Blood on the Horns

by Roland Lazenby

  Ah, the money.

  “Dennis, are you amazed at the money you’ve made?” a writer asked in 1997, reminding him that he was nearly bankrupt when he came to the Bulls in October 1995.

  “I’ve done it the old fashioned way,” he replied. “I’ve earned every penny of it, so I haven’t took anything for granted. I’ve worked my ass off for it. I wish I was like a big-time star, where it would just come to me.” He snapped his fingers with an open palm as if was pulling in dollars. “Where people would just give it to me.”

  “But you’ve done well?” he was asked.

  “I’ve done well,” he said, “but well is not good enough.”

  It was pointed out that, with the millions flowing in, he was almost secure.

  “I was secure the day I was born,” he said with a smile.

  THE SOFT PARADE

  The latest surprise Rodman had dropped on Chicago was his new downtown bar. Dennis Rodman’s Illusions opened with the idea of featuring a variety of Vegas style acts but quickly evolved into sort of a juke joint with a $10 cover. It opened in November with a private party for his friends and teammates, all of whom showed up, except for Jordan and Scottie Pippen. Even Jerry Krause and wife Thelma were there, making an appearance along with the Famous Diva Sisters, a lesbian act; Miss Nude America, who was clad in almost nothing; and eight showgirls in leopard outfits.

  “It was a typical wild Dennis scene,” said one laughing Bulls insider, noting that the Krauses made a quick exit.

  Whatever the Worm did, it was over the top. As the 1997 playoffs were set to open, Rodman had scheduled a book signing at a Miracle Mile bookstore in Chicago. He was set to arrive on a float with two live tigers and a group of gay people dressed as animals. Apparently, the book store got queasy about the deal, and the city didn’t like Rodman’s request for a parade permit. The book store management asked if Rodman couldn’t just slip in the back door for the signing to promote his book, Walk On The Wild Side.

  “Dennis does not walk in the back door,” Rodman’s manager reportedly told the book store management. It supposedly cost Rodman $50,000 alone to cancel the parade.

  Although his first book, Bad As I Wanna Be, was a runaway bestseller and was made into a TV movie, his Wild Side title made a quick turn toward miserable failure. The same fate seemed to await his ex-wife’s book, Worse Than He Says He Is, or White Girls Don’t Bounce. Rodman walked into a bookstore during the 1997 season and picked up a copy of his wife’s book for purchase. At the counter, he asked the clerk how many the store had sold. The clerk said it was the first of his wife’s books that someone had actually purchased. “In that case,” Rodman said, “I’ll put it back. I don’t want to be the first.”

  One of the Worm’s entourage later purchased it for him quietly.

  Many athletes will go to great lengths to perpetuate an image, but none further than the fickle Rodman, who got a kick out of suggesting that he was super hip and even sexually conflicted, far from an “ordinary” guy.

  Surprisingly, many of the staff members around the team found Rodman to be the most likable Bull. Of the Chicago superstars, Rodman was the closest thing to a regular guy. “He doesn’t warm up quickly, but when he does, he’s a friend for life,” a Bulls insider said of the Worm.

  Jordan was nice, but he could be moody. Pippen was a good guy, too. But staff members on the team noticed the way Rodman treated the people around him. Most fans didn’t see this, of course, one Bulls staff member explained. “They don’t get past his hair.”

  Back when he was a Detroit Piston Bad Boy, one of Rodman’s favorite pastimes was hanging out with teenagers in mall game rooms (growing up in Dallas he had gotten the nickname “Worm” from his antsiness playing pinball.) He was also known for handing out big bills to the city’s many street people, and one time he reportedly took a homeless man to his house, fed him, gave him a bath and handed the wide-eyed fellow $500.

  This “giving” side was just more proof that Rodman was hardly the typical NBA player, the kind of actions that prompted former Piston teammate John Salley to say that Dennis Rodman was one of the few “real people” in the NBA. Certainly he was unlike many other NBA players in that he had not come up through the ranks of the great American basketball machine, he had not been on scholarship his entire life, wearing the best shoes and equipment and staying in fancy hotels where the meal checks were always paid. Rodman had missed all of that.

  The first child of Philander and Shirley Rodman, Dennis spent the early years of his life in New Jersey where his father served in the Air Force. Philander Rodman showed a propensity for living up to his name, so much so that finally Shirley Rodman grew tired of strange women calling the house. When Dennis was three, she packed up her family and moved it back to her native Dallas. It was there that Dennis spent his formative years, a wormy little momma’s boy who spent long hours pining for his father, which proved to be a debilitating factor throughout his childhood and adolescence.

  His two younger sisters, Debra and Kim, would become high school basketball stars and later college basketball All-Americas, but Dennis had no such luck. If his adolescence had a context, it was a shyness framed by fear and insecurity. To make matters worse, his younger sisters both grew taller than he was, leaving Dennis behind as a frail runt, the kind of guy who had to fear for his lunch money at school each day.

  In tenth grade at South Oak Cliff High School, he tried out for the football team and didn’t make the cut. Although he was only 59, basketball was a little better. He at least made the team but quit midway through the season because he never got to play. Next he tried the bass viola for a time but gave up on that, too. Like many teen boys, his self esteem was the size of his pinkie, which meant that “hangin’ out” became his activity of choice. In game and pool rooms. Fastfood parking lots. Rec centers. Anywhere a few driftless hours could be killed. It was a world that reflected his career aspirations. While his mom was an English teacher and his sisters were on the fast track, Dennis’ future prospects were limited. He figured he might be able to finish high school, get a job and maybe buy a car.

  He got a job as a valet at a local car dealership but was soon fired for taking a joy ride. He did manage to graduate from high school, yet his lack of success seemed all the more pronounced when compared with his sisters’ accomplishments. Both were high school hoops stars on their way to celebrated college careers. At 6-2, Debra would play for Louisiana Tech, and 6-foot Kim went on to excel at Stephen F. Austin.

  Dennis, meanwhile, was headed nowhere, cast into a sea of slack after high school, a series of menial day jobs and a part-time night gig mopping and sweeping up at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. It was there, on the dare of a co-worker, that he stuck a broom handle through an airport gift shop grate and stole 15 watches, which he later passed out to friends.

  Within days, he was arrested and jailed, only to confess under grilling by detectives. The charges were dropped after Rodman gave police details on how to recover the property, but not before he spent a night in jail, during which, Rodman later admitted, he was “scared shitless.”

  Ultimately, Rodman’s life would be rescued by his pituitary. He grew almost 10 inches in one amazing year, yet even that only increased his isolation. By age 20, he was almost 6-7 and had outgrown his clothes, leaving his only attire the oversized coveralls from his job washing cars. About the only place he didn’t feel like a geek was the playgrounds. Pickup basketball had become his refuge, and his height was one of his first real advantages in life.

  It was one of his sisters’ friends who got him a tryout at Cooke County Junior College in nearby Gainesville, Texas. He figured there was little hope, but the coaches jumped at the opportunity to sign an athletic big man and gave him a two-year ride right on the spot.

  He became an immediate starter at center at Cooke and averaged double figures in rebounds despite the fact t
hat he was playing organized ball for the first time in his life. It didn’t matter. College seemed so strange. He dropped out after a few months but not before catching the eye of Lonn Reisman, an assistant coach at Southeastern Oklahoma State. The college was in the tiny farming community of Bokchito, Oklahoma, population 607, several hours north of Dallas. Rodman was very skeptical of going, but then again, he had few choices.

  One of his first tasks there was serving as a counselor for the school’s summer basketball camp. Within days of his arrival, Rodman befriended 13-year-old Bryne Rich, a white camper from a nearby farm. The previous Halloween, Rich had accidentally shot and killed his best friend while quail hunting. The ensuing months had left him almost paralyzed by depression, so much so that his parents feared for his future. Then one day the next summer, Bryne came home from camp all enthused about the new counselor he had met, “The Worm,” Southeastern’s new basketball recruit.

  Bryne and Rodman formed an almost instant brotherly attachment and were well on their way to helping each other out of the shadows. Within days, Rodman was invited to dinner. Once there, he was invited to sleep over for the night, and he wound up staying three years with the Rich family, an experience detailed in the book Rebound, The Dennis Rodman Story, authored by Rodman, writer Alan Steinberg and Pat Rich, Bryne’s mother.

  On the court, Rodman became something of a force in NAIA basketball, averaging nearly 26 points and 16 rebounds over the next three seasons. He led the Southeastern Oklahoma State Savages to a district title and into contention for the NAIA national title (with young Bryne serving as an assistant manager for the team).

  That performance, in turn, led to the Pistons selecting Dennis with the 27th pick in the 1986 draft, which marked the next giant step in the amazing turnaround in Rodman’s life. As a rookie, Rodman found himself thrust into the titanic playoff struggle between Detroit and Larry Bird’s Boston Celtics, who after winning three championships over the previous six seasons, had started their trek into decline. The Celtics, however, managed to survive one last hard-fought, emotional battle with the Pistons in the 1987 playoffs. Rodman’s defense on Bird had caught the eye of keen NBA observers, and the rookie caught the rest of the basketball world’s attention when he opined afterward that Bird was overrated.

  Of course, the predominantly white media and pro hoops fan base treated Bird like an icon, but they were outraged at having a Pistons’ rookie call their hand at it. For Rodman, this iconoclastic beginning was just the first of many notices he would send. Before long, the coaches, players, fans and media involved with the NBA would get the message: He was far from the average player. In fact, the defense and rebounding of the shy young forward were key factors in the Pistons defeating the Celtics in 1988 and rising to league championship contention. The Pistons lost to the Lakers that year in seven games, with Rodman’s anguish being that he had taken an ill-advised jump shot in the closing moments of Game 6. If he had dunked, the Pistons would have been world champions. “I should have gone to the rim and torn it down,” he said afterward.

  The next season, the Pistons gained a rematch with the Lakers in the championship series, and Rodman’s defense and rebounding were a factor in Detroit’s sweep. Afterward, he stood in the din of the championship celebration in the Pistons’ locker room and talked about pinball and the natural hyperactivity that fed his hoops antsiness. “My friends knew I was hyper. Real hyper,” he said of his days growing up in Dallas. “They knew I wouldn’t settle down, I wouldn’t sleep. I’d just keep going.

  “And now I just focus my energy in something I love to do. Now, I just play basketball, go out there and have a lot of fun and enjoy.”

  Back in the netherworld of Dallas, he had worked briefly pounding fenders in an auto body shop. You could still see some of that in his game. But like any smart player with unrefined offensive skills, Rodman made his living on the offensive boards. When the Pistons had the ball, he would often back away from the lane, his hands on his hips, his eyes always on the guards working the ball on the perimeter. He watched intently, waiting to make his move, waiting to get that special little piece of position for an offensive rebound. That was his primary study, his soul’s joy of joys. Sometimes, after he had snuck in and stolen an offensive rebound, he would dribble out to the perimeter, stand there with the ball in one palm and punch the air with his other fist. He would usually do this in the Palace of Auburn Hills, the Pistons’ fancy arena, where the crowds would bathe him in warm applause, and he would stand there, soaking in the ineffable glow of limelight.

  After watching him in the 1989 Finals, Chick Hearn, the great Laker broadcaster, declared that Rodman was the best rebounder in the game. That night, after the championship, when he learned of Hearn’s assessment, the 27-year-old Rodman was stunned. “The best rebounder?” he asked, his eyes blinking in the first light of understanding. “In the game? You mean they put me in front of Oakley, Barkley, all those guys? I wouldn’t say that. I think I’m one of the best ones, one of the top 10. But I can’t be the best rebounder. I’m just in a situation where they need my rebounding here. I rebound with the best of them even though I’m not as bulky as some guys. I use my ability to jump and my quickness to get around guys.”

  It was Chuck Daly who had persuaded him to become a rebounding specialist and defender. Rodman bought into the plan and worked to make himself a marvelously versatile sub. Quick enough to stay with Michael Jordan or any other big guard/small forward in the league. Motivated enough to play power forward. Even tough enough to survive at center against much bigger bodies.

  At Daly’s suggestion, he had made this approach his mission after the 1987 Playoffs. “I just came to training camp and said, ‘Hey, I want to play defense,’” Rodman recalled. “Then the 1988 playoffs really got me going. I just told myself, ‘It’s time to start focusing on something you really want to do.’ I just feel like defense is something I really want to do.”

  He moved into the starting lineup for 1989-90 and helped the Pistons to yet another championship. From there, however, Detroit’s guard-oriented offense declined, although Rodman’s game was really just beginning to emerge. The primary ingredient was more playing time. He played 2,747 minutes in 1990-91 and responded with his first 1,000 rebound season. The next year he dominated the league in the category, pulling down 1,530 rebounds in 82 games to average a career-high 18.7 rebounds per game.

  Even with his break through, the Pistons were swept by Chicago in the 1991 playoffs, and although they made a playoff run in 1992, Daly moved on to coach the New Jersey Nets, leaving Dennis without the fatherly coaching connection he badly wanted. He still averaged 18.3 rebounds in 62 games in 1992-93 for the Pistons, but those were troubled days that led to the end of his tenure in Detroit. That October of 1993, the Pistons traded Rodman to the Spurs, thus igniting the next amazing stage in his transformation, which left him searching through a series of tattoo shops, piercing pagodas, alternative bars and hair salons to find the real Dennis.. As Rodman explained it, “I woke up one day and said to myself, ‘Hey, my life has been a big cycle. One month I’m bleeding to death, one month I’m in a psycho zone.’ Then all of a sudden the cycles were in balance.”

  TUMBLING DICE

  Rodman’s days in San Antonio were notable for only a few reasons, one of them being his meeting Jack Haley, a deep reserve for the Spurs who was on a short-term contract. Haley watched in amazement that winter of 1994 as Rodman moved in and silently took control of the Spurs’ power forward, giving David Robinson the kind of help that he’d never enjoyed before.

  “I figured they were padding his stats,” Haley said. “I figured no one could get 20 rebounds a night. So I started counting his rebounds. I’d come to him in a game and say, ‘You got 17. You need three more.’ Or, ‘You need two more.’ Or, ‘You’re having an off night. You only got five.’ One game, he said to me, ‘How many rebounds do I have?’ From there, we developed a slo
w dialogue.”

  Perhaps it was the fact that Haley is one of the least threatening people in the NBA. Whatever it was, this casual acceptance somehow accelerated into a full-blown friendship about midway through the season.

  “It really shocked me,” Haley said. “We were at our team black tie dinner. Dennis and I had talked a couple of times. After the dinner was over, I’m standing there with my wife. I’m in a tuxedo. He pulls up in his Ferrari, and he says, ‘Hey, would you and your wife like to go to dinner with me and my girlfriend?’ We say, ‘Sure.’ And we went to a restaurant and had a nice dinner, and he said, ‘Do you guys want to go to a bar?’ I said, ‘Yeah, we’ll go to a bar.’ He takes my wife and I to a club, and it says right on the door, ‘San Antonio’s number one gay and alternative nightclub.’ I think he was just trying to shock me to see what kind of guy I was. So we went in, and they had a male stripper up on the stage, stripped down to a G-string. I shocked him and slipped one of the guys a buck. Ever since then, we’ve been good buds. I let him know, ‘Hey, this is not my world, but I’m not shocked by it.’”

  Indeed, Haley found he could hang rather easily on Rodman’s zany planet, among his offbeat circle of friends, including a growing number of celebrities, models, hairdressers, gamblers, coin dealers and whoever else happened to nudge in beside Rodman at the craps tables of life. Almost overnight, the pair became inseparable, tooling around in Rodman’s pink-and-white custom Ford monster truck, watching television at Rodman’s house amid the clatter of his 15 exotic birds and two German shepherds, jetting back and forth to Vegas and L.A., carousing all night, tossing back shots of Jaggermeister and Goldschlager, boating on south Texas’ bluegreen lakes. Instead of a sullen, depressed guy, Haley discovered a Rodman who was ebullient, bubbling from a ceaseless energy further hyper-charged by nibbling chocolate-covered coffee beans. “If you’re within the elite circle, he is the life of the party,” Haley said in 1995. “You can’t shut him up. He’s hilarious. A great guy to be around.”