An Empty Dream

By Tom Callahan

One day he was drafted No. 1 by the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association, what he called a "dream within a dream." The next day he made a lavish deal to wear Reebok shoes. On the third day, he died. No dream is emptier than death at 22, but the cruel death last week of Len Bias, the All- America from Maryland, got crueler. Cocaine was implied, maybe an experimental first taste. Friends considered even that unthinkable, but if the substance found in his car and system was cocaine, then in some dazzling order more rapid than a heartbeat, Bias must have experienced all the shades of an athlete's life in a few hours, when his chest exploded.

Olympic volleyball star Flo Hyman's death last year from Marfan's syndrome was kinder. No recriminations followed. In strictly athletic terms, the loss of Bias to the N.B.A. recalls the poignant professional football career of Syracuse Running Back Ernie Davis, the first black Heisman Trophy winner, who during the early '60s learned the Cleveland playbook while fighting leukemia and died at 23 before the first down.

"I look at it this way," Celtics President Red Auerbach said gently, "Len Bias achieved two of his goals, to be drafted high and by the Celtics." Saying Bias will "always be a member of the Celtics," Auerbach delivered the unused jersey No. 30 to the family. "Bias had a natural ability that would have made him a consummate Celtic . . . The picture of health, the perfect athlete, 6 ft. 8 in. in his stocking feet . . . The best college player in America . . . One of the most happy people you'd ever want to see . . . He could jump through the roof." Like picks 1 through 17 in last week's draft, Bias was black. It is such a specious dream, to become a professional star and achieve unlimited wealth ("I'd like to buy a Mercedes," Bias declared first off in Boston). The thought of a young man dribbling almost all the way there and dropping dead is too bitter. If he killed himself, it is unbearable.