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Elmore Strives for Social Change

Len Elmore (Photo by Gloria Son)

By Gloria Son
Maryland Newsline
Tuesday, March 5, 2002

Len Elmore, like teammate Tom McMillen, hasn’t let the end of his basketball career end his success.

Although he played for the NBA and the American Basketball Association for 10 years, and although he still holds the University of Maryland records for rebounds in a game, season and career, he wanted to do more to make a difference in the world, he says.

"I grew up in the tumultuous '60s," he said. He realized the world needed "vehicles for social change," and he wanted to make changes by practicing law.

So after playing for the Terps from 1972-74, after a run in the NBA, and after a serious knee injury, he went on to study social justice at Harvard Law School.

The 49-year-old now lives in Manhattan's West Side with his wife and two sons but also has a second home in the Columbia, Md., area.

After law school, Elmore became a prosecutor in Manhattan for three years, then made the switch to private practice.

Unsurprisingly, he was approached to start calling games while in law school. He continued to be a television commentator for various networks and is now an ESPN commentator, a public speaker and a columnist for "Sports Business Journal."

One of the reasons fans still hound him is because of his rebounding feats. He is the only player in Maryland history with more than 1,000 career rebounds, at 1,053. (Current center Lonny Baxter, however, is approaching that mark, with 929 career rebounds heading into the team’s final regular-season game against the University of Virginia.)

Elmore, a three-time member of the All-ACC team, spent 10 seasons with the Pacers, Kansas City Kings, Milwaukee Bucks, New Jersey Nets and New York Knicks.

But he says the only ball-playing he has time for now is with his kids.

Among the jobs and duties he still juggles is as president and CEO of TestU, a customized online learning tutorial company that helps students prepare for standardized tests and college admissions. He hopes to "democratize" the education and athletic system, he says.

He writes on the TestU site: "Web-based learning solutions can level the playing field of academic achievement. ... Equal access to quality tutorial and remedial resources is critical if no child is to be left behind."

His immediate goals are to make TestU successful and, he says, "to help his own children achieve their goals by providing them with the opportunities I had and then some."

Copyright © 2002 University of Maryland College of Journalism
Graphics by Nicole M. Richardson