CLINTON, Md. — She had lost two sons: One son — a promising University of Maryland basketball player — to drugs and another to gun violence.
But instead of crumbling under the weight of grief, Lonise Bias became a towering source of strength and courage to thousands of families. And recently, she shared her story with a gymnasium full of middle school boys in Clinton, Maryland.
“Listen up!” William Blake, principal of Stephen Decatur Middle School, called out above the din of adolescents. For a special event, “Men Making a Difference Day,” he introduced Bias, explaining, “We have a female … and her name is Dr. Bias. Because of people like Dr. Bias, young men are changing their lives.”
Pacing before the middle schoolers, Bias told them, “You young men are our nation’s greatest natural resource.”
Her oldest son, Len Bias, was a University of Maryland basketball standout, the No. 2 NBA draft pick who was scooped up by the Boston Celtics in the spring of 1986. Days after that announcement, he was dead — after a night of partying. The autopsy would reveal he suffered a cardiac arrest triggered by a cocaine overdose.
Then, in 1990, Jay Bias, Len’s younger brother, was shot to death in a Prince George’s County shopping mall parking lot.
But it’s likely that few of the middle school boys here knew any of that; they just knew this imposing woman with the booming voice was telling them that greatness lies in each and every last one of them. Within seven minutes, she transformed a gym full of antsy, distracted middle school boys into attentive young men.
Afterward, she explained that it wasn’t uncommon for her to walk into a noisy school assembly and have students fall silent, giving her every ounce of their attention. She chalks it up to the passion she brings to every encounter: “Love is my motivation. I truly love them like they’re my own sons.”
Bias, who’s been a life coach and motivational speaker for decades now, urges young people to move forward in life, not to let others hold them back and to find the courage that exists inside themselves.
And that last point, she explained, was somewhat ironic: ”I had my own self as an example. That’s how it came to me — when Len first died and I was asked to speak, I was terrified!”
That fear is long gone: Bias radiated confidence and embraced the future in the form of the young people before her.
“I believe that our young people in the United States of America are reachable, teachable, lovable and savable,” she continued. “We must change our approach in adapting to their needs.”
Noting that it’s her losses that brought her to the work she does now, Bias said, “Me having to bury two sons — their lives were not lost in vain.”
