ESPN 30 for 30: Without Bias

An article by WhoDey    No Comments

Last night, ESPN aired another feature in its 30 for 30 series.  This one, titled Without Bias, was a look back at the 1986 death of Len Bias just days after the NBA Draft.  Bias was a superstar whose cocaine-related death came as a shock to the world of sports.

To me, the film missed its mark.  Most sports fans are at least aware, to some degree, of the story of Len Bias.  There was no new ground to break in the story, so that shouldn’t have been the purpose of it.  Without Bias spent most of its time retelling the story of Bias’s rise and rapid fall from the view of Len’s friends and family, when it really should have focused more on the societal impact of his death.  The final segment of the film touched on it, but it was only lip service to a very important and impactful part of the story.

Bias’s death helped to alter the perception of both drug abuse and drug abusers in this country.  Whether you believe, as his family has claimed, that Len was a first time user, there is no question that in the years following his  death, lawmakers cracked down in the “war on drugs”.  Laws that have shaped the current climate of this country, and especially its legal system, were the result of that cocaine overdose.  Why couldn’t Kirk Fraser have  delved into that further?  The glimpses of it we were given in the final 10 minutes of the film were excellent, but they were just that – glimpses.  I don’t desire to minimize the significance of the loss of Len Bias to his family,  friends, and fans, but there was so much more that needed to be told.  Unfortunately, Without Bias was Without Discussion of those areas.  The death of Bias was one of the most impactful events of a generation; that impact  was the largely untold part of the story.