephropathy’, ‘eGFR’, ‘albuminuria’, ‘chronic kidney disease’. Bias assessment was performed using RoB 2 tool to determine the validity of the data collected from studies. Results Four RCTs with a total of 346 participants were included in the presented systematic review. Two largest RCTs reported an increase in eGFR following a change to a vegetarian diet (p = 0.01 and p = 0.001). Another two found no significant differences between the experimental and control groups, also these trials were associated with a high risk of bias in terms of missing data outcome and the randomization process. Conclusions The findings collected in this systematic review suggest that a vegetarian diet improves renal filtration function in CKD patients. Therefore, it seems essential to conduct further research involving the impact of the diet on the progression of CKD.
Read more »