The Kevin Sheehan Show - All-Pro No For Jon Allen

Episode Date: January 15, 2022

Kevin opens the show with his thoughts on the news that Jon Allen wasn't named to either the first or second NFL All-Pro teams. Kevin also with some quarterback draft data as he looks ahead to the probability that Washington will select a QB in the 2022 draft. The show also includes Kevin's conversation with author Dave Ungrady and former Baltimore Sun columnist Don Marcus about their terrific podcast series about Len Bias (Len Bias, A Mixed Legacy).  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You don't want it. You don't need it. But you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Cheehan Show. Here's Kevin. A weekend podcast for all of you, in part because I missed one on Wednesday, but really because I wanted to share with everybody

an interview that I did the other day with longtime Baltimore Sun columnist and reporter Don Marcus, and Dave Ungrady. Dave wrote the book on Len Bias called Born Ready. And both of them have put together and produced an incredible podcast series, 12 parts called Len Bias, a mixed legacy. You do not have to be a Maryland basketball fan to A, enjoy the interview that I did with them, I don't think. And then B, enjoy the podcast series.

So that's coming up here shortly with Don and with Dave. There are a few things that I wanted to mention, though, here in the first segment of the show. And that is that, number one, John Allen didn't make all praise. pro. In fact, he wasn't even close to making all pro. The all pro interior defensive linemen are Aaron Donald obviously makes the first team. Cam Hayward from Pittsburgh makes the first team. And then Chris Jones from the Chiefs and Jeffrey Simmons from the Titans both made the second team. Others receiving votes were DeForest Buckner, Kenny Clark, Vita Vaya, and yes, John Allen. Allen, Vea, and Clark all got two votes out of the 50 available.

By the way, if you're wondering, this is the Associated Press All-Pro first and second team. 50 media members vote on the all-pro first and second team every year. It's not the Pro Bowl where you've got fan voting, you've got player voting, etc. And it comes out before the season even ends. This waits for the season to end. And this is, I think, over the years a much better reflection of the best players in the game. I thought John Allen would make one of the first two teams. I thought he would be a second team all pro.

Aaron Donald's a given. I thought Jeffrey Simmons had a really good chance to make the first team. I think he's a monster in Tennessee. Hayward had a big time year. And Chris Jones had a pretty good year, too, even though Jones actually missed three games. Statistically, they're all pretty comparable in terms of the guys. that made the team over John Allen outside of Aaron Donald. Donald was a given. Statistically, Allen ended up with nine sacks. He was a very, very significant player,

the most, I think, influential player, the best player, if you will, on Washington's defense, which was not a very good defense this year. You know, the other players ended up being on teams that either are in the playoffs or in the case of DeForest Buckner, who didn't make the first two teams, but got more votes than John Allen did. He got five votes. They were on winning teams. John Allen was the only defensive tackle that got votes that was on a losing team. So Allen ends up basically getting the sixth most votes,

tied with Kenny Clark and Vita Vevae with two votes each. Buckner got more votes, and then Simmons, Jones, Hayward, and Donald were all pros. Donald and Hayward first team. Jones and Simmons second team. So I thought Jonathan Allen certainly was on track to having an all-pro season. And certainly after that four-game winning streak when Washington was in the hunt, if Washington had had a better defense and had a better finish to the season, perhaps he would have gotten more votes.

Only Brandon Sheriff among the rest of the roster got votes for all pro. He got one vote. Zach Martin is your first team all-pro right guard. Wyatt Teller from the Browns is your second team all-pro guard. He only got two votes. Zach Martin got 46. Teller got two, and then Mason and Brandon Sheriff, Shaq Mason in New England and Brandon Sheriff each got a vote.

So Sheriff was much closer to making second-team all-pro right guard than John Allen was to making a second-team all-pro defensive tackle. Tressway wasn't really close. Tressway had a good year, not a great year. He was essentially top five and overall gross average, but like outside the top 10 in net average. So there were just better punters this year than Tressway. So there you go. That's the all-pro team.

I was disappointed that John didn't make the second team. I thought there was a pretty good chance. But if you look through the actual all-pro team, a lot of players from playoff teams and winning teams. and just better defenses in general. Micah Parsons, by the way, first team all-pro linebacker in his rookie season. Pretty damn impressive. He was a really good player this year as a rookie.

He and Darius Leonard were your first team linebackers on the all-pro team. Trent Williams, by the way, if you were wondering, did make first team all-pro. In fact, there were more votes for Trent Williams by far than anybody else. He got 46 of the 50 votes for left tackle. Roshan Slater, the rookie for the Chargers, ended up being a second team, all-pro, left tackle.

Aaron Rogers, by the way, over Tom Brady. Rogers is your first team quarterback, and Tom Brady is your second team quarterback. By the way, interestingly, only one running back named to the all-pro team. Jonathan Allen, Jonathan Taylor made first team all-pro. There was no running back listed as a second-team all-pro. You know, if you look at sort of the running backs this year,

personally, I think Dalvin Cook you could have made the case for, but he missed several games. You know, he missed one actually in Minnesota. Several Minnesota players did, including cousins. missed a game because he was unvaccinated and he tested positive. I thought Dalvin Cook was pretty outstanding at times this year. And I thought Nick Chubb was at times too, but Chubb and Cook missed a bunch of games.

But they did not name a second team running back. Derek Henry obviously would have been a first team or a second team all pro running back, but he only played in eight games. He's going to play in the postseason, though. By the way, speaking of the postseason, I gave out my smell test picks yesterday. You can listen to yesterday. I'll just tell you what they are here again.

The smell test picks for the weekend are the under in the Raiders Bengals game today. The Eagles and the Cowboys tomorrow. The under in the Cowboys game, the Under in the Chiefs game tomorrow night, and then the under in the Cardinals Rams game on Monday night. The weather is going to be a major factor tonight in Bucson. I did not give out a pick on that game, going to be in the single digits. But the weather is also going to be an issue tomorrow in the Philadelphia-Tampa game. Showers, thunderstorms, and significant wins during the game.

That typically does not affect a running team like the Eagles. It does affect a throwing team like the Buccaneers. But Brady's played in these conditions before. I don't think it's going to affect him, but I do like the Eagles tomorrow plus the nine. I actually like their chances to really have a legit chance to win the game at Tampa tomorrow. I didn't see this story yesterday, and I wanted to mention it real quickly. You know, the name unveiling is February 2nd. It's going to be done on the Today Show.

A lot of people have gotten caught up in, you know, the national, you know, today's show unveiling of the name rather than doing it locally. But the team did announce that they are going to hold a press event at FedEx Field on February 2nd with Dan Snyder and Tanya Snyder making remarks. So I guess Jason Wright will probably be the participant on the Today Show from the team will be the person that makes the announcement on behalf of the team. Just because they're doing it on the Today Show doesn't mean that they're going to be in the New York Studios at Rockefeller Plaza.

I mean, it might be done at FedEx Field with Jason right there. I don't know, but I did find it interesting that Tanya and Dan are going to make remarks at a press event on the day that the name's going to be unveiled at FedEx Field. I mean, February 2nd, FedEx Field, if they're planning on doing it outside, it's a bit of a risk. It could be pretty cold, A, and could be bad weather. If they're going to do it from, you know, some sort of podium inside FedEx Field in a suite or something, well, they could have done that at Redskin Park. One more thing that I wanted to get to. I did a mini deep dive, I guess, if you will, early this morning on quarterbacks drafted over the last 10 years.

Actually, the 10 years prior to the 2021 draft. I didn't count the 2021 draft because we really don't know about Trevor Lawrence. or Zach Wilson or Tray Lance or Justin Fields or Mack Jones really at this point or Davis Mills. We're not entirely sure. So I excluded that and I looked at drafts from 2011 through 2020 on quarterbacks because I think Washington, I think we all believe that there's a pretty good chance that Washington's going to be in the market for a quarterback in the upcoming draft. I think, you know, number one offseason priority is quarterback. We've mentioned that and, you know, Ron Rivera for all intents and purpose.

and Martin Mayhew have mentioned the same thing. And I wanted to see what the real hit rates on finding a franchise quarterback through the draft are. They're not good. I mean, since 2011, and I went back and I looked at 10 years 2011 through 2020 of the NFL draft. during that 10-year period, 117 quarterbacks overall were drafted. Ten of them. I don't think anybody would disagree that 10 of them are franchise quarterbacks. Joe Burrow, Justin Herbert, Kyler Murray, Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, Deshawn Watson,

Andrew Luck, Cam Newton, Russell, Wilson and Dak Prescott. Okay, I counted Dak Prescott. I didn't count others that you might debate with me like Ryan Tannahill or Kirk Cousins or Derek Carr. I excluded them. I don't consider them to be like what you'd really be looking to land on at number 11 in the draft or anywhere in the draft. I mean, you'd certainly be pleased with Derek Carr and Kirk Cousins if you drafted them where they got drafted in the second round and in the fourth round. But terms of truly, you know, in true franchise quarterbacks, I think it's 10 out of 117 over that 10-year period. That's an 8.5% hit rate. Eight and a half percent. I mean, you could throw in another

three or four guys and say you'd be pleased to end up with them. You know, you could double that number if you wanted. And still, you know, it's 17% hit rate in the draft. It's very low that you're going to find a quarterback, your franchise quarterback in the draft. Well, it's just very low in general that you're going to land and find a franchise quarterback, a true franchise quarterback, a guy that you're going to want to be your quarterback for 10 years plus, like the guys that I just mentioned. Now, when you get into the first round, the odds increase significantly. If you just pick a quarterback in the first round. During that 10-year period, there were 32 quarterbacks taken in the first round. Eight of them, eight of them turned into, you know, true franchise quarterbacks.

Burrow, Herbert, Murray, Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, Deshawn Watson, Andrew Luck, Cam Newton, okay, in the first round overall. Again, I'm not counting anybody from 2021 yet. I don't think it's fair to. And I'm not discounting the fact that Tua might become that guy or, you know, Daniel Jones or, you know, Baker Mayfield might be that guy. Who knows? But eight out of 32. So that is a 25% hit rate on first rounders overall. A one out of four hit rate. If you draft a quarterback in the first round that you're going to land on a guy that is, you know, a no debate franchise quarterback. Now, if you select in the top 11 where Washington is selecting this year, at number 11 overall, I went and looked at all the quarterbacks taken in the top 11. It is higher than 25%, but not that much higher. It's 7 out of 22, seven franchise quarterbacks out of 22 quarterbacks taken in the top 11 during that 10-year period of 2011 through 2020.

So a 31.8% hit rate. You know, getting closer to one in three. You know, one out of three chance. Anyway, I just wanted to know what the real numbers were. You know, you could debate on whether or not guys like Derek Carr in the second round or Kirk Cousins in the third round, you know, or even Colin Kaepernick with the way he played in the second around if they were franchise quarterbacks or were worth it. You know, being worth it isn't really what I'm looking for.

I'm looking for, did you find the 10-year answer? You know, and I'm counting Burrow and Herbert because I think it's fairly safe to project that these are guys. Some people would say that you're not so sure about Kyler Murray yet. You know, some people would say, well, you know, Deshawn Watson shouldn't be counted because, you know, his life may have been ruined and he may never be the same. who knows. But, you know, watching Deshawn Watson for those couple of years, Houston got the right guy with the pick. Now, he was not a top 11. He was number 12. So basically, like an 8.5% chance overall if you draft a quarterback of finding a franchise quarterback in any round. A 25% chance if you draft a quarterback in the first round. One out of four. You know, still, you know, three misses for every hit. And then seven, seven out of 22 if you draft in the top 11 a quarterback, a 31.8% hit rate.

It's really hard to find franchise quarterbacks. However you want to define it, I think we know what we're talking about. The guys that I mentioned, the guys that are truly going to be your quarterback through their rookie deal and through a big signing of an extended deal and maybe two or three more deals. Ten years, your quarterback. You don't have to think about it. This year, nobody really likes the quarterback class. And sometimes that gets a little bit, you know, overrated. Because certainly Justin Herbert, even though he was picked number six, nobody thought that Justin Herbert was going to be much.

He was not evaluated anywhere near the level that Burrow and Tua were. You know, Josh Allen, lots of question marks on him. Obviously, he was picked in the time. Top 10, lots of questions on him, ends up going seven overall, ends up being the star of that class, along with Jackson at 32. Nobody saw Mahomes before that draft. I mean, that draft, the 2017 draft, was really all about Deshawn Watson. You know, and then Trubisky started flying up the boards, and if you recall, the bears

actually swapped spots with San Francisco so they could draft Trubisky. Why they did that, I have no idea, because I don't think San Francisco was going to draft a quarterback there. But maybe they thought somebody else was going to jump up to get Trabiski. But that was a surprise draft. Nobody thought that was a great quarterback draft. And Mahomes and Watson ended up being really good players. Hopefully Watson will be. All right. When we come back, this interview that I told you about with Don Marcus and Dave on Grady on the Len Bias podcast series that they have produced, right after these words from a few of our Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already. Rate us and review us, especially on

Apple and Spotify. I have two guests with me on this Saturday podcast. I had them on the show, I don't know, roughly six months ago as they were working on a project that is now launched. In fact, they are six episodes in on a podcast titled Len Bias, a mixed legacy for Maryland basketball fans of a certain age, this is must listen to. This takes you essentially from, you know, Lenn's early days, through his Maryland days, through that tragic night in June of 1986, and to the aftermath, and all of the people that were impacted, and they've talked to so many people. It's a great listen. Again, Lenn bias, a mixed legacy, anywhere you get a podcast. My guests are Dave Ungrady and Don Marcus, the authors and producers of this podcast.

Dave wrote the book Born Ready, the mixed legacy of Len Bias, and Dave is a former Maryland track athlete from way back in the day. And Don Marcus, a longtime Baltimore Sun reporter and columnist. Both of them are joining me right now. Now, before we get to the podcast, which we'll spend plenty of time on, I have to, because I haven't talked to either one of you, since Mark Turgeon left abruptly in early December. I wanted to get your reaction, both of your reactions to kind of the state of the program. But, Don, I'll start with you.

What was your reaction to Turgeon leaving in early December? Well, I've been around college basketball a long time. I was down in Florida when this all transpired. and actually had stomach flu that morning. It was sort of lying in bed, and I get a text message from a former student of mine who covered Purdue, and he said, do you see this? And it was a text from Jeff Goodman or a tweet from Goodman or somebody, John Rothstein.

And I said, oh, my gosh. You know, I wasn't surprised. I'm not surprised that things were going in the direction they were going because I knew that I knew that the fan base was really, unhappy. The team would start off pretty, you know, it was not a very good start to the season, but to have it done on, you know, whatever

date that was in December, that was just pretty shocking. And, you know, it puts Maryland in a good position where they can find somebody, but it also puts them in a really strange position where a whole season goes,

where everybody's just talking about who the next coach is going to be and what the program's going to look like going, going, going forward. I'll ask you in a moment who you think they will get. Dave, what was your reaction when you heard the news? I was very surprised. As you two were talking, I was thinking about it, and I'm looking at it from a couple perspectives. How do you feel if you're a player and a coach quits on you like that? Now, we don't know what's happening, what was happening in the locker room, in the coach's offices within the athletic department.

Did they really, were they trying to push them out? We don't know the whole story of this. But as a player, I'm thinking, boy, a coach quit on us like that. I understand it was difficult for him, but I think as a college coach, you've got to show resilience, man. Think they're tough in life. And are you just going to quit if it gets that bad? Reports are read indicated that he was concerned about how this is,

affecting his family. I get that. That makes sense if that was a big reason, but I'm thinking about sort of the kids, and I'm sure they're recovered from it, but if he's going to try to get another job, how are the athletes going to think

that deeply about it and wonder if this guy's going to quit on us? Perhaps not. I don't think that deeply, but I just think, as a coach, I have to think about how this might impact the players and the kids. And secondly, the justice position, it was the day after Len Bias night.

And I was at that game. And the atmosphere there was tremendous. I don't know a lot of Maryland games, but there were several thousand at minimum people wearing Lent Bias jersey. And the players on their warm-up jerseys were Lent-Biase jerseys, T-shirts with bias on the back, yellow jerseys with the red lettering in numbers.

And the mood was was tremendous. And as I'm watching the game, and they were struggling throughout the game, but they were up on tech, and still managed to, they let them come back in, and it was really a bad loss.

It was a terrible game to lose the way they lost that game. So I could see he would not be happy. The athletic department would not be happy. Supporters wouldn't be happy, but just the juxtriced position of what a wonderful night that was, and the next day he's gone, It was a bit unsettling. Yeah, I've thought a lot about this, and I have not yet talked to him.

I mean, we've traded text messages and voicemail messages. I'll catch up with him sometime soon, I'm sure. Like, I keep thinking that they had a seven or eight point lead in the second half against Virginia Tech. If they had won the game, would he be out? I think it goes deeper than that. I think there are, you know, potentially some issues that maybe we don't know about, and maybe we won't ever know about it. It really is.

Yeah, it usually is. But I agree with you. I mean, my first reaction was, this is a shame because it shouldn't happen in the middle of a season. You know, he had brought in those transfers and on so many levels, I think in many ways, him as a competitive guy, it probably went against a lot of what he believes in, and that is first and foremost, to finish it out, you know, to finish it out. I mean, look, we probably were not going to get him in 2020. had the season gone the way it had started. But, you know, I kind of felt last year the way the season started it was going to go south.

And yet he figured it out. You know, they were one in four or one in five or whatever they were in the Big Ten last year. Actually, in watching this team, before I ask you both who you think the next coach will be, they've been pretty competitive. And I think they would have been the same with him. They have had a second half lead in each of their losses. in the Big Ten, and then they finally broke through the other night at Northwestern. You know, Kevin, in terms of, you know, you talk about it could have happened last year.

It could have happened any number of seasons the last few years because of a fan base, because of his relationship with the, you know, with, you know, have a fan base that turned on him. I really thought, honestly, when the, when they won, or were they backed into a share of the title, a big 10 title, in 2019, when they had the three-game league with five games to play, and they ended up winning on Senior Day beating Michigan to get a title, and then they had the celebration as if they had won the national championship. You know, I thought his stock is never going to be hired than right then, because I didn't think that team was going to make a run in the tournament.

I thought it didn't have enough depth. I thought they relied too much on Anthony Cowan and Jalen Smith. I thought that they had wobbled down the stretch as his teams had often done, and I thought that that was the time for him to leave in the best position he could leave. The fan base was still the same as it was that year, the year before the year after. It was gone. It was really gone. Even though they had won the title, you know, the rank and file Maryland fan had moved on from Mark Turgeon.

And that's how it was. he's a nice guy, he's not a terrible coach, as a lot of people said, he talked him to the tournament. But as I don't know if I've said on this show, but I've said on other shows and other just in conversation, if you were a Meryl's fan and you were happy with getting to the tournament

and not getting beyond the second round, he was your guy, you know, and that's just proven. You know, that's just, that's just proven by what happened over the years. He had, it's not like he didn't have players. he had a number of players who in the NBA.

Aaron Wiggins is now starting. He's playing well. For the Oklahoma City funder, Kevin Herder just got a $64 million contract last summer. Sticks is playing well. Sticks is starting to play well. It's not like they were without players. And, you know, they had a good run the last few years.

It just didn't happen late in the season or in the tournament. Dave? Well, Kevin, I don't know. if I can add too much to what Don said. A few people have the insight into Maryland basketball recently as Don, but I will add this. I just sense sort of from a bit

of more distance. I sensed a bit of indifference about the program generally. I would watch games here and then and go to games on occasion, but I didn't have, from my perspective, a real deep

passion for this team, and it's an interest as I would watch. with Gary Williams. So I could see why the fan base would not follow him as deeply as maybe they have with other coaches. Yeah, I don't think there's any doubt. I mean, you can't debate the fact that the program, you know, indifference is a great word. The program had become stale, you know, and we, all the three of us are passionate about it, and we have a circle of people that are also very passionate about it, that we talk a lot about.

the program with. But from my perspective, Don, I think 2020, see, I think he was improving as a coach. I think he had gotten better as a coach, and I think he was a good coach. I don't think you win as many games as Mark's won. And by the way, the third most in the Big Ten since they entered the Big Ten behind Izzo and Painter, you know, if you don't know what you're doing. And I think a lot of coaches came out and essentially said, Mark's a really good coach. And I don't think that, you know, in many cases it was unsubes. solicited. The problem is the mic drop for anybody that was not a Mark Turgeon backer was, well, we've got one sweet 16 in 10 years. And by the way, that's totally reasonable. Maryland basketball should be more than one sweet 16 in 10 years. Both things can be true. The March results weren't good enough and because of it the program became stale.

And simultaneously, he was a pretty good coach, you know, which I think both things are true. I actually disagree with you, though. I think that 2020 team, I think it was poised to make a deep run. It had a senior point guard that was clutch. They had a big guy that was blowing up. I think they had a really good supporting cast. And I've talked a lot about with my friends who have said the same thing about them limping, you know, down the stretch. The truth is they got beat by a really good Michigan State team, you know, in one of the most hyped games of the Turgeon era, that Saturday night, which by the way, was like the beginning of the pandemic, if you remember. It was like everybody was starting to talk about the, you know, COVID a little bit.

And then they played Rutgers on senior night when Rutgers had to win to get into the NCAA tournament. And then they beat Michigan by double digits to get a share of the Big Ten title. I thought they were poised for a deep run. And I don't think that we'd be having this conversation had they played that tournament because I think they would have made a definite second weekend run, if not more. and that would have bought him some, you know, some equity, I think, with those that were sort of against him. Because last year would have then been perceived as an overachieving year, like a surprise year. Like imagine if they had gone to the elite eight, let's just say in 2020 and lost. And they'd come back after losing Anthony and sticks.

And they had, you know, won the big games they won last year, got into the tournament, beaten Yukon. It would have been perceived as, wow, we were in a rebuilding. year and we still went to the tournament and won a game. I think the whole perspective would have been different had they had a chance in 2020. Now, if they had gone out in the first round in 2020, well, that would have been in anyway. We may not have seen last year if that had happened. But I think there was this incredible fine line with not having a chance with his best team to produce better March results. I don't disagree with that, but I'm, you know, I watched that, I covered that, that, a

1920 team until I left the paper, and then I still watched afterward. You know, you talk about that Michigan State game, actually, Dave and I, that's, that's when we started working on this documentary on Lynn Byest. We were out there during the day, interviewing Jay Billis and Scott Van Pelt, and then they come back to this really hype, really, you know, really big game. And they were just flat as all get out. were never, ever in the game. And there were so many times where, you know, Maryland fans had seen that,

had gotten tired of seeing that with the Mark Turgeon team. And I don't disagree. I think Mark is a good coach. And he did a lot of good things in terms of bringing the program back, you know, after it had dipped late in Gary's term, you know, tenure and getting some really good players there. And that, you know, that, you know, talk about who's going to be the coach next. You know, be careful what you wish for because now there's a really, there's a really hard decision looming for, and a big decision looming for Damon Evans,

because there's no, there's no slam-dunk candidate. And actually, the guy I like, he's off the board, I think, because he just was Andy Enfield from, from USC. They just gave him an extension. So, you know, he's gone. So there are a lot of good candidates, but a lot of the candidates they mentioned sort of look. They have the same profile as Mark Turgeon did a year ago,

or did, you know, had right now. And that is they get to the tournament of their teams, like Kevin Willard at Seton Hall or Ed Cooley at Providence. And, you know, they lose in the first or second round. So what are you going to be looking for? You know, my feeling is that they should go after the biggest name, not the Rick Petinos or the Bruce Pearls, because those guys still have that baggage from the NCAA.

But make a run at the biggest name you can find and go from there and then, you know, and see what happens in this year's tournament. And maybe they can find a guy who's hot who fits the profile they want and all of a sudden he's available. Give me your guess right now. Who's the coach next year? My guess right now is it's somebody who's going to be very well paid. I have no clue. You know who would I like to see?

You know who I'd love to see? I'd love to see them make a run, a legitimate run at John Beeline. He's 68 years old. I know that, but have Beeline come in with a young coach who's just like Gene Keady and Matt Painter were a combination years ago. and look at how that's turned out for, look how it's turned out for Purdue. Like, you bring in a young coach with another, an older coach with a young coach who's going to be their coach in waiting, and that's who I'd like to see.

I don't know what that combination looks like, but John Beeline has always been, you know, the guy that I, you know, even going back three years ago, when Turg, people were talking about Turg and questioning whether, you know, he was going to go forward and Beeline is in a situation where he had just left Michigan to go to the Cleveland Cavaliers in a really, you know, misadventure, ill-time move. That's who I want to Ben. That's who I like now is John Beeline. Dave, what you're...

Well, as I'm listening to you guys talk, Danny Manning's name has never come up, and maybe there's a reason for that. What do you guys think about Danny Manning? certainly we have to see how he does this year, but what does he need to do to get this job? Make it to the Sweet 16 minimum. Yeah, I think it's, I thought it was a long shot with Danny Manning, given the team he was inheriting, which, you know, as Kevin made,

they've been competitive, they have some nice pieces, but this does not look like it. tournament team to me. And Danny Manning, you know, in his history, you know, wasn't even Mark Turgent. I mean,

he was not a very good coach at Wakefars. Didn't have a very good record. Had some good players like John, John Collins and Oliver Saar. I think the guy's name is who went to Kentucky. Right. You know, so I think they're going to be starting fresh.

And now with all the, you know, turmoil regarding the assistant coach, I think, you know, there's going to be a lot of, a lot of changes there, you know, a clean sweep of the staff. And unfortunately, some good people will lose their jobs.

I mean, Dave, am I wrong that he would have to literally go to the tournament and win two games minimum to even be considered? At least have a good run for the ACC tournament. Or the Big Ten tournament. I'll put it on my time. I guess. There you go, boy, they were my minded. The Big Ten tournament, certainly.

And then even if you just, if you have a good tournament. advance for the Big Ten tournament and they make it to the NCAA tournament if they get out in the first round. I think that wouldn't be too bad for him. But it's a hard, it's a hard ass for him to come back, make sure, I think. The program needs a jolt. And this is no disrespect intended towards Danny Manning. That's not a jolt, which means that he's got to earn it, which means you got to win a

couple of games in the tournament after having an extraordinary turnaround of a regular season to, I think, even be in consideration. You said no to Petino. I would say yes to Petino. At this point, baggage, you know, who cares? I mean, Maryland's in need of a major sort of re-ignition of its fan base, because the one thing we can all agree on because of the absence of a 2020 tournament and a potential run, the program was stale. I mean, I think Mark, Mark's a good basketball coach. I know and have talked to a lot of coaches who would call and say, what is wrong with your fan base?

You know, he's one of the better coaches in the Big Ten. Yeah, but the problem is he didn't get it done in March. Never, not even in the Big Ten tournament. You know, he had so many struggles in the Big Ten tournament. So I'd take a big swing, and the big swing would be at Petino. You know, the PR damage, what kind of damage can it really? can it really be? I mean, he's coaching. It's not like he's not allowed to coach. You know, you're not going to have a Sean Miller show cause situation. And Petino, if he wants one more big

swing at winning at all, this would be a phenomenal opportunity. Let me ask you, you think Gary would be on board knowing Gary's reputation for not breaking rules. You think that Gary would be on board with a Rick Petino coming in? I'm not sure, but for some reason I don't think so. I know Gary likes Petino. You know, I know that they, you know, he... No, I, you know, Gary likes... I never could get that Gary and Jim Beheim were really good friends.

Right. And Jim Beheim did not have the reputation as being, you know, running the cleanest program. So maybe he'd be on board with Petito. I don't know. I just think that there, you know, you can take a big swing like that and end up, you know, as I said, with a B-line, you know, they're actually, they'd, I think you're getting, well, I guess they're around the same age. Yeah, they are.

I think they're exactly the same age. And B-Line's a great coach. I just, you know, by the way, that's a jolt, too. It's not a Patino jolt, though. Patino, you hire Patino. They are sold out next year season tickets. Sold out. Yeah, no, I agree.

But I think you get the same thing with B-Line, and you get it without all the baggage and everybody writing about, you know, all the things. that have transpired over the last 15 years of his career. I think you get that without all the PR, especially in a market like this, with the Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, all the news networks here. I think Petino can sell out.

I think he can sell Petino in a smaller market or a Midwestern market where the fan base is not watching, you know, watching, you know, reading the Washington Post every day or watching the, or watching ABC News tonight, you know, I think that, that plays into it. All right. Let's, um... Can I add an idealistic and sort of naive perspective regarding Petino? Yes. Would, can we, can we give him a benefit of the doubt and think maybe he's got more

wisdom now as he's getting older and he's not going to be as corrupt as a coach? I don't know. Does he change the way he coaches or recruits? recruits and and keep it above board. Perhaps that's very naive. Maybe, maybe. You know, I think we're almost in a bit of a different age right now with NIL and transfer portal. It just seems, I mean, my God, Will Wade, who by the way, this team, Mark Turgeon's team lost to at the buzzer in a second round game, essentially losing to a team with a salary cap.

He's still coaching, even though he's on a wiretap cheating. So, you know, Maryland's obviously been a high integrity program under its last two coaches in Gary and Mark Turgeon. I think what's accepted now is different in this day and age, and that ultimately it's about revenue generation and winning. And Maryland is in a tough situation right now, because we know what the fan base is. It's big and it's passionate,

but it is right now in a mode that we haven't seen probably since, you know, the probation years. It feels very much like it's in a stalled situation. Now, you know, part of that is because Mark left early in the season, and it feels like an interim year. You know, the crowd for the Wisconsin game the other night was terrible. You know, unless they get on a winning streak here, you're going to see, I think, half full arenas the rest of the way.

They've got a nut to meet each month. And they're not going to do that without a major jolt and major winning upside. And I think, look, I hear you. And I'm not doing the due diligence clearly on a Rick Petino and what that would mean. But I think ultimately, while the post and some of the reaction would be negative, I think, you know, they'd get past that. And once they were competing, once they were in the top 10 in his first year, and they were looking like, you know, look at Iona this year.

You know, he's dominating with Iona this year. They were, were they in the tournament last year with him or not? I'm trying to think. Was last year his first year at Iona? I'm almost forgetting. Now, I think they were. I don't recall that. Yeah, because they lost to the team Maryland lost to.

They lost Alabama. Alabama. You know, Kevin, you bring up a good point. I'm thinking back to when Ralph Breedler was fired, and I wrote a piece for the Baltimore Sun saying, hire Mike Leach and cross your fingers. Right. You know, so, you know, it may not be far off from that.

The only problem is that the talent level at Maryland is going to be pretty thin next year. But the transfer portal can fix that overnight, Don. Right, no, no, you're right. The transfer portal can fix it overnight. You're right. So, you know, maybe, maybe it's higher Rick Petino and cross your fingers. I have no idea if it's a real thing or not. I've just, I've gotten to the point as someone that wants to see it turned around and quickly and is upset that 2020 didn't play out, that they, if I'm looking at this like, you know, a business person, they, they've got to be thinking, where is, where is our jolt? What reignites this fan base? Because, you know, it's not that you'll lose it, but it's right now hibernating. And there are certain hires they could make that aren't going to generate the same interest.

I mean, I think Kevin Willard is a really good coach. I think Ed Cooley is an exceptional coach. But that's not, you'll have on, literally you will have season tickets sold out in two weeks if you hire Petino. And by the way, I kind of think you're right about Beeline, too, that that that. that would be a big jolt too. But there is this sense that, you know, he's more 68 than Petino. I don't know. Patino still seems, well, Patino's coaching right now.

That's the big difference. You know, Beeline hasn't coached college basketball in three years now. So anyway, let's get to the podcast because I know you guys are limited on time. And I am really interested in this. And I was, you know, given the honor, by the way, to narrate some of this as well. but you guys are on episode six right now. The first question I have is what's the reaction been by not the listener, but how about people like at the school?

What kind of help or perhaps resistance have you gotten to any of this? I haven't heard anything from the school at this point. We haven't reached out to them to see how they feel about it, which I guess since they haven't reacted, perhaps could be a good thing. I can say anecdotally, I did talk to Derek Lewis about a week after the first couple, you got three weeks ago, about something else. And his comment was, I think, inspirational for us, I think. He said, look, he said, by the way, I've been listening to this, this stuff is really good.

And I said, well, what makes it good? And he said, well, you know, a lot of podcasts, people are just, they fit around a talk, but this is different. You've got a story. You're talking to a lot of people, and it's a story that he's familiar with, of course. But he liked the format, the narrative flow format, which has made this more challenging to produce,

but that was our goal from the outset to tell a story, and not just to have people offer their opinions about it, but people offer their insights into what happened, and that's where I think sets it apart. what have we learned going back to the night of, you know, June of 1986? What have we learned through this podcast? What have you guys learned through this podcast about that night after he got back from Boston and then the immediate aftermath?

Not too much from my perspective because I wrote the book on this. But as I think more about it, maybe Don could offer some more insight into that. But I just think it shows how flawed a person Len was and for whatever reason. He was very reckless. If you follow him through that night from when he got home. And I was a little when I worked a book and went through this part and got reaction and thoughts about what he was thinking about. It just seemed like he was only concerned about let's get home, let's party, let's be with my friends and whatever happened. But talking to people for the podcast, and there's a lady who was a marketing representative from Reebok.

And Reebok was negotiating with Len. And they were with him that day, the day before he died, he spent all day in Boston. And she was with him throughout most of that day. And twice he said to her, I'll do this. stuff, but I want to get back. I want to see my mom. I miss my mom. And that's the last thing he said to her when she dropped him off at the airport the second time. He said, yeah, I really want to get home and I want to see my mom. And she wasn't there when he got home for whatever reason. And in the segment when we talk about Glenn's final day in the episode, she does

comment that, yes, she wasn't home. She never explains why. The rest of the family appeared to be home. And she was, her comment basically was, what do you mean? You're, you're not going to wait for me to come back or something. Why didn't you wait for me to come back? So he wanted, there's a side of when that's, he's concerned about his family and he seems to me wanted to do the right thing. And then he does this reckless. I mean, he goes to a liquor store and he buys booze. He, he hooks up with a lady because he hasn't been with a woman in three days. And then he goes back to triple department for a little bit

then he goes back to the dorm and he's up for four or five hours yeah at this age we're reckless a lot of people are they do stupid things and make bad decisions but this just seems really not consistent with what he was trying to do with his life

you know in listening to it it really it brings me back to 1986 and I was not even in town I was out covering a U.S. Open Golf Tournament on Long Island I was sort of away from it from the immediate standpoint, the local reaction, the national reaction a bit. And, you know, we didn't have the 24-7 news cycle that we did, and we didn't have social media back then.

So whatever news I was getting was, you know, pretty local in New York and then, you know, listening to the maybe watching the evening news or something. And what I really, I mean, it's chilling to watch the coverage and watch the story the fold. but one of the things that I came away with, and I wrote about 10 years after I did a story about people who were impacted. Dave Dickerson, who was a young teammate, he was a freshman on the team. He later became a college basketball coach

and insisted at Maryland, and now he's an assistant in the U.S.E. Upstate. One of the things he said is how Len led sort of a secret life that he didn't know about, and he wondered if it was because he was a freshman and they have the age different, or because he was sort of hiding things. And, you know, if you listen to Jeff Baxter,

who was his closest friend on the team, you know, Jeff Baxter, at least he says, you know, he knew nothing about this part of one's life. And he hit it that night by closing the drawer where they had put the cocaine and keep Gatlin the same thing. You know, so I think that, you know, speaking to Dave's point about, him being the two sides of land. I think there was a side of, I think there was a side of

when that was sort of the lend that sort of had gotten to the point where he became the star and then moved into a faster crowd. Not just that night, but, you know, as Terry Long talks about, you know, it talked about to the grand jury introducing him to cocaine, you know, I was skeptical about Dave interviewed for his book and then we interviewed, we interviewed for the podcast, Chris Washburn, who was a troubled star even in college at NC State. And I was skeptical about Washburn and things he was saying. And I sort of believe John Sally saying, oh, he's lying. And then I listened to Washburn's, you know, recounting a story of bias coming to the room with another guy

in his apartment during the ACC Barnstorming tour at two. in the morning and partying all night. And that interview probably changed my opinion about how seriously bias was into partying of anything and how legitimate that claim was by Chris Washburn. Well, you know, that 1986 season, they played a game, if you guys recall, in 1986, you know, in Raleigh, they beat NC State. and after that game, bias and, God, I forget who the other players were that got... Who was it?

Who were the other players? John Johnson and Jeff Baxter. And Jeff Baxter and John Johnson, right. John Johnson would have been a freshman, I think, that year. And they got suspended from the next game against Clemson that they ended up losing as they were chasing an NCAA tournament bid. but the reason that they got suspended is they were out partying with Washburn and Company, right? Well, that's not, there's no indication of that.

Washburn never said that, but what John Johnson and Jeff Baxter both say in the podcast series and in the book, that they went to, they were partying with an NC State player. They wouldn't say who it was. And it was, at the party they had something called a freak mama con. contest where they would judge women dancing. So, and that's just a reflection of the time. Right. And both Johnson and Baxter talk sort of finally about that night,

despite the fact that they got suspended, they had a lot of fun. And that's the message I took from it. And Johnson was sort of freaking out that he thought, oh, my God, are going to be kicked off the team. And Glenn Comdenon said, look, don't worry. He said, don't worry about it. You're going to be fine. It's not a big deal.

That was Len's approach and it helped calm John down. And I think it's sort of indicative of thinking about this again as you guys were talking. Len's recklessness in his personal life that sort of reflects how he played. He took chances. Yes. He was an adventurer. He loved that part of life where you put it on the edge and see what would happen. That's how he played.

So it's not surprising to hear him do that. It's just that when you talk to people who spend a lot of time with him, and you think they'd know him and would know this, they didn't see that side of him. And now, there was one of his mentors, Johnny Walker, who we mentioned in the book and in the podcast, and Johnny talked to me for the book, we couldn't, we narrate his quotes in the podcast,

but Johnny's insight was pretty interesting. He talked about being with Len when he was getting money, cash paid by boosters and they would go to circuit city and they buy stuff and the guy at Circuit City today I'll give me the stereo. Give me a Maryland ticket. Yeah, I'll give you a Maryland ticket. And Johnny Walker says he doesn't know if the guy got the tickets, but Len got the stereo he was an adventure stand. He liked putting it out there and see what would happen. So that's the side of him that I think a lot of people just don't realize. I think that's such a good. Yeah, go ahead. Sorry.

No, one of the things Dave's been an interview with Bob Wagner years ago. Northwestern. And one of the things, he coached Lenny in high school. And one of the things, he was talking about, you know, how he got in trouble, had Lenny a bunch of players got in trouble for just stealing some candy or something. It was out there before a game, they got suspended. But one of the things Bob Wagner said was that if you put Len with a good bunch of kids, he can be, he's as good as every one of them.

But if you put him with the guy's questionable behavior, like a Brian Tribal, he wants to be the, he wants to be the, you know, the baddest one of all. And I think he liked that sort of living on the edge like that. And it ultimately cost him his life. It's so interesting. Just let me remind everybody, this podcast, which is available on Apple, It's available on Spotify. Born Ready, Lenn-Bias, a mixed legacy.

It's multi-part. They just finished episode number six. Dave Ungrady and Don Marcus joining me now. Dave wrote the book, Born-Ready, the Mixed Legacy of Lenn-Bias. Don Marcus, of course, longtime Baltimore Sun columnist. You know, as you were speaking, Dave, specifically, I just thought of, you know, this guy who played as a hyper competitive player, a big time, you know, risk-taking rush junkie kind of a player. I mean, rush junkie would be maybe the description I would use off the floor, but it goes

hand-in-hand personality-wise that he had to side to him that was super competitive and super into, you know, you called it recklessness, but it was also probably into like, where's the action? I'm into that. He was an art major and there was this artistic side to him too. And I also wonder whether or not these two sides of him is why lefty always seemed to be very naive to what happened to Len. And always profess that he never thought Len was a drug user and always felt like that night was the first night. I think that's sort of idealistic with Lefty. He's going to, I think that's something he's going to, he's not going to change that thinking,

even if he was given hard evidence. He wants to think that. Derek Lewis said a very insightful thing in the podcast series and in the book. He said, look, Len was 22 years old. Was Coach Dressel supposed to watch him every minute? Was he supposed to watch me every minute when I was a sophomore at that time? The coaches couldn't watch them every minute. And having been an athlete in college, Kevin, I'll tell you,

and it's not that's athletes doing crazy stuff. If you're athletes by nature, they like to take risk. So they enjoy the adrenaline rush of a competition doing well. They're just giving it your best and see how you feel it, and relish in the effort afterward. And some of them look for that more in other parts of the life than others. and I think Len was that way. The coaches could not, we did some stuff in college that I just can't believe I did.

But you do crazy stuff. The coaches cannot watch them 24 hours a day. And lefty's approach, I think he, I struggle with lefty's response. I don't think he was that naive. But maybe I'm wrong. But he's going to think that Len was this, and Len was, he was, he was, he was, he was, they were indications he was a born-again Christian. And we have people talking about that in the podcast,

and lefty touts that. But that doesn't, I don't think that excuses the other parts and other things that he does. Maybe left you've had a blind eye who didn't want to see it. But I don't think he knew everything that I did. What's been, you guys have interviewed so many different people for this podcast, what's been your most favorite interview?

Well, I'll tell you, I'll tell you the one that resonates that we haven't really heard much from him yet. And it's a guy, it's a guy named Reginald Betts, who was a young kid in PG County and honor student. And he got caught up with some friends on a, you know, on a weekend night where they carjacked somebody. and he went to prison for eight and a half years. And he didn't really, he was too young to really know who went bias was.

And it wasn't until he went to jail, went to prison, that he learned from the older inmates who went bias was. He became, this guy became an acclaimed author about his experience and a poet. And he ended up going to University of Maryland and became a protege of some pretty heavy-duty professors at Maryland. And he just talks about the, he just talks about the, you know, the influence, you know, something like this, biases, you know, biases situation his death had on him. And another guy who was even younger than Beth is, is Chuck intensely from the, from the, from the, from the, from the, from the, from the SPN and he, and he talks about. he talks about the impact, you know, learning about bias from an older uncle and how his

generation missed out on seeing one of these great players and, you know, iconic players, you know, who could have been Jordan's rival. And it sort of, you know, validated for me the feeling that what we miss because he died and the greatness we missed because he was going to be because of the team he was drafted by. And just because of his skill level, he was going to be a rival in some sort to Michael Jordan. And to hear these guys who are younger than Dave and I talk about the impact of bias is death, biases circumstances, and how great a player he was, you know, how much it impacted them and how much they even think about bias to this day really shows why we even are doing this podcast and hopefully a documentary, because it really is a story that has really never, ever been told.

Dave, was there an interview that was the most interesting to you? Yeah, and I think part of it, I'll offer two, but I'll start with, I think one is my preference, Bob Wagner, and we just mentioned him as Lentz High School coach, and the reason I'm going with this, there are a couple reasons. It wasn't easy getting Bob to talk. Bob when I told him I was doing the book

and Bob really hasn't talked in depth about this at all to anybody else and he was he's a Maryland grad and he had a key he still had a connection to the university and it helped that I was the Maryland grad and as he mentioned

that he told me it helped that I was an athlete there as well to even consider talking to me and he said well I don't know I don't know if I'm going to do this she said come out and talk to me I've got a camp he was on a summer camp out in Howard County so I went and talked to him and after we met

and talked he said okay come back next week and we'll do an interview or something and I went out there the following week or a few days later and we sat for I'd say three hours in a classroom in the school on the floor and his candidness

and openness and he would talk about anything he wasn't going to he wasn't he didn't say I don't want to say this or say that. And it was such a heartfelt conversation. And we have him in a lot of the segments. And he provides insight in the lens

personality that a lot of people just don't have or didn't understand. The second one is Clint Venable. I don't think anybody knows who he is. Clint Venable was Jay Bias' teammate at Northwestern. And

Clint Venable was a pretty good player coming out of Northwestern. They want us state title together. Jay and Clint was a year older, and Clint learned how to play basketball with Jay Baez at the Recre, the Columbia Park Recreation Center. They watched Len, and they watched the coach of Len, and he became their coach at the Rec Center. And Clint's edible, what he found up, Jay died, it just altered his life. He was playing at Bowling Green, and he was doing really, he was doing really well. He was one of the top players. on the team as a sophomore.

And the conversation I had with him in a restaurant in Chris Georgia County for about an hour and a half, two hours. And in the middle of the conversation, he just breaks out and cries. And his insight into Jay Bias, I think that's going to be our strongest segment. Jay, how it affected the family. It's coming up in two or three weeks. And it's about basically Jay and Lee's bias, how it impacted. them. And his insight into Jay

bias is just, it's tremendous. Well, so how did it? I mean, I don't want, I don't want you to give it away. I want people to listen to it. But obviously, Len was Jay's big brother. Jay was a really good basketball player.

Jay also died at a very young age in a drive-by shooting probably four or five years after Len's passing. What was remarkable about it more than anything else. It was remarkable.

First, the fact that it happened. Think about what that family went through, what Lenny's bias went through, and to see them at Len Byes' night together, that the fact that family stayed together, I think, is monumental. And the fact that they are still out there encouraging, encouraging in whatever way they want, the legacy of Len. I think Jay is the most tragic part of this story because Jay, Jay looked at Len as his idol.

And when Len died, Jay's life, understandably, took, it was a struggle for him. He was a, he was a, coach has said he was as good at a high school as Len was. But his grades suffered. He was having problems dealing with his emotions. He would get in fights and, and to try to deal with the frustration. He did play one year in junior college.

He did pretty well, and then he said, basically, I can't play anymore. I can't really handle it. This is not good for me. And at the time when he was starting to get his life back together, he was thinking about going back to school, he was trying to figure out a way to play again, and then he got shot with an argument,

after an argument with someone at his store. And how his death impacted not only have found me but his friends and it's it's a very hard part of the story you know just every single time i see there the mother linnis bias it's just so impressive from afar and you just said something that by the way is so true when families lose a child let alone too um you know like the statistics are like three quarters of the time or maybe even higher those families do not stay together. The tragedy and the grief is just too hard to overcome. And it's remarkable what that family's endured. And yet every single time I see any of them, it's just they come off as so

impressive. I've often thought about this, and I wonder how much you guys will address this in the podcast series. But if Len had lived, if that night never happened, and if he had gone on to Boston and become a really, you know, an all-time great, a Hall of Fame player. I always thought there were differences between him and Jordan, but nonetheless, I thought bias would have been an all-time great. How would it have changed what Maryland Athletics was, you know, in the, you know, in the 35 years since? I mean, what would have changed?

I mean, first of all, what a hell of a recruiter he would have been for the school, right? had he been an all-time Jordan-like great or something, you know, maybe on the next tier. But how much thought have you given to that? What would have been different about Maryland sports? Well, I think in a couple areas, you talk about it being a hell of a recruiter potentially. He was a hell of a recruiter while he was at Maryland. John Johnson said he went there because of Len. Keith Dalin went there because of Len.

When John Johnson went there for his recruiting visit, Len tackled him, when they're wrestling on the floor. And they became like brothers. So he had the personality to, and actually John Johnson said that Len was calling him, he called him like 10 times during the recruiting process. So he had the personality to engage people and to want to be part of whatever he's part of. Aside from that, I think, well, and we explain this in detail in the podcast as we did in the book, the university struggled financially and structurally for at least a decade.

We talked to coaches who were impacted by it. The non-revenue teams have to do fundraisers. They had to clean cold field house after basketball games, and Bert Stadium after football games to make extra money for the program, because the program was restructured because of financial problem. Teams lost scholarships. So it was a really traumatic time for the athletic department for at least a decade. Gary Williams talks quite a bit in our next segment coming out Monday, episode coming out next week,

talks about just that, how Maryland athletics was impacted by his death on a broad sense. So you wouldn't, certainly, I think you would have had the probation that Gary had to go through with Gary coming as coach, who knows, maybe at that time he would. It would last and lasted much longer, I don't know, but certainly the athletic department went through a period of transition, I don't think any department wants to go through. I urge everybody to listen to it.

Oh, I did have one more question. I asked you who your favorite interview. Was there an interview that you wanted that you didn't get? Oh, yeah, and we're still trying. David Gregg and Terry Long, both over the course of the last five years, Terry Long has told me that he would do it. That was about three years ago,

and things have happened where I just haven't fallen up as perhaps I should. David Gregg told me as recently as last summer on a phone call that he would, but he has not. So there is some interest. I'm hoping that they listen to this, and hopefully it's in a way where they're comfortable with it, and they'll say, okay, I'll talk to you. Linne's Fias.

He didn't talk to me for the book. It was never given a reason. There's a deeper story to that. We thought about reaching out to her directly for this podcast series. We decided not to because ultimately we want to try to get her one time. And if she went, it looks like we're going to be doing this documentary. We'd like to talk to her for that. But we were able to get an interview she did with Rock Newman.

He used to have a show on WATR TV. And it's a tremendous interview. and we were able to get access to those comments. And I don't know if she would have given us much more to be candid than what she gave Rock in that interview. So we use a lot of that in the podcast series. But those are three that I think would really help round out the story. What about Brian Tribble?

To be honest with you, I don't even know what his situation is if he's alive or if I know that he did. Yeah, I did talk with him. And a guy had initially, he was the first person. in that the second person I reached out to when I decided to do the book, and I met with him for about an hour and a half, with another guy, Derek Curry, who was lent, it was Jay Bias, his teammate as well up Northwestern.

But ironically, Derek Curry and Brian Trouble later spent time at jail and drug charge. But Brian, at the end of the conversation, he said, I'll do it, but I want to be paid. And I said, we're not paying anybody. It was a great conversation. We talked about a lot. But it was not on the record. And so I followed up while doing the book with some questions.

I told him I had some questions. And we talked about a half hour. And he did offer some insight into his life after Lindy. But he would not talk about the night. He would not talk about a lot of things. Brian Tribble, I reached out to him about a year and a half ago. He said he was still not interested. He's a personal trainer.

When I talked to him for the book, he had remembered. He had a couple of children. I didn't talk to him in depth enough most recently to see what his family situation is. But there are indications he's still a personal trainer. And his credit, he has turned his life around. You see, he served about seven years of prison in the 1990s. And he's rehabbed himself in certain ways. I wanted to add the one guy that I wanted to talk to.

Dave talked to him, but was Dick Dowell. and the former athletic director. Yeah. And it really, it really destroyed his career. He was an up-and-coming, he was a great athletic director, Maryland.

And I had just gone on the beat. And I had spoken of a few years ago about another story, and, you know, he had some struggles personally in his life with his, you know,

with his wife dying. And, and, you know, he really was a great, great man. And I think, it just shattered him personally and professionally for a long time. And I would have loved to have talked to him for this story to get his insight now, you know, in 2021.

But he declined our interview. If I could add to that too, and I'm good you brought that up on because Dick was actually the first person I called when I wrote the book. And Dick and I have been friends for a long time. But he was an assistant coach on the track team when I was there, and Dick's reputation was, he was a stand-up guy, he was honest, you could talk to Dick about anything, and everybody loved him. We called him smooth because he didn't dress like a coach. He would dress like a lawyer.

And he was an attorney. He had a law degree, but a very, very approachable, very mature, very wise beyond his years. And when I called him, because over the years before that, Dick and I would talk, and I would say, Dick, whenever you want to tell your story, just let me know it's a day. Someday I will, whenever it's the right time. So I reached out to him when I wanted to do the book, and he said, Dave, at his time. Let's do it.

And we set up a time to talk, and I didn't hear from him. So when I finally talked to him after that, he said, Dave, look, I'm sorry, it's too difficult. I can't do it. And the reason I didn't think of him the first time when you asked me is because I had talked to him for the first, The first Maryland book I wrote, Tales from the Maryland Terrapins, I talked to him about it, about Len then, and he did give me some quotes about Len. But he didn't go as deep as I was, as he hoped he wanted to, as we had wanted him to. So, and for the podcast, I just, out of formality, I called him, and he's living in a senior community in North Carolina. And I said, Dick, I think I know what you're going to say, but I just need to ask, do you want to talk crazy?

Dave, it's just, I can't do it. And it was a comfortable conversation, but he is living very peacefully, and he lives in the community, and he spends his days reading a lot. He doesn't see a lot of people. And that's Dick. I mean, I say Dick being very content that way. But it is a very tragic part of the story. God, this has been, this is awesome because I think, for me personally,

it's like September through December is just, you're just so wrapped up into football season doing, you know, what I do here in this market. And you know how personal this is for me. I mean, I'll never forget that morning in Spring Hill Lake. You know, I was in the middle of summer school classes and waking up to that news on WTOP radio. It's just, it's one of the biggest hurts for any of us that lived through that era and were at those games and watch those games.

And, you know, as you're talking about Dick Dull, like I'll. I'll never forget just the day after, you know, him and then Lefty, when Lefty got to the podium or to the microphone and just said, you know, Leonard, I miss you and I'll see you in heaven one day as he cried. And, you know, the pictures and the images of Lefty with his arms around his wife and his family as he walked off after he was forced out. You know, that's one of those things. I'm curious as to what you guys think. And that is, you know, do you think a guy like Dick Dull? understand that what was revealed in the aftermath were all of these issues related to academics, etc. But do you think that there was ever any regret in making lefty the fall guy for this? Oh, certainly. By a lot of people within the department, and J.J. Bush is a prime example.

And J.J. Bush is not someone that a lot of people know about, but he is an integral part of this story in a sense that he joined the... department in 1972 as an athletic trainer. He was left his athletic trainer.

He was Gary Williams as athletic trainer. And anybody who knows a lot about college athletics, and I'm sure

Donnell will have tested it, the athletic trainer develops relationships with coaches and players that that they don't

develop with other people. And I can, Jay J.J. was my trainer when I had injuries at Maryland. And I got to know

him very well, very sincere, very nice, very well-respected guy. he's adamant that lefty was a fall lefty was a fall guy from this as he says it in the podcast

left uh lefty didn't put the cocaine up of lenn's nose it was a very blunt comment Len did he was old enough to make that decision and lefty should have not received the fallout Len Elmore says the same thing the fallout is sort of unjust um I think there's a lot of regret

and how the university handled it and how the athletic department handled it among the staff, among the coaches, among the university administration, I don't know. But certainly the coaches and the staff feel a lot of regret. And, man, I wish they wish the university and the athletic department hadn't reacted the way they did. Well, I mean, Dave, did the athletic department even have a say? Because Chancellor Slaughter at the time sort of took this thing over and spearheaded not only the Alster of Lefty, but then the hiring of Bob Wade? They did.

It's right. Slaughter really did not work within the Athletic Department to hire Bob Wade. And Don can offer some insight into this as well. The Athletic Department made a lot of decisions on how they structured, restructured the department based on what was happening. And that's where I think the staff and the former athletes look at it like, what were they doing? I mean, they were thinking certainly the financial situation, but a lot of it did come down from slaughter and the university and the two task forces that the university set up that really created a lot of attention for the department and the university. Once the task forces were set up, then the media had another reason to cover that part of it.

And I think Don could offer even more insight into that. you know Tom McMillan used the word overreacted you know how they overreacted to it

and and they did in the sense that and you talk about John Slaughter he compounded he made the situation

worse with the hire he made with the way he went about hiring a guy who was totally incapable not not qualified

to take over a college basketball program. I was just listening to the press conference of Bob Wade, and I recalled, you know, part of a coach's job is to present a public, you know, your public image. And he was so, you know, I talk about how he used to ask me for words during a press conference because he was such a, you know, he could not speak publicly, you know, without, you know, messing up and, and, and, and his demeanor was completely, he was out of,

out of, you know, he was out of, out of his element. You know, he was comfortable in a high school coaching young guys and, and both,

he was a better football coach. He was actually a basketball coach. He was actually a pretty good football coach. He just, you know, he had great players at Dunbar and became known as, you know, a great college,

high school basketball coach. But John Flauter was the one who sort of, you know, made, you know, he did not want Lefty there anyway. Even before, even before Len Byes died, it was tension between the two of them. It was my first year on the beat, but I know that, you know, that summer, the first summer I took over the beat, there was talk about Lefty going to Old Dominion, because he was from Norfolk, and I remember that was my first interaction with Lefty, you know, and there was a headline in a paper Birddown in Norfolk saying it's 50-50 that he's going to go to Old Dominion.

They really wanted lefty out after the Herman Veal incident a few years before, which was an embarrassment to the university. The boys will be boys will be boys incident. Yeah, when he said he's not, you know, that some women on campus complained from the women's center and he said he's the men's center, you know, and that was lefty. I mean, it was lefty. It was also the early 1980s, but lefty was convinced, right, that this woman was making it up and had done it in other situations. And my God, that stuff would never ever fly.

He would have been out in a New York second in a day like today. Yeah. And so the whole thing in terms of bias and Wednesday, it impacted me. The sad part was that it impacted so many more lives than just lefties in terms of people losing their jobs and losing their careers, not ever really coming back from it. Dick Bell never really, you know, his next coach, his next athletic director's job was at University of Nebraska, Corny, a small school, you know,

in the Nebraska chain in terms of the, in terms of that, type of fall from grace going from university of Maryland to the university in the breast of corny. So, yes, lefty was definitely a scapegoat. They definitely overreacted to it in terms of, you know,

the problems Maryland was having were not uncommon through our college athletics in terms of academics in terms of athletes, you know, not going to class. They were, you know, not even close to the problems in the Southwest. conference where guys were being paid, you know, money and SMU was shut down.

And then it led to the hiring of Bob Wade and almost destroying the program with Gary Williams before it even got started with that, you know, really, really horrific probation that they were put on because of, you know, not major infractions, but a lack of institutional control. Giving Rudy Archer a ride to class for crying out loud. Right. Yeah, giving Rudy Archer rides a class. You know, there are so many problems that result. It's amazing. You know, and we talked about it in the last episode and talk about the, you know, from tragedy to triumph and Gary Williams bringing this program back.

What he did was unbelievable in terms of where that program was to, not just winning the national championship in 2002 and going to Final Four, but that long string of national, you know, of years. where Maryland made the Sweet 16 and all those great games with Duke and the rivalry with Duke and Carolina. I mean, that's, you know, and one player that,

that Dave, failed to mention before when he's mentioned guys who went to Maryland because the one bias was Walt Williams. And how Walt Williams really was, you know, a savior to the program because he could have left after those,

after the team went on probation, Gerard Mustafa decided to go turn pro, which was not a great decision as it turned out for him in his career. But Walt stayed and became a great player and had a really nice NBA career out of it. And, you know, so that part of the story is the, you know, is the triumph. But there was a lot of tragedy before the triumph. Sure. And I think, you know, one of the things that Gary proved, I mean, part of it was because, of course, he was a great coach.

but it just shows the potential, like, you know, fast forwarding to right now, the potential of what Maryland basketball is, even, you know, in the wake of, you know, if there's no tragedy right now, obviously, but certainly uncertainty, you know, you could say. I mean, it's a place you can come and turn it around pretty quickly if you know what you're doing. By the way, I know that this has been great, and Dave, I don't know, maybe you need to go, I know you teach, so maybe you need to get to class. and I apologize for taking up all this time, but there's one other slaughter thing that I want to know

if you guys know the answer to this. For many years, I got to work with Coach Thompson, you know, at the radio station, and, you know, we would sit there in our bullpen at the radio station and get into all these arguments about Maryland and Georgetown and the whole thing, and he loved it and I loved it. But I remember saying to him once, well, you hired Bob Wade. Because remember all of the discussion back then was basically

Chancellor Slaughter basically got one advisor when he, before he hired Bob Wade and it was John Thompson and many people, certainly Maryland fans felt like John Thompson hired Lefty's replacement Bob Wade. He had obviously recruited

Reggie Williams and Wingate etc. from Dunbar and knew Bob Wade well. And coach would say to me in his most loving way you know, MFer, you are out of your mind if you think I hired Bob Wade. What do you guys think?

With Slaughterers, did Slaughter, you know, how did he get to Bob Wade? Well, I think, go ahead. All over my clarification, then you can offer additional. He did also, Slaughter says he already talked, he also talked to Valvano and Dean Smith about it. So he said he did his due diligence and talked to other coaches. So it wasn't just John Thompson, but there were other coaches as well. But there was no committee, a selection committee set up. It was basically slaughtered doing the due diligence to hire them.

So there were, there appears to be other coaches involved as well. So he basically went to three rival coaches. He went to Big John, Valvano, and Dean, and said, who should Marilyn hire as their coach? I had a great I once in an interview with a Marvin Perry who was a prominent booster

president of the Terrapin Club and I don't know if I can quote him exactly right but he said he said it was like it was like having the having the rooster guard the henhouse and that and basically

saying you you you you go to a you go to their rival coaches. They're recruiting against Georgetown. They're recruiting against North Carolina, North Carolina State. And they handpicked Maryland's successor, who they know is not at their level. You know, who they know, you know, he was, he was, he was well regarded in the way he ran the,

I think it was the Nike camp or one of those summer basketball camps. and in fact, when, you know, when Alonzo Morning came out, you know, came out of high school, Bob Wade thought that he was going to get Alonzo Morning to Maryland. And Sonny Baccaro said to him, well, you'll get the next one. John gets this one. You'll get the next one. And that was Brian Williams, right. And that's how, you know, that's how it worked back then.

And, you know, Sonny Bekara was a major, major player in handpicking, you know, who was going to get players, but coaches were going to get jobs. And, but, yeah, as Dave spoke to about Dean Smith, you know, of course, Dean Smith wants a high school coach to coach against with Maryland. He doesn't want to go against lefty or he doesn't want to go against, you know, as it turned out, Gary Williams. Gary Williams was one of the few guys, you know, who had pretty decent records in the ACC against both... Dean and Shosheschi. And especially Dean. Yes, especially, Dean.

You know, and Bob Wade didn't. You know, Bob Wade, I remember one time they beat Duke at Duke. And I remember, I called it the Dancing Bear scene where he and Lou Perkins, who didn't get along, were jumping up and down, these two very large men, and it was probably the first and last time they ever embraced. And that was it. You know, there was not a lot of success under Bob Wade, and it's amazing that Gary brought the program back to where it went.

Yeah, that was the year that, yeah, they went down to Duke and won that game, and they ended up, you know, winning a tournament game and losing to Kentucky, with Rudy Archer and Brian Williams and Steve Hood, I think, was on that team in that one decent season. Guys, this is fascinating stuff. For those of you listening, it's, you know, Len Byes, a mixed legacy, original series on the legacy of Len Byas. It's a podcast, get it on Spotify, get it on Apple. They just launched their sixth episode, totally worth it. it. Dave, of course,

a long-time author and the author of Born Ready to Mix Legacy of Len Byes and Don Marcus, long-time, longtime Baltimore columnist covering Maryland sports and a lot more. I enjoyed this per usual.

Best of luck with it and maybe we can do this again when the whole series is over down the road. Happy to do it, Kevin. I appreciate your support as always and this will be going to early March. Awesome. Thanks again, guys. Really appreciate it. Thank you, Kevin.

Thank you, Kevin. All right, that's it for the show. Today, I will have a show on Monday recapping the NFL playoff games and more. So enjoy the rest of the weekend. Stay safe. Back on Monday.