Reggie Lewis

It is all but unimaginable that a non-competitive, off-season shoot-around could kill a basketball All-Star, a man who had played in hundreds of pressure-packed contests in high school, college and six years in the pros. But, in fact, it is not impossible. It happened to Reggie Lewis of Baltimore Tuesday night.Here's a man who had been playing basketball for most of his 27 years, and at the highest levels.He didn't just play on a routinely great Dunbar High team; he played on possibly the greatest prep team of all time, the only one to have three of its players selected in the first round of the professional basketball draft.

Orlando "Bino" Ranson unpacks his gear -- the thick NCAA manual, the Under Armour shoeboxes, the wood-framed pictures of his former players that will adorn the red and white walls of his new workspace. As he moves his supplies into the men's basketball suite at Comcast Center, Maryland's newest assistant coach can't help but be reminded of a period long before he had a well-appointed office with a black leather chair. The photos and files he is unloading tell the story. It was March 2002.

In a year that has seen the loss of, among others, Arthur Ashe and Davey Allison, the inevitable unanswerable question becomes: "Why do such bad things happen to such good people?" Reggie Lewis was a very good person.Reggie died as captain of the Celtics, the leader and take-charge player on the NBA's proudest franchise. These achievements are all the more impressive due to the obstacles that Reggie quietly and persistently dodged along the way.Reggie came into the NBA along with his more highly regarded high school teammates -- Reggie Williams, Muggsy Bogues and David Wingate.

MINNEAPOLIS -- Kevin Garnett's mantelpiece, likely already loaded with plaques and trophies, might get more crowded since he has won NBA Western Conference Player of the Month the past two months. And the early thought is that he'll need to clear more space for the league Most Valuable Player trophy at season's end. But Garnett would rather get some jewelry for himself -- beyond the diamond earring he wears -- and for his Minnesota Timberwolves teammates, and he feels closer to it than ever before.

Before today's memorial service at Dunbar High for Reggi Lewis, family members will lead a motorcade from his family's home, through his old East Baltimore neighborhood to Dunbar for the 1 p.m. service.The motorcade will begin at 11:45 a.m. at the intersection of Loch Raven Boulevard and Gleneagle Road in Northeast Baltimore. After proceeding past two of the family's previous homes -- on Oliver Street and Hoffman Street -- the family will stop at the basketball court Lewis refurbished behind Collington Square Elementary School.

News of Reggie Lewis' death shocked even people who never saw him play or followed his exploits on the sports pages. The former Dunbar High basketball player and captain of the vaunted Boston Celtics collapsed and died while leisurely shooting baskets on Tuesday.His premature death at age 27, apparently from a heart abnormality, taps the kind of head-shaking dread people felt when they learned that basketball superstar Earvin "Magic" Johnson had AIDS, or that Maryland basketball All-American Len Bias had died of a drug overdose, or that runner Jim Fixx had dropped dead, or more recently, when death-defying auto racer Davey Allison perished in a helicopter crash.

If Reggie wasn't black, nobody would have raised the issue of drugs.That is the politically correct threat that often makes us back away. That's what Reggie Lewis' family and friends said after he collapsed on a Brandeis basketball court and died. It was what Celtics owner Paul Gaston said yesterday when he announced plans to sue the Wall Street Journal for $100 million."Racist," Gaston replied to a question about the Journal's motivation for exploring the possibility that cocaine abuse contributed to Lewis' death.

So now, with Reggie Lewis two years under the earth, we're informed that the East Baltimore kid who went on to star for the Boston Celtics died not of natural heart failure but of reckless stupidity, which is the act of having a dream life and yet still finding it so wanting that various dangerous substances are abused to make life even dreamier.Would Reggie Lewis do such a thing? His wife says no, but she has a legacy to keep alive. His old team's executives say no, but they had a public relations nightmare on their hands and a $15 million insurance policy slipping through their fingers.

Something went down. Something went wrong.That's what Inez "Peggy" Ritch said last August about the death of her son.And that's what the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday, suggesting that cocaine was one reason Reggie Lewis died, and that Lewis' widow and the Boston Celtics stood to lose if the secret ever got out.If this isn't the truth -- and Ritch doesn't believe it herself -- then what is?Even after this story, especially after this story, the central question remains unanswered.

Reginald Lewis was living on Dallas Street, a narrow, unpaved little East Baltimore block more like an alley than an avenue, when he uttered the line that would turn into a book title.He was 6 years old. His grandparents were bathing him that night in 1949, and worrying out loud about the future of a black child coming from no money, in a segregated city, in a nation that had barely begun to confront its racial problems."Well, maybe it'll be different for him," one of the grandparents said, and then looked down at Reggie and asked him wistfully, "Well, is it going to be any different for you?"

One of the nation's most storied high school basketball programs, that of Dunbar, will go all out July 20 to showcase much of the talent that led the school to national championships in the early 1980s and early 1990s. The main event of a daylong basketball alumni extravaganza at the school will send the 1982-83 national championship team (31-0) against the 1991-92 national championship squad (29-0) at 6 p.m. The 1982-83 team produced three first-round NBA draft choices (Reggie Williams, Muggsy Bogues and Reggie Lewis)

Other kids might have dreamed of being like Mike, but Juan wanted to be like Reggie, the neighborhood kid who went on to Boston Celtics fame. And now Jamal wants to be like Juan. The University of Maryland's celebrated shooting guard, Juan Dixon, is a big part of the reason young basketball players run drills in a little cinder-block gym at Cecil-Kirk Recreation Center. Dixon, who led the Terrapins to their first national championship Monday in Atlanta, got his start playing on the same polished hardwood where seventh-grade shooting guard Jamal Hood practiced yesterday.

BasketballNortheastern probe found no evidence Lewis used drugsAn internal Northeastern University investigation turned over in a court battle over the sudden death of Boston Celtics star and Dunbar alumnus Reggie Lewis found no evidence that he used cocaine in college.In a motion filed in the medical malpractice case, lawyers for Lewis' estate said "every credible witness with personal knowledge states unequivocally before the Northeastern Commission that Reggie Lewis never used cocaine."

Claudy Paul never could have foreseen the feeling of empowerment that would eventually replace the raw sting of what he was hearing one afternoon on his way home from school.As a black freshman at mostly white Charlestown High School in Boston, Claudy was not entirely naive about certain things that might be said. But he was also quite popular, the vibrant and determined vice president of his class, and never before had anyone been so blatant, so hurtful, about the color of his skin.It happened at the bus stop when Claudy interrupted the conversation of a schoolmate, an older white guy, to tell him that his bus was approaching.

Derrick Lewis spent three days last week in an expensive Baltimore hotel room paid for by the Wall Street Journal for security reasons, Lewis and a spokesman for the newspaper confirmed yesterday.Lewis told the Journal he had been threatened last week and feared retaliation once the paper published its story March 20 that reported that Lewis said former Boston Celtics and Dunbar High standout Reggie Lewis had used cocaine.Derrick Lewis, no relation to Reggie Lewis or the Derrick Lewis who played at the University of Maryland, entered the hotel the evening of Sunday, March 19.A day after the Journal article appeared, the Boston Globe quoted Derrick Lewis as saying that Reggie Lewis and the late Maryland star Len Bias had used cocaine together.

BOSTON -- For one night at least, Reggie Lewis was left to rest in peace.Celtics fans flocked to the Boston Garden last night for a piece of team history. The sellout crowd paid homage to the Baltimore native who owned a soft smile and a silky jump shot. It also voiced its displeasure whenever the rocky moments of the last few weeks were mentioned.From the moment festivities began, the Reggie Lewis love fest was in full swing. Chants of "Reg-gie, Reg-gie," rang out numerous times. Only signs of support for the former team captain made their way into the old barn.

More than a year later, Inez "Peggy" Ritch can't let go.Her Northeast Baltimore home is full of memories -- framed photographs, award certificates, handsome trophies. Mementoes of her son, Reggie Lewis, the basketball star.Reggie Lewis, who died on July 27, 1993, at the age of 27."It's been difficult," Ritch says. "I'm trying to adjust to this. People tell you, 'Give it to the Lord, pray.' I do. But evidently, I must not have done it. It's still with me."Every day, I close my eyes to sleep.

The mother of Reggie Lewis recalls the conversation vividly."I stake my reputation on this," Dr. Gilbert H. Mudge Jr. said.It was the day before Mother's Day in 1993. Inez "Peggy" Ritch and several other of Lewis' relatives from Baltimore were visiting him at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.Lewis seemed delighted with his latest diagnosis -- Mudge said he was suffering from a fainting condition, nothing more. Ritch recalls his riding a stationary bicycle in the hospital and joking about a TV report that said he would undergo surgery to receive a pacemaker.

BOSTON -- The mayor of Boston answered phones. So did Red Sox slugger Mo Vaughn. So did former Celtics great Larry Bird.The video tributes rolled, the donations poured in and Reggie Lewis' widow received a standing ovation.Derrick Lewis?Never heard of him.The Wall Street Journal?Bite your tongue.The telethon went on. The retiring of Lewis' jersey will go on. Donna Harris-Lewis and the Celtics will simply ignore the furor, the way they did before.By now, the routine is familiar -- stay calm, disregard the evidence, ride out the storm.

Derrick Lewis yesterday denied telling two newspapers that former Boston Celtics and Dunbar High basketball standout Reggie Lewis was a cocaine user, saying his statements were exaggerated and taken out of context.A nervous Lewis, often burying his head in his hands while speaking, did say that Reggie Lewis had told him he tested positive for cocaine in 1987 while at Northeastern. Reggie Lewis reportedly was retested several days later, and tested negative.Reggie Lewis was captain of the Celtics when he collapsed and died of a heart ailment while shooting baskets in July 1993.