Racial Equality and Sports: University of Maryland, College Park students in Dr. Damion Thomas’ “Black Masculinity and Basketball” class are usually talkative. A rare exception is when Thomas steers them to the subject of the late Len Bias, a UMD basketball star whose talents captivated sports fans nationally.
Bias died from a cocaine overdose in June 1986, when Thomas’ students were either too young to remember or before they were born. Their less-than-chatty demeanor also results from the other circumstances surrounding Bias’ death: At age 22, he suffered a seizure while partying with friends in his dorm room less than a week aft er the Boston Celtics selected him second overall in the NBA Draft. Bias had one of the brightest futures any young man could dream of.
Thomas, an assistant professor of kinesiology, uses Bias as an entry point to show how sports connects people, particularly Blacks, to society at large.
