Note: This is an edited and updated account first published for the 30th anniversary of Len Bias’s death.

The newsroom phones rang constantly from 5:00 p.m. until after 2:00 the next morning. Bill Rayment was among those answering the many calls. Rayment, one of the nicest people working in television, took a lot of abuse from angry viewers. Not the normal role of the 11:00 p.m. newscast director, but the swamped assignment desk needed help. The callers were outraged. They told us we were wrong. They weren’t alone. There was also criticism from inside the news business. One of the top sportscasters in the country blasted us that night. He said it was “too soon.”

What journalistic sin had we committed? We shared an uncomfortable truth about the sudden death of a revered young athlete.

On the same day college basketball star Len Bias died, I was the first to report the 22-year-old Bias used cocaine in the hours before his death. Two days earlier, Bias was drafted by the Boston Celtics. My reporting, along with the work of my colleagues at Channel 9 in Washington (then WDVM-TV, now WUSA-TV) was accurate.  Cardiac arrhythmia caused by cocaine was later listed as the cause of death for the University of Maryland athlete. In 1986, this was not news people were prepared to hear – especially the local fans of Len Bias and the Maryland Terrapins.

In the days that followed, death threats arrived by mail. I’d only been a TV news reporter for 10 months, and the viewers already wanted me dead. It wasn’t like today when journalists are constantly criticized and subject to frequent and instant threats through social media. In the mid-1980s, it took a little more effort and thought. One person sent a legal-sized manila envelope. It was addressed to me. Inside was a silhouette target, complete with curly hair, multiple bullet holes from at least two different weapons, and a message that said: “Go Terps”.

It is now 40 years since Len Bias’s death. This is my account of June 19^th, 1986.

Wake-up call

The phone rang around 6:45 a.m. that Thursday morning. I was in a deep sleep. Picking up the receiver, I heard a familiar voice. “Dave, they just took Len Bias to Leland in cardiac arrest.” I heard the words, but I’m not sure they registered in my foggy brain. I managed to say, “Huh?’

“They just took Len Bias by ambulance to Leland. He’s in cardiac arrest.” Now, I was awake.

The person calling was a friend I first met a decade earlier when I was a volunteer firefighter and fire and EMS dispatcher in Prince George’s County, Maryland. I don’t follow college basketball, but I knew Len Bias. It was hard to escape his name if you lived in the Washington area. Walking through the newsroom a day earlier, I had seen Bias all over the TV screens, and even I knew of his big news. I said to my early morning caller, “Didn’t he just get drafted by the Celtics?” The answer, of course, was “Yes”.

My friend had never steered me wrong with a news tip. But this was so startling I didn’t know whether to believe him. I momentarily worried he might have heard a bad firehouse rumor. I wanted confirmation.

The phone number for Prince George’s Fire Department Communications wasn’t one I had to look up. I knew it as well as my own number. I used to work there. Linda Hash answered. She was a former colleague. Knowing it was a recorded line, I didn’t identify myself. All I asked was, “Linda, is it true?”

I knew Linda would recognize my voice. Linda answered, “Yes.” She immediately hung up. It was a few years later that I learned that simple “yes” got Linda into some trouble. She wasn’t supposed to talk to the news media.

Channel 9’s morning assignment editor Doug Edwards was the next person to hear my voice. Despite his initial disbelief, Doug got the wheels moving. A live truck was being rerouted to Leland Hospital. I would meet it there.

Doug’s next move had a significant impact on the day’s events. He called the home of one of our sports anchors. James Brown was a former star basketball player at Harvard. The same James Brown, whose stellar TV career has taken him to FOX and CBS. JB’s first call was to the legendary Red Auerbach, then the president of the Celtics. Auerbach was hearing the news for the first time from JB. Until that call, no one connected to the Celtics knew that doctors were desperately trying to save the life of Len Bias.

Leland Hospital

Len Bias was in cardiac arrest. This meant the EMS took him to the nearest hospital emergency department. In this case, the ambulance only had to go a mile and a half south of the University of Maryland campus to Leland Hospital. Leland has been out of business since 1993. In 1986, it was a 120-bed facility at Baltimore Avenue and Queensbury Road. The hospital had treated many Maryland students for a variety of ailments and injuries. This time it was different.

We were the only news crew at Leland. Other news organizations didn’t learn Len Bias had been hospitalized until our first report. If this occurred today, the news would play out very differently. Someone would likely have shot cell phone video of medics rushing Bias out of his dormitory. It would be all over Instagram, X, and TikTok before the source who woke me even thought about calling.

There can be uncomfortable moments when you scoop the competition with a significant story. Doubts emerge. There’s that little voice in the back of your head saying the reason no one else is reporting the story is that it’s not true. When I got to Leland, no one at the hospital confirmed Bias was there, let alone in cardiac arrest. But there was one big clue. Outside the emergency room were several extremely tall men. They were young. They were distressed. Some were crying. They didn’t want to talk to me.

Doug Edwards knew my college basketball knowledge was limited. He made another wise move. Doug sent production assistant Mike Bratton to Leland. Mike was a 1981 Maryland graduate. In fact, Mike was the only one in the newsroom who had heard of Leland Hospital. By the time I got there, Mike had already identified the players outside the ER.

More reporters and cameras were descending on Leland. The official confirmation came just after 9:00 a.m. Len Bias was dead. It was not a surprise. We had seen the wave of grief moments earlier outside the emergency department as Bias’s teammates and friends were told. They hugged. They cried. Some banged on the brick wall with their hands. It was tough to watch.

The most haunting moment of the morning was still to come. It’s the image I always think of when Len Bias is mentioned. I stood alongside videographer Kline Mengle. A gurney was wheeled through the doors of the ER to a waiting morgue wagon. The length of the body under the sheet was hard to ignore. Len Bias was six feet-eight inches tall. Chilling.

Reporters are impatient. We want to know things now. And right now, each of us wanted to know what killed Len Bias. The doctor who worked on Bias said he suffered “cardiorespiratory arrest”. That didn’t explain why a seemingly healthy 22-year-old athlete in top condition suddenly stopped breathing, and his heart stopped beating. Despite our impatience, none of us asked about illegal drugs. We didn’t give it a thought. Even as we talked among ourselves outside the hospital, there was no speculation about drugs.

JB: ‘They were doing cocaine’

The body of Len Bias was on the move to the medical examiner’s office in Baltimore. We were moving too. Our next live location was Washington Hall on the Maryland campus. This was the basketball team’s dorm. It’s where firefighters and medics found Bias in cardiac arrest. James Brown and a sports department photographer met us there.

As I finished the first of two noon live shots, I was told by the crew to call the assignment desk immediately. It turned out to be one of the most significant calls of the day. The desk said one of my friends urgently needed to talk with me about Len Bias. It didn’t make sense. I couldn’t imagine this person’s connection to Bias.

My friend answered immediately. He told me lab tests at the hospital showed evidence of cocaine in Bias’s bloodstream. That was as shocking as the call that woke me six hours earlier. He then explained how he knew this. It made sense. To share why my friend had this information would identify him. The source, now dead, made it clear through the years I should never name him or his involvement in the story — even after he was gone. When I hung up, I immediately called the one person I knew who could help me verify the information.

Few TV reporters anywhere were as good as Mike Buchanan. Mike had phenomenal sources. And he knew how to tell a story. Mike was the first to learn John Hinckley shot President Ronald Reagan to impress actress Jodie Foster. Mike was also the guy who convinced WDVM-TV news director Dave Pearce to hire me. Mike helped start the careers of many young television journalists, including Connie Chung. Sadly, he passed away in 2020 at age 78.

As I was calling Mike, he was trying to call me. It was for the same reason. Mike also knew about the cocaine. His information came from a police source.

Finishing the call with Mike, I walked over to JB. He was standing near the sidewalk leading to Washington Hall. I shared the news about the cocaine. Without him saying a word, JB’s reaction was quite visible. His shoulders tensed. His face tightened. His anger grew. Unlike me, JB knew Len Bias. This was extremely personal.

JB stared at me in silence for a few more seconds before he turned and walked away. At first, I thought JB might be mad at me for even suggesting such a thing or was possibly walking off the shock of the news. Moments later, I spotted JB. He was near the entrance to Washington Hall talking with some of Bias’s teammates. JB soon returned and had only one thing to say: “They were doing cocaine.”

It says a lot that JB got the information almost instantly. We would soon learn that some members of the team weren’t as candid with police officers investigating Bias’s death.

‘I hope Dave’s right, or he will soon be living back home’

We had three independent sources on the cocaine. The sources didn’t know each other. Each had a reason to know the information. Today, many news organizations wouldn’t hesitate to share this scoop instantly on social media, post it on their website, and break into programming with a special report. The world was just a little slower in 1986.

While the special report was clearly an option, Dave Pearce wanted to know a lot more before connecting Len Bias’s name with cocaine. Pearce knew the implications of getting a major story wrong. Not long before I was hired, he had to go on the air to apologize for substantial errors in an investigative reporter’s story about funding for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. That reporter was fired.

Mike Buchanan and I met Pearce in his office at Channel 9’s Broadcast House in the mid-afternoon. I explained how I got my information and told him what JB learned from players. Buchanan briefed Pearce on his conversations with Prince George’s County Police detectives.

It didn’t take long for a decision. The cocaine angle would lead the 5:00 p.m. newscast. The only question left from Pearce was, “Which one of you will do the 5:00 story?” Buchanan, one of the most generous people I’ve worked with, didn’t hesitate. He said, “Dave will.”

At 5:00 p.m., I was on the air with the news. We were the only news organization connecting the death of Len Bias and cocaine. That’s when the phones started ringing. Our viewers were angry. It’s not what they wanted to hear from us at that moment.

All news WTOP Radio, where I had worked for almost four years, picked up our story minutes later. Instead of just attributing the news to Channel 9, they went a step further: “Channel 9’s Dave Statter is reporting there was cocaine in Len Bias’s bloodstream when he died.”

My late father always listened to WTOP on his drive home from work in Baltimore. He heard that initial report. He later told me his reaction. Ed Statter said to himself, “I hope Dave’s right, or he will soon be living back home.”

Buchanan’s 11:00 report

It was 10:15 p.m. Mike Buchanan summoned me to his desk near mine in the newsroom. Freshly pulled from his typewriter, Buchanan handed over a copy of the script for his 11:00 report. While I returned to the Maryland campus for a few hours, Mike never left his desk after the early newscasts. I looked at the thin carbon paper and was surprised by what I read. The story provided great insight into what happened inside Washington Hall prior to Bias collapsing. The story talked about a mound of cocaine and Bias saying, “I’m a horse. I can take it.”

I think my words were something like, “Really Buck?” While I may have been a little skeptical that a reporter could gather so much inside information this early, Buchanan was confident. He learned these details from phone calls to law enforcement sources and others. When that story hit the air 45 minutes later, callers to the station were even angrier.

I kept a copy of that script. Months down the road, we learned that every bit of Mike Buchanan’s story on the night of June 19^th was accurate. All of it came out during the trial of Bias’s friend Brian Tribble. Tribble was accused and eventually acquitted on charges related to providing the cocaine that killed Bias.

Still, the accuracy of Buchanan’s scoop or my initial report didn’t matter to the hundreds of people calling to complain. Driving from Channel 9 to join Buchanan for a drink at a bar a few blocks from the station, I learned those same complaints were being voiced very publicly.

‘You’re next on Sports Call’

Mike called me from his car on the station two-way radio. He said to turn on 630 AM WMAL. The voices were instantly recognizable. Channel 4 sports director George Michael was talking with “Sports Call” host Ken Beatrice. Of course, there was only one sports item discussed that night. At that moment, they weren’t focusing on Len Bias’s career or the tragedy of his death. They were talking about us. They were critical of the way Channel 9 covered the Bias story. Michael, of “Sports Machine” fame, was very clear. He thought we were irresponsible for reporting the cocaine use. Michael said it was “too soon.”

Mike Buchanan was an easy-going guy. He used to tell me he showed anger at work only about once a year. He always saved it for something important. Buck figured by rationing displays of anger, people paid attention the few times he made a scene. When I heard his voice on the two-way, I could tell he was hot. Buck barked, “Get me on that program!”

I quickly reached the producer of Ken Beatrice’s show. He told us to come by right away because there wasn’t much time left in the show. The studio is just a block from Chadwicks, the bar we were initially heading toward. We were on the air with Beatrice within a few minutes.

Buchanan did most of the talking. He gave a great defense of journalism. He explained why we reported Bias had used cocaine. In various ways, Buchanan and I asked Beatrice – both on and off the air – if this was “too soon”, when was a good time to share the information? We wanted him to provide a compelling reason for journalists to hide or censor key facts of such an important story.

I’m not sure we got a good answer or that we convinced Beatrice, Michael or anyone else our journalistic standards should trump their feelings. We were told we were disrespecting the memory of a revered sports figure.

2026

So much has changed in 40 years. Today, as soon as we learn that someone in entertainment or sports is ill or has died unexpectedly, we aren’t surprised to quickly hear a report that drugs or something else illegal were involved.

The image of journalists has taken a nosedive in the past three decades. People love to hate and blame the news media. The complaints today are much different than they were on June 19^th, 1986. The anger now is often directed toward news coverage that doesn’t support a specific political agenda.

In 1986, people didn’t want to hear the bad news about Len Bias. They were angry at those who dared to tell the truth, so soon. Their motivation could be described as compassionate. Minus the death threats, it came from a good place compared to our almost universal thought process today. Now, the public seems to hunger for the scandalous, and they expect that information to pop up instantly on their smartphones.

There is little today that shocks us. We’ve heard the scandals about countless fallen celebrities and star athletes. Such news, moments after a celebrity’s death, fuels our instant opinions and even our own “facts”. We then immediately share the news on social media, often providing our own commentary. Sometimes, that news comes so fast and with so little checking that we soon find out the celebrity is still alive and well. When our information moves at the speed of light, it’s often difficult to properly or compassionately process what we see and hear.

When reading the toxic information flow after the sudden passing of one of our stars in their prime, I sometimes long, just a little bit, for the time when a reporter could legitimately piss us off for sharing something “too soon.”

Learn More:

One of the best accounts of the death of Len Bias is titled “1103 Washington Hall.” It’s a chapter in Michael Weinreb’s wonderful book “Bigger than the Game.” Weinreb earlier had written about Bias for ESPN.com in an article titled “The Day Innocence Died.”

Another book is “Lenny, Lefty, and the Chancellor: The Len Bias Tragedy and the Search for Reform in Big-Time College Basketball” by the late C. Fraser Smith of The Baltimore Sun.

There’s also the ESPN Films “30 for 30” documentary “Without Bias” directed by Kirk Fraser. It stands out as the first interview ever of Brian Tribble, the man acquitted after being charged with providing the cocaine that killed Bias.