Never Too Yng to Die

Bias, a basketball star at the University of Maryland, was drafted by the Boston Celtics of the NBA in 1986; within a day, he was dead of a cocaine overdose. His death was followed by an attempted cover-up by university officials and the revelation that little was demanded academically of athletes at the school. Cole, who teaches screenwriting at Columbia and has written two books on basketball, here covers the Bias case, frequently attempting to create drama where none existed. The book, however, takes on significance as the author probes social structure and racism. He focuses on conditions in Washington, D.C., where the Bias family lived in an outlying suburb, and at the nearby College Park campus of the University of Maryland, tracing the history of cocaine and crack to show how drugs are undermining the black community. (Oct.)