SLANT-N-GO Len Bias

Michael Wilbon, the Washington Post columnist and bespectacled guy on ESPN's "Pardon the Interruption," wrote the following one year after Maryland star Len Bias overdosed on cocaine and died two days after the Boston Celtics took him second overall in the 1986 NBA draft.
There's a basketball court in Rockville (Md.) on which some the day after Bias died painted on the backboards and court: "Len Bias Lives Forever." The kids play for hours a day, hitting the yellow paint.
A year later, the words remain. One wonders if they are read.
Bias died June 20, 1986 at 22-years-old, an All-American who some basketball experts considered to be better than a certain North Carolina All-American and omnipresent pitchman. Bias' collapse in his dorm suite became something that far transcended just a simple bad decision that turned fatal, it became a flash point in American sports and American society.
For me, Bias' death became the moment when my innocence sportswise was taken away. I was just turning 2-years-old when the United States boycotted the Moscow Olympics and the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles are just a blur in my memory. I was a few months shy of my ninth birthday, and this changed everything—not some green T-shirt with "Just Say No" emblazoned on the front.
Bias' picture on the cover of Sports Illustrated following his death turned him into more than a tragic figure, he became a symbol as the cocaine/crack epidemic gained a larger foothold in the American conscience and had an even larger impact in the black (now known as African-American) community.
Bias became a cautionary tale about the perils of drug abuse, sort of like a scary story police officers would tell kids to steer them away from talking to strangers. In terms of analogies, Bias was to the "War on Drugs" as Emmitt Till was to the Civil Rights Movement—their respective deaths brought those issues to the forefront in mainstream America.
Bias' death served as a case study in how far-reaching the impact of doing drugs is. Remember, the Celtics still had Bird, Parrish and McHale in the front court in their prime. That former North Carolina All-American was on his way to becoming the measuring stick all young players are held up to. Who knows the heights the NBA could have reached if Bias would have stayed alive to make in impact in the pro game?
Fast forward 20 years, and here sports fans sit in the wake of another flash point. USC starting point guard Ryan Francis was senselessly killed in Baton Rouge during Mother's Day weekend. Francis was not the guy the shooter was aiming for, but it was the former Glen Oaks star that died from the incident.
I watched Francis and Glen Oaks and caught some late night Pac-10 games when he took over the point for the Trojans—as a true freshman. Like Bias, it looked like Francis had a bright future. Unlike Bias, Francis became just another case of "wrong place, wrong time." Another bright light extinguished by stupidity, another son taken from his mother, another friend gone and one less teammate in the locker room.
The two do share a bond because they have became symbols, they put a face on the particular manners of death. Francis became a symbol of the seemingly increasing devaluing of life by many of today's youth and how this generation of young people seemingly seek to take life quickly and without thinking of the consequences of their actions.
Taking Wilbon's closing lines from that 1986 column and adapting it to Francis death:
There are basketball courts in North Baton Rouge on which someone the day after Francis was killed painted on the walls and court: "Ryan Francis Lives Forever." The kids play for hours a day, hitting spray-painted messages wishing Francis to rest in peace."
Like Bias, those words would remain as a reminder of those events that take people away from the world way before their time. More than just one nowadays wonder if the kids read the message and take it heart.