A sports blog by and for Midwest Sports Fans
What if I told you . . .
Those four words tell you all you need to know. Those four words have been the opening sequence for one the best documentary film series of all time.
ESPN’s 30 for 30 is a documentary film series in which filmmakers take a look back at some of the biggest events in sports over the past 30 years.
I have enjoyed just about every 30 or 30 film, and it’s not going to be easy limiting this list to only ten entries, but enough chit-chat; let’s start the list.
“From my perspective, he saved a lot of our lives. Plain and simple.”
These were the final words of Without Bias, ESPN’s latest documentary in its superb 30 for 30 series. It is impossible to know for how many people specifically that lines applies, but to put it in the hundreds of thousands probably would not be an overstatement.
The hour long film, which premiered tonight and was directed by Kirk Fraser, chronicles the life and death of Len Bias, who passed away 23 years ago when I was only four years old, but whose legacy lives on in perpetuity…today and beyond.
There were some aspects of the story that I did not know before watching it tonight, most notably that Bias had done cocaine before the night he died and that his brother Jay died four years later. Despite these surprises, the familiar feeling and lessons of the Bias story remained true and as strong as ever:
