![]() And I'm like, 'Oh, come on, I gotta deal with this stuff today?'" I need to talk to you.' I said, 'Dude, I'm late for practice.' And he said, 'I just want to let you know that I'm your father.' "I was driving in the gate to the Berto Center and this black guy runs up to my truck and says, 'I need to talk to you. "We were playing the Utah Jazz, and I was late to practice - yep, me, late to practice," he says. Rodman says Philander appeared at the practice facility before a shootaround on game day. His father was forgotten, an apparition, until one night in 1997, when Rodman was playing for the Chicago Bulls. He was an improbable success story, but it was complicated, always complicated, because those emotions were so close to the surface.īy the time he was drafted by the Detroit Pistons with the 27th pick of the 1986 draft, he was estranged from his mother. He landed in a summer league and was eventually discovered by Southeast Oklahoma, where he became a three-time All-American despite persistent racial slurs in a community that was hesitant to embrace an African-American supernova. His growth spurt transformed him from a scrawny 5-foot-6 wannabe to a 6-foot-8 gazelle who could dunk. I never cried about my sisters and my mother, my so-called father or any one of my relatives I never knew about. He bummed hand-me-downs from friends, found comfort as an interloper in their families. He played basketball all day, growing so fast his clothes ripped apart. ![]() This was his existence, on and off, for nearly two years. Or I go to the 7-Eleven, try to fold boxes, throw bottles away, stuff like that, for five bucks a day." "Every day when I wake up, I go to the car wash, try to make some extra money. He said, 'You can stay in the backyard, on the couch.' I left the house and I just sat on the steps down at the apartment complex with nowhere to go. I had, like, a garbage bag full of clothes. When he graduated, Shirley laid down an ultimatum: Find a job - or a new place to live. His sisters excelled as basketball stars while he foundered, cut from the high school football team and overlooked as a basketball prospect. "I thought I'd be a drug dealer or be dead. "I thought I would be in jail," Rodman explains. He was lonely and frightened of what the future held. They were poor, his mother worked multiple jobs to support them, and he was left to fend for himself, bullied by the boys in the neighborhood. He was painfully shy, clung to his mother's shirt as a small boy, dutifully following his older sisters wherever they roamed. Rodman grew up in the projects in Dallas with his sisters, Debra and Kim, and his mother, Shirley. "I want to," he tells ESPN as he wipes away tears, which commence the moment he attempts to discuss his children. Yet DJ and Trinity (born 20, respectively) and Rodman's oldest daughter, Alexis, from his first marriage (born 1988) also have largely grown up without their father. abandoned Dennis when he was 3 years old and didn't resurface until his son was an NBA star. He says he longs to be the father he never had. ![]() But when he contemplates visiting them, connecting with them, it paralyzes him. Women's U-20 team, and his son, DJ, who plays basketball at Washington State. Rodman tells me he lives 10 miles away from Trinity, an elite high school soccer star who trains with the U.S. Live in Downtown Los Angeles, to discuss the new 30 for 30 ESPN documentary titled "Dennis Rodman: For Better or Worse," which lays bare the struggles of one of the most talented and enigmatic stars in the game's history.īut before he arrives, he is unnerved by a call from ex-wife Michelle Moyer, who informs Rodman that his teenage daughter, Trinity, wants to see him. ![]() ![]() Back then, he was just a clean-cut kid in jeans and sneakers who never took a drink and was so overcome by the magnitude of his accomplishment, he could not speak without sobbing.ĭennis Rodman grapples with many things these days, particularly his purpose in life now that his basketball highlights are long behind him. Surely you remember his news conference in 1990, when he was introduced as the NBA's Defensive Player of Year. But before long, the emotions flow, because once you cut through the histrionics and the antics and the bravado and the piercings, the overwhelming characteristic of this iconic basketball savant has always been his vulnerability. He arrives at this interview cloaked behind rose-colored sunglasses, which serviceably mask his tear-streaked cheeks and his red, swollen eyes. LOS ANGELES - Dennis Rodman has been crying. Dennis Rodman turns 59 years old on Wednesday. The complicated evolution of Dennis RodmanĮditor's note: This story was originally published on Sept. You have reached a degraded version of because you're using an unsupported version of Internet Explorer.įor a complete experience, please upgrade or use a supported browser ![]()
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