Len Bias' Legacy

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I've been reading an interesting — and troubling — article by Tommy Craggs at Deadspin.com.

It's about Len Bias, a truly gifted basketball player who was picked second overall in the 1986 NBA draft by the Boston Celtics.

If the name doesn't sound familiar to readers who have not reached their 30th birthday, there is a good reason for that. Bias never played in the NBA. He died of a cocaine overdose two days after being drafted.

He'd been celebrating his good fortune, as just about any athlete in almost any collegiate sport would. When one is a top pick in the professional draft, it is generally taken for granted that he has it made.

It doesn't always work out that way. There have been many examples of top draft picks who — for whatever reason — simply couldn't make the transition from college to pro.

Bias might not have panned out. But I had several friends at the time who were diehard basketball fans, and they all believed he would be a huge star in the NBA. I have never really been an NBA fan, but, at that time, I was more of a college basketball fan than I am now. I had seen Bias play on TV, and I, too, believed he would be a big success at the professional level.

Bias was a contemporary of Michael Jordan — a couple of years younger, I guess, and probably not quite as good, but that wasn't really clear in 1986. Jordan hadn't yet established himself as perhaps the greatest NBA player ever, and he was never the most valuable player in the Atlantic Coast Conference's postseason tournament.

Bias was the MVP of the 1984 ACC Tournament, leading Maryland to a 12–point victory over Duke in the tournament final and a #3 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

Both men were ACC Player of the Year — Bias twice and Jordan once.

In 1986, I think it is safe to say that Bias' credentials were more solid than Jordan's. Before he died, he probably was more highly regarded than Jordan, who had been playing in the NBA for a couple of years but had not won his first NBA title.

One can only imagine what the NBA would have been like in the late '80s and early '90s if Bias had not died. At the time of the '86 draft, Boston's undisputed star was Larry Bird, who was named MVP of the NBA finals less than two weeks earlier. But he was about to enter the downside of his career, and he retired half a dozen years later.

At that time, Bias would have been in his prime, ready to take the leadership mantel from Bird. He might even have taken it a year or two earlier, allowing Bird to ease into retirement.

Perhaps he would have led the Celtics to even greater heights. Perhaps the Jordan–led Chicago Bulls would have had a rivalry with Bias and the Celtics that would have exceeded the intensity of the rivalry between the Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers in the '80s.

Perhaps he would have had the can't–miss Hall of Fame career everyone said he would have.

If so, people would remember him for that — and not for the way he died.

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But, apparently, that is what many people do remember about Len Bias.

That may be an even greater tragedy.

Recently, a request for state money to be used to erect a statue of Bias in his hometown of Hyattsville, Md., was withdrawn because of concerns that it would send the wrong message to young people.

Rather than honor the memory of Bias and his many achievements — and encourage young people to hone their skills and follow their own dreams — Maryland will do as so many have done before — focus on a fatal flaw.

I know that Bias showed extremely poor judgment the night he died. But he was 22 years old. When I was 22, I didn't always show good judgment, either. And I frequently paid a price for my mistakes. But I never paid with my life.

Maybe it was a matter of luck that I outlived those reckless years and he did not. Maybe it always is a matter of luck. The luck of the draw.

That's an ironic thought. On the night that Boston drafted Bias, most people probably would have said that he was the one who had lived a charmed life. I certainly would have said that his life was charmed compared to mine.

And yet I have lived nearly 27 years longer than he did.

Maybe I was lucky that my mistakes weren't final. Maybe Bias was unlucky that one of his mistakes was.

But the fact that he forfeited his life does not mean he should forfeit his legacy.

The Dawn of the Iron (Mike) Age

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My overwhelming memory of Mike Tyson's reign as heavyweight champion is that he was reckless in the ring.

But the problem is that reckless doesn't really seem to be the right word for "Iron Mike" in his heyday.

See, reckless — for me — conjures up the image of the Tasmanian devil from the old cartoons spinning his way through whatever happened to be in his path — trees, houses, mountains, whatever.

Tyson — for those of you who are too young to remember or may not have been born yet — was a powerful man, all right. When you watched him in the ring, even if he was simply standing in his corner of it, you saw muscles rippling all over his body — in his arms and legs and his torso.

Boxing's aficionados have mentioned Tyson with history's greatest punchers — comparable to Joe Frazier, Sonny Liston, Rocky Marciano, George Foreman. He was entirely capable of ripping into anyone and anything that got in his way.

To be sure, he looked reckless at times. But he was no Tasmanian devil. That was just his way.

I never really got the impression that Tyson was much of a thinker or strategist in the ring. To me, he seemed somewhat disdainful of pursuits of style points.

Style points were for fighters who didn't expect to knock the other guy out, who expected both fighters to still be standing at the end of the final scheduled round.

And Tyson always gave the distinct impression that he expected to knock the other guy out. I don't think he ever believed that an opponent was capable of going the distance with him.

He acted more on instinct, like a wounded bear defending his turf. His objective was never to outwit a foe. His objective was to hurt his foe and finish the fight as quickly as possible.

He never seemed to care if his opponent knew what he was going to do. He did it, anyway.

And most of the time, Tyson did finish off his opponent in a round or two.

That's what happened 25 years ago tonight. Tyson was in his prime and as disciplined as he was ever going to be during his boxing career, finishing off Trevor Berbick quickly to become the youngest man to win the WBC, WBA and IBF world heavyweight titles.

It was a "watershed moment," writes Tim Smith in the New York Daily News.

"Not since Tyson," Smith writes, "has any heavyweight champion captured the attention of the sporting public with a unique brand of ring menace and concussive force."

Tyson was barely 20 when he defeated Berbick by a second–round technical knockout. When I watch the film of the fight, I can see the intense focus in Tyson's eyes. Maybe it was really naivete — maybe he was just too young to comprehend that he was trying to do something no one his age had ever done before.

And I can sense growing trepidation in Berbick's eyes.

When Tyson lost the title forever in a stunning upset at the hands of Buster Douglas in 1990, it was in large part due to the fact that Douglas used his own version of Muhammad Ali's famous rope–a–dope strategy that forced a fighter who was accustomed to getting the job done in a round or two to wear himself out. Douglas wore Tyson down, then put him away in the 10th round.

It was reminiscent of the night in 1974 when Ali took the heavyweight title from another two– or three–round specialist by the name of George Foreman.

By the time Douglas beat Tyson, many things had changed in Tyson's world. His mentor, Cus D'Amato, died about a year before Tyson claimed the title in his fight with Berbick, but Tyson was still fighting under D'Amato's influence with his protege, Kevin Rooney, stepping into the void after D'Amato's death.

Tyson and Rooney came to a parting of the ways in 1988, and Tyson's career, and life in general, started spinning out of control.

But, on this night in 1986, it was vintage Tyson. Bleacher Report calls it one of the 10 strangest knockouts in boxing history, but I never saw it that way.

Granted, it wasn't pretty. In fact, it was often primitive. But it got the job done. Tyson was disciplined enough to do that much.

And when one watches the footage of the Berbick fight, one can only wonder what Tyson might have been if he had continued to be as disciplined long after D'Amato was gone.

Billy Buck's Boo-Boo

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At one time or another, I guess, most American boys play organized baseball.

And most probably fantasize about driving in the run that wins the World Series for their teams.

If that is the dream, then what happened to Bill Buckner on this night 25 years ago is the nightmare.

Buckner's Boston Red Sox were one out away from ending a World Series drought that had existed since 1918. In fact, the scoreboard in New York's Shea Stadium flashed a congratulatory message — briefly.

But that turned out to be premature.

The Mets, who had given up two runs in the top of the 10th, scored a run, then had the tying run on third and the winning run on first. Mookie Wilson was at the plate against a new pitcher, who threw a wild pitch, scoring the tying run and putting the winning run at second.

Wilson then hit a slow grounder in the direction of veteran first baseman Bill Buckner, who seemed sure to make the play. But the ball took a strange hop just before it got to Buckner and rolled into the outfield, allowing Ray Knight to score the winning run from second.

The cameras almost immediately zeroed in on home plate, where Knight was scoring the winning run, but they lingered for a few seconds on Buckner after the ball got away from him, providing the image I will always remember from that night — Buckner standing forlornly at first while his teammates scrambled to retrieve the ball in the outfield.

My instinct would have been to run after that ball, even if I knew deep in my heart that there was no way I could reach it before one of the other players did — and, even more importantly, before Knight could score that winning run. My mind wouldn't let me accept that the die had been cast, that it was over.

But it was as if Buckner realized, in that split second when the ball took its inexplicable jump, that it was over, and he was resigned to the abuse that he knew would come his way.

Actually, it wasn't the end of the Series. The Red Sox brought a 3–2 lead to New York and needed to win either Game 6 or Game 7. The game that was played 25 years ago tonight was only the sixth game. The Red Sox could have won the seventh game and been world champions, but the pitching staff fell apart, as it had been inclined to do against the Mets.

As it did in Game 6 when that wild pitch allowed the tying run to score.

It wasn't Buckner's fault that Boston lost that seventh game, either. He went two for four at the plate and committed no errors in the field. In fact, Buckner even scored a run in Boston's comeback attempt in the late innings, but it simply wasn't enough.

Besides, the Mets were favored to win that Series before it began — and they weren't slight favorites, either. The Mets were heavy favorites that year.

The fact that the Mets won it was no real surprise. What was surprising was the way that title was won.

I knew it was a bitter experience for Red Sox fans — to be so close and see it slip through their fingers — and I empathized with them. But that did not excuse how they treated Buckner when the Series was over.

One would have thought he was a latter–day Shoeless Joe Jackson — except Shoeless Joe at least got the gamblers' money. As far as I can see, Billy Buck got nothing but abuse.

Say it ain't so, Billy Buck. But it was so. It just wasn't intentional.

What happened 25 years ago tonight had to be one of the strangest finishes of any game in World Series history — and it was almost immediately taken to be the latest confirmation of the existence of the "Curse of the Bambino" — the superstitious belief that, when the Red Sox sold Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees, a "curse" was put on the franchise, preventing it from winning a championship.

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I always felt it was unfair for Buckner to be subjected to the abuse of the frustrated Boston baseball fans — just as I always thought it was unfair when the fans of another long–suffering baseball franchise blamed their team's 2003 postseason defeat on a fellow fan's innocent reach for a foul ball.

Team sports are precisely that — team sports. On extremely rare occasions, a team's loss is clearly the fault of a single player or an official's bad call; on even rarer occasions, a loss is the fault of an innocent bystander.

Most of the time, though, it is the result of a team effort. Teams win and lose as teams.

Whether such a thing as the "Curse of the Bambino" ever really existed, the Red Sox, who had won several titles before selling Ruth to the Yankees, went on to lose the 1986 World Series to the other New York team.

The Sox did not win another title until 2004. The Yankees, meanwhile, became the most successful franchise in major league baseball after acquiring the Babe.

I don't know if that was a curse, but 25 years ago tonight, Buckner probably would have told you that it sure wasn't a blessing.

Anyway, after the perceived "curse" was gone, the Red Sox were just another team again, and they were free to play ball without the weight of all those years on their shoulders.

A few years later, they won another title, and no one, as I recall, said anything about a "curse." As he watched the Series, Buckner (who, ironically, played for the Cubs before coming to Boston) may have thought about it and reflected that 21st century ball players don't know the meanings of the words pressure, expectations and superstition.

But the following spring, Buckner participated in the unfurling of the world championship banner at Boston's Fenway Park. The fans gave him a standing ovation, and Buckner later spoke of a sense of closure that came from being in the ballpark on that day.

"I really had to forgive, not the fans of Boston, per se, but I would have to say in my heart I had to forgive the media for what they put me and my family through," he said.

And now, Billy Buck's boo–boo is a part of baseball lore.

The Birth of a Tradition

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The year after Randy and I made our pilgrimage,
he was married and living in St. Louis. I returned
to go to a game with him and his wife, Tammy.

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It was 25 years ago today that my longtime friend Randy and I embarked on a weekend adventure that, in hindsight, is the kind of thing that can only be done when one is really young — and really stupid.

It simply cannot be done under any other circumstances.

But what can I say? We were really young and really stupid.

And that weekend was the start of a tradition that was repeated annually for five years. Maybe someday it will be revived. But I'll get back to that.

(Some folks might tell you that the only thing that has changed is that we're both 25 years older. But I digress.)

Randy and I went to school together, worked together in the summers when we were in high school. He was originally from St. Louis, but his parents moved to central Arkansas when he was a little boy and settled in my hometown.

My hometown was very small in those days, and most municipal business was handled rather simply — or maybe that's just how it seemed to me. There were three elementary schools in town, and which one you attended depended upon where you lived. Everyone attended the same middle school, junior high and high school.

I guess Randy and I must have gone to different elementary schools because I don't recall seeing him or being in a schoolroom with him until we were in middle school.

Even so, we didn't become the friends that we eventually became until we were in high school — and then we did everything together.

As close friends do, we learned just about everything there was to know about each other. One of the things I learned early on about Randy was that he desperately wanted to move back to St. Louis — and, as a matter of fact, he did — 25 years ago next month. He's still there.

But, in July 1986, he was still in Arkansas. He had gotten married a few years earlier, and he and his budding family moved around some, but, by this date 25 years ago, they were all back in central Arkansas. His marriage had ended, though, so I saw him more frequently than I had since high school, and I really thought our friendship was the same as it had always been. On the surface, I guess it was, but, while I didn't know it, he was thinking again about returning to St. Louis.

In 1985, Randy and I watched the TV coverage of the dramatic National League playoff series between his favorite team, the Cardinals, and my favorite team, the Los Angeles Dodgers. Inspired by that, we resolved to drive to St. Louis to see a couple of games between our favorite teams in person the next year.

The major leagues were structured differently 25 years ago. There were two divisions in each league, not three as there are today, and teams generally hosted the teams from the opposing division twice a year. That meant there was a pretty narrow window of opportunity for us.

In those days I was working on the sports copy desk of a metropolitan daily newspaper. One of the perks of the job was that we usually got information about schedules before just about everyone else, and I remember eagerly waiting for the release of the Cardinals' 1986 schedule.

For a time, Randy and I would begin every phone conversation the same way: "Did it come in yet?" (There was no reason to be more specific than "it.") "No."

Then, one day, the schedule arrived at the office.

In 1986, the two series in Busch Stadium were scheduled for mid–May and mid–July. I don't know why May didn't work out for us — maybe because the games were scheduled for the middle of the week.

The teams were scheduled to face each other in a four–game series between July 17 and 20. That was a Thursday–Sunday series, and, even though it was mostly on a weekend, it created some hurdles for us to clear, too. Still, it was our best option.

Randy, as I recall, couldn't get off work on a weekday. He hadn't been working at his job long enough to qualify for vacation time.

I was working nights at a morning newspaper, and my regular days off were Monday and Tuesday. I did qualify for vacation time at my job, and I must have used some. Or perhaps I used a compensatory day or two that I had on reserve for working on what should have been paid days off. As I recall, that was a somewhat common practice in those days. I don't remember the specifics.

Somehow, though, I managed to get that weekend off, and Randy and I decided to make a whirlwind trip to St. Louis to see the games on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, then we would drive back to central Arkansas, arriving sometime around midnight on Sunday.

I still had to work my usual shift on Friday night so Randy agreed to meet me at my apartment around the time I normally got home (which was roughly 1 a.m.), and we would try to get a few hours of sleep. We would get up at something like 4:30 or 5, throw on some clothes, throw our stuff in my car and hit the road.

We had it planned out so that we would arrive at the stadium in time for the first pitch on Saturday afternoon. The game was supposed to begin at 12:30, I believe. It was roughly a seven–hour drive.

It's astonishing to me when I think of it now, but it never occurred to me that something might happen along the way (it should have because, back when Randy and I were in high school, we drove to St. Louis to visit his brother and sister–in–law for Thanksgiving — and we had a flat tire on the way). I just assumed we would arrive on schedule.

Oddly enough, we nearly did. Sheer blind luck, I suppose.

We didn't quite get to our seats in time for the first pitch. In fact, it was around the second inning before we got to our seats. We might have been on schedule, though, if we hadn't stopped to pick up some beer and hot dogs.

The thing I remember vividly about that day is how unbelievably hot it was. It was every bit as hot as it has been lately. The air temperature was about 105° — and I read, in the St. Louis Post–Dispatch the next day, that the temperature of the artificial surface was over 130°.

I kid you not.

Here's something else: I seldom drink beer anymore, but that's the only time in my life that I haven't been able to finish a beer before it got too warm for me to drink it.

That Post–Dispatch article explained why I saw players for both teams sprinting off the field when it was their turn to bat — and dragging their feet when it was time to take the field. Talk about getting a hotfoot.

It also explained why the game was played so quickly. The teams combined for only three runs in a full nine–inning game that took only 2½ hours to play. (I remember that a columnist for the Post–Dispatch observed that the players played ball that day "like they were double parked.")

Tired and drained, we made our way back to my car after the game and proceeded to drive some 40 miles or so west of St. Louis — to his brother's home, where we spent the night.

I remember how blissfully cool his brother's home seemed to me, how refreshing it was to take a shower there and rid myself of the grime of the day and how grateful I was just to lie down on the cot on which I spent that Saturday night. We ate what was probably a basic summer meal that night (I don't recall what was on the menu — probably sandwiches and chips, maybe some ice cream), and I remember feeling full and satisfied as I relaxed in front of the TV with a cold drink in my hand.

We got a full night's sleep, awoke refreshed the next morning, packed my car, said goodbye to Randy's brother and sister–in–law and returned to Busch Stadium.

Temperatures at the ballpark were at least 10 degrees cooler that day. It almost felt cold by comparison — although, of course, it wasn't. This time, however, my beer was still somewhat cold when I finished it. (It might have helped that our seats were in the shade on Sunday.)

The less–brutal temperatures seemed to make the players more attentive to their work — at least the offensive part — and the teams combined for nine runs. Los Angeles scored most of them, though, so Randy and I decided to leave before the game was over and get a jump on the trip back home.

Once again, everything went according to schedule. No flat tires. No car trouble of any kind, actually. Since he had to work the next morning, Randy was supposed to get a little sleep on the drive back, but my memory is that he didn't. We talked some and listened to cassette tapes, and we pulled in to my apartment shortly before midnight. We transferred his things to his car, and he left for home.

And I went to bed.

I presume he made it to work the next day. Monday, as I said, was my usual day off so I'm sure I slept late. The only thing I remember doing the next day was my laundry.

The trip was a blast — in fact, I enjoyed it enough to repeat it four straight years after Randy moved to St. Louis. It's a great memory for me now, and sometimes I wish I could do it all again.

But so much is different now. In fact, when I think how much can change in a quarter of a century — a mere blink of an eye in the lifetime of this planet — it makes me appreciate how much there is just beneath our feet from which archaeologists can learn.

Future archaeologists won't find what is left of Busch Stadium, though, for it is gone. It has been demolished, replaced by another stadium that bears its name, but it isn't the same place.

I guess it is the place where the next generation will make its memories. I hope they have as much fun as I did.

The Day Len Bias Died

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Twenty–five years ago, I was working on the sports desk of the Arkansas Gazette.

It was a morning paper so the folks who worked on the copy desks worked nights. Everyone worked weekends, but one's nights off generally were determined by seniority. As one of the most junior staff members (at that time), my days off were Mondays and Tuesdays — not exactly prime time.

That's important to note, though, because it was on Tuesday, June 17, 1986, that the annual NBA draft was held. My memory is that it was held in conjunction with the NBA Finals that year, but I could be wrong about that.

I do know that it was televised, and I remember watching it briefly with some friends — long enough, anyway, to see that Maryland's Len Bias had been selected by the Boston Celtics.

Larry Bird brought championship basketball back to Boston, but he was about to turn 30, and he had struggled with back issues. The comments I remember hearing and the articles I remember reading in mid–June 1986 suggested that Bias was going to be groomed to step in and take over the role of star player when Bird retired.

He couldn't miss, the experts said. With Len Bias, the Celtic dynasty would be in good hands.

The day after Bias was drafted, I returned to work to pull my graveyard shift on Wednesday night. I had to be back earlier the following day — I worked the sports wire on Thursdays in those days, which meant it was my job to constantly scan the wire for sports news.

I always enjoyed working the wire. When I arrived in the office to work it (a shift that typically began about two hours earlier than my usual shifts — and ended two hours earlier as well), I did a preliminary scan of the wire's contents so I could tell the editor who was in charge that evening what we could expect.

Then I would pick wire stories on sports events from all over the world and ship them over to the editor, who would decide where to put each article, assign a headline size to each and turn the stories over to the folks who were handling the copy editing that evening.

It was a procedure that had taken shape over a long period of time. The Gazette was the oldest continuously published newspaper west of the Mississippi. The system that was in place when I came on board was the product of years of evolution.

Usually, working the wire came down to the accounts of games in whichever sport happened to be in season, but there were times when unexpected stories demanded our attention. If a story was big enough, I might combine the best elements from all the wire services the Gazette received — and the Gazette subscribed to about half a dozen news services.

Nothing noteworthy happened that Wednesday night, but when I got up the next morning and switched on my TV, there was a sports story that I knew immediately would dominate my activities that night — and for many days to come.

Sometime during the night (as the wire editor that day, I learned a few hours later that it had actually been sometime around daybreak), Len Bias, the NBA's #2 draft pick less than two days earlier, had died of a cocaine overdose.

He was only 22 years old.

I can't tell you the tsunami–like ripple effect this had — not only in sports and on college campuses but throughout American society as well.

When Bias was taken in the draft by the Celtics, he was widely expected to be at least one of the greatest players ever to play the game — if not the greatest. He would rewrite the record books, some people said.

And he might have. We will never know.

It does seem likely that, if he hadn't died, Bias' career would be over by this point. We would know if he set all those records that he was expected to set and if he won all those titles he was expected to win.

We didn't know much on this day 25 years ago, but we did know that Len Bias would never accomplish all those things.

Sports fans grieved as much for the potential that would never be realized as they did for the life that was cut tragically short. The circumstances were different but the sensation was much the same a few years later when Hank Gathers collapsed and died during a Loyola Marymount game in 1990.

Len Bias was like a shooting star in June 1986. He burst onto the scene and left almost as quickly as he had come, leaving the aging Celtics in a funk they wouldn't shake off for many years.

His legacy lives on, though, says Jeff Barker in the Baltimore Sun, and his life story continues to influence the sport in ways that no one could have anticipated in 1986.

His death continues to influence people beyond the universe of basketball, writes David Steele in The Sporting News.

"His almost unfathomable death lingers as a cocaine deterrent," observes Barker. "He also maintains the power to rivet players and fans despite being from a wholly different basketball generation."

That's great, but even Barker gives in to the eternal, unanswerable question: What would Bias have accomplished?

Barker closed his piece with speculation from one of Bias' teammates — that, had Len Bias lived, people would be mentioning his name today in the same breath with his greatest contemporaries, like Michael Jordan, and the stars of today.

Sadly, no one will never know.

The Impossible Dream

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"To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go."

Joe Darion
"The Impossible Dream"

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At Richmond and Morehead State today, they know about Cinderella stories in the NCAA Tournament.

And, while theirs may be short–lived, their victories over Vanderbilt and Louisville, respectively, entitle them to enjoy the sensation of having beaten the seemingly unbeatable foe. They may well come crashing back to earth tomorrow.

The NCAA Tournament has a reputation for upsets. It is one of the main reasons that sports fans tune in to the games in the early rounds. They want to know who will be Cinderella this season.

Upsets were sort of uncommon in the old days of the tournament. Of course, part of that was because the field was much smaller, primarily conference champions and one or two independent programs. Until comparatively recently, there weren't enough slots for every team in the Top 20 to participate. It's kind of hard to call a victory for any Top 20 team much of an upset, even if comes against a higher–ranked team.

Still, upsets did occur from time to time.

They became more frequent when the field began to expand. That was what diminished the NIT, but it certainly brought excitement, an air of mystery, to the NCAA Tournament.

I'm not really sure when the tournament began to develop its reputation for upsets. Maybe it was in 1983 when North Carolina State upset powerful Houston in the championship game. It might even go back to Texas Western's unexpected victory over Kentucky 45 years ago tomorrow.

I do know that it was a reputation that was already established by the time the tournament began 25 years ago this week.

I was working on the sports staff of the Arkansas Gazette in those days, and I had graduated from the University of Arkansas, where I had been part of many exuberant crowds at football and basketball games.

Razorback fans were spoiled in the late 1970s and early 1980s. They were accustomed to seeing their basketball team compete in the NCAA Tournament, sometimes doing quite well.

But in the mid–1980s, Eddie Sutton was gone, Nolan Richardson had been hired but was frequently distracted by his young daughter's battle with leukemia, and the basketball program sometimes had the appearance of a rudderless ship.

In March of 1986, Arkansas fans were looking elsewhere to fill the void left by the Razorbacks, and Arkansas–Little Rock stepped up.

In the first round of that tournament, two No. 14 seeds won their opening–round games against No. 3 seeds — Cleveland State beat Indiana and UALR defeated Notre Dame. The ride didn't end for Cleveland State right away. The Vikings got to the Sweet 16 before losing to David Robinson and Navy by a single point.

But, for coach Mike Newell's Trojans, that was it. They lost two days later to North Carolina State.

That first–round game sure was memorable, though.

We had no TV in the newsroom in those days so we had to listen to the game on the radio. My memory is that just about everyone on the sports staff was pulling for UALR. It was the only Arkansas team in the tournament and, besides, who wanted Notre Dame to win?

Well, there was one Catholic guy on the staff, and I think he might have been pulling for the Irish, but he wasn't vocal about it.

I remember the Gazette's sports staffers gathered around a radio in much the same way that families must have listened to radio broadcasts during the Depression. A couple of the youngest staff members sat on the floor. The older staff members sat in chairs and listened intently as UALR built and maintained its lead.

Before long, people from the news side had gravitated to the sports department to listen to the radio.

After Newell left UALR, he spoke of his gratitude to all the people who came to the games and pulled for the Trojans in the days before their five–year postseason run that included three appearances in the NCAA Tournament. That, he said, was when he had been "selling a dream."

And, for one evening, UALR's students and fans permitted themselves to dream the impossible dream of being the ones who would cut down the nets and hoist the trophy in Dallas' Reunion Arena.

It didn't happen that way for UALR. It may never happen for UALR.

But, for that one evening, the Trojans could dream of it.

Ditka's Disgrace

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Yesterday, I wrote about the 30th anniversary of the first wild card to win a Super Bowl — and I suggested that it might have been appropriate if the Jets had won the AFC title on Sunday because that would have put two wild–card teams in this year's Super Bowl.

But it might have been more appropriate if the Chicago Bears had beaten the Green Bay Packers for the NFC title.

(That isn't an easy thing for me to say, being a lifelong Green Bay fan. But hear me out on this one.)

It was a quarter of a century ago today that the Chicago Bears played in their first Super Bowl. Their opponents were the New England Patriots — and, while it is probably hard for the current generation to believe, that was the Patriots' first Super Bowl, too.

Football fans had rarely seen two teams playing in their first Super Bowl at the same time. Granted, the most recent such game had been only a few years earlier, when the San Francisco 49ers faced the Cincinnati Bengals. But it had only happened twice before that — when Broadway Joe followed through on his famous "guarantee" in Super Bowl III and in the very first Super Bowl (when it was a sure thing that both teams were making their first appearance).

There was never a chance of a team appearing in its first Super Bowl this time. But, until Sunday, there was a chance that the Bears might be able to celebrate the 25th anniversary of their first trip to the big game with a return trip.

It wouldn't have been the Bears' first trip back to the Super Bowl since that day in January 1986. They made it back to the Super Bowl a few years ago — and lost to the Colts.

Even so, it would have made an interesting story line — not that the Super Bowl ever lacks for interesting story lines. In fact, sometimes the story lines have been better than the games themselves.

For awhile, it was even possible that the Bears and the Patriots could mark the anniversary with a rematch. But that possibility ended when the Jets defeated the Patriots in the divisional round.

It remained possible — for a week — that the Bears could observe their silver anniversary with an appearance in Dallas. The odds of that happening dwindled rapidly after Jay Cutler went down with an injury.

But, really, how could you commemorate that anniversary? It was Walter Payton's only Super Bowl after a career of toiling for mostly bad Bears teams — but he really did nothing special when he got there. He didn't even score a touchdown.

That would be understandable, I suppose, if the game had been a defensive struggle. But the only defense that struggled that day was New England's.

I felt it was disgraceful that Payton didn't score on a day when the Chicago Bears set a Super Bowl scoring record with 46 points.

I guess you could call Payton the consummate professional. While no one could have known that Super Bowl XX would be his only Super Bowl, he had been in the NFL for a decade, and that is a long time for a running back.

Seems to me that any reasonable football fan would have to at least suspect that it would be his only one. And, in fact, Payton only played two more seasons after he went to the Super Bowl. The Bears made the playoffs both years, but they were one and done both times and Payton never scored a touchdown in either of his last two playoff games.

He should have scored a touchdown in Super Bowl XX.

The Bears were deep in New England territory late in the third quarter. Realistically, the game had been over for a long time. Chicago led New England, 37–3.

With the ball at New England's 1–yard line and what amounted to a five–touchdown lead, the Bears were imposing their will. But instead of calling for quarterback Jim McMahon to give it to Payton, coach Mike Ditka chose to go with the novelty act he had unveiled earlier in the season in a Monday night game — in which 300–pound defensive lineman William "The Refrigerator" Perry came in, took the handoff and made his roly–poly way into the end zone.

For a time there in the mid–1980s, the "Fridge," as he was known, became something of a cult hero.

But not to me.

I felt it was shameful that someone like Payton was denied the satisfaction of finally scoring in a Super Bowl. His team was about to do something no team had done before — exceed 40 points in a Super Bowl — and Payton's touchdown would have been the one that made that a reality.

Ditka told a Payton biographer that Payton was the greatest football player he ever saw but an even better human being.

It was too bad he didn't give him the ball from a yard out and let him get his name in the Super Bowl history books for doing more than averaging 2.8 yards per carry that day.

Payton achieved many things in his life, which ended far too soon. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame several years before his death. He ran for more than 100 touchdowns in his professional career, but he refused to celebrate when he scored; he just handed the ball to an official or a teammate and went back to the sideline in his quiet, low–key way.

He was over 30 when he got to the Super Bowl. He had given everything he could to help the Bears get there. He ran for more than 1,500 yards that season but stood back and allowed the others to take the credit.

There were many stars on that team, to be sure. And most of them were given their moment in the spotlight.

But not Payton.