30 Years in 30 Days: Day 22- That time Len Bias played Reggie Lewis



If you think I’m making this one up, well I just couldn’t.  See this actually took place on November 23, 1985.  Here’s the boxscore for proof:





Take a look at the top picture above.  It's like God himself decided to tease us with what the future would look like.  Dark, ominous fading in the corners of the photo and all.  Bias & Lewis.  Lewis & Bias.  It’s November 23, 1985 opening night of the college hoops season and that’s the Celtics future star tandem together.  But what about being there?  What if you were #30 on Northeastern right there defending Lenny's shot?  What’s going on in his mind?

Gerry Corcoran was the center for the Northeastern Huskies that year.  He himself was drafted by the Celtics at the end of the 1987 draft. He was a teammate of Reggie and actually defended Len for parts of that night, the only time he faced off against the All-American.  He shared a memorable story with CelticsLife:

Late in the game, before Lenny fouled out, coach Jim Calhoun called a timeout.  As the guys were going to the bench Jim approaches me, unbeknownst to the rest of our team, and says ‘I want you covering Bias, I want you to faceguard him and don’t let him catch the ball.’
So as we step back on the floor, Lenny takes me out to the wing and I’m in full denial and our assistant coach Karl Fogel is screaming at me to get off him. Now realize this was explicitly after Calhoun had told me to do this.  In the split-second I tried to yell back to Fogel that those were in fact Calhoun’s instructions, there’s (Maryland guard) Keith Gatlin throwing the backdoor lob pass to Bias.  'I took my eye off him for a tenth of a second and the next thing I see is Lenny flying in for the dunk.'
Maryland's Tom Jones' to the left of Bias & Corcoran

Gerry had played against a lot of top players in college during this time.  During his stellar career he faced off against Brad Sellers, Dennis Hopson, Michael Adams, Ken Norman, Anthony Bowie, Stacey King, Lionel Simmons, Tim Legler, Blue Edwards, Sherman Douglas, Rony Seikaly, Derrick Coleman, Pervis Ellison, Brad Lohaus, Roy Marble and Kevin Gamble, all future NBA players.  But Lenny was the best to him:

Lenny Bias to me was the closest thing to rival Michael Jordan.  To be on the floor that night and have the chance to play against him was not only a dream come true but allowed me to see basketball and athleticism at its ultimate.

As I mentioned, Gerry was drafted by the Celtics in 1987 and even had an impressive showing at one of the training camp sessions.  Red Auerbach was there with Fogel (who wound up replacing Calhoun as head coach at Northeastern) and after one specific play, Red turns to Fogel and says “Why didn’t you use this @✴# =ing kid at Northeastern?”

Nicely done, Gerry.


22 Seasons Before: 1964-65, Celtics win NBA championship
22 Seasons After: 2007-08, Celtics win NBA championship