by Derrick Rose
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My mom’s not racist at all. She treats everybody the same, so I never heard the talk about white people. My mom never had to speak with me about race because I guess she kind of realized what type of kid I was. My mom never talked to me about policing or any of that stuff, either. I thank God I was never put in those situations. Mostly lucky, really. My first thing on race, seeing someone racist, believe it or not, was seeing it on The Jerry Springer Show.
I remember walking past the TV in my uncle’s room. They had the KKK on there. I couldn’t understand it. I was like six or seven. I started crying. I thought everybody loved everybody, even though I didn’t meet or really speak to a white person until I was in high school. College actually was the first time I was in class with white kids. But I never felt it was any different.
But back home you’re seeing people getting pistol-whipped. Hearing gunshots close. You’re outside at the park playing basketball or shooting dice, and then you stop for a minute when you hear the shots. You know how far the shots are away from you when you hear them. You hear them so much it gets so you can tell if it’s serious or not. You don’t run in the house yet. You’re so accustomed to it. You know how many blocks it is away. “Okay, that’s two blocks out, keep shooting dice.” That’s what it was in my neighborhood and a lot of neighborhoods.
You ever heard of the culture of violence, like the story of those families in Kentucky—the Hatfields and McCoys—who keep killing each other? It’s like what African Americans are kind of stuck in. In my neighborhood, there’s no way you could tell me to quit this beef or tell me to stop hating this person when this person killed three of my cousins. That’s exactly what’s going on, where it’s gonna have to take a strong person to turn the other cheek. It’s kind of hard doing that with the number of family members who have been lost.
Deion was one of them. He was gunned down at 7:00 in the morning. Because of something his little brother did. My neighborhood, you can’t walk around like that. My friend once had to send his little brother to another house for a summer because you can’t walk around some places. A boy got killed in my neighborhood a little bit ago because he was wearing AirPods. He didn’t even know he was shot when they were shooting at him. He had a twin and they killed the wrong brother. Just the living circumstance. But nobody should have to live like that.
Like in my house. I was getting bit by roaches every night, my mom having to spray them dead around the bed at night while we slept. I’m waking up with roach bites on me. Then having to go to school with roach bites on me. Sweep ’em up and there’s another hundred million more. When the crib was getting fumigated one time—I don’t know where the fuck we were going, Sears or something to hang out—and we come back and everybody had to team up and sweep up all the roaches.
And now I’m playing chess with friends. I couldn’t imagine this at all. I got into gambling in the sixth, seventh grade watching the guys in the neighborhood gamble. I was always at the park, Murray Park, which they’d call Murder Park because of all the shootings. I was at the park so much I don’t remember what time the Bulls games came on. I played so much with the older kids, the adults, that’s one reason I learned to control the game without shooting. You can’t shoot all the time playing with them or they won’t let you play.
I remember Reggie saying I got the shooting touch from him, the leaping from Allan, and the ball handling from Dwayne. The speed was me. Reggie used to say it was from running away from his belt.
4
I didn’t know anything about the NBA growing up. I knew we had a team in Chicago called the Bulls and they were somehow just winning. I was always just into the sport. Not any special team. There was never a favorite player. I’ll say MJ now when people ask because of what he meant to the sport. But when I was younger I was never glued to the TV when Jordan was playing. And that’s no offense to him. It was just off the strength of me loving the sport and me winning a lot at that time.
I also tried tennis once. We had a program at McCormick Place where they let us use their racquets. I was actually winning a lot and got some trophies; Mom has them. But it was too expensive a sport. I played some baseball but our coach was a crackhead. So I figured if he ain’t taking it serious, how are the kids gonna take it serious? So I stopped baseball. Basketball you could just go down to the park anytime on your own and hoop.
And then they told me you can get paid to hoop. I really never had thought about that. So I started paying attention to what was going on. One of the people I want to talk about is O.J. Mayo. He really was the guy I was always chasing, the big name. He was the best player I ever saw up close when I was in seventh grade. He was my measure, my Mt. Rushmore of all the players. I always said to myself, “If I can get O.J.,” but they kept canceling games between us.
Finally, we played one summer in high school. He had this crazy four-point play to win the game. But as far as chasing something, for me it was always to be better than O.J. Even coming into the league, I was thinking about O.J.
I didn’t know I’d feel that way about Bron. I thought it was O.J. until I saw Bron. Then you’re like, “Oh shit, it’s another level.” You get to the league and it’s like, even though I was a fan of Bron and had watched him a ton, when you play against him it’s a different level.
* * *
We were moving from Paulina. We lived at 7257 South Marshfield when I was going into seventh grade and then 6701 South Talman for my high school. My grandmother ended up passing and my mom made the move out of our house. By this time my uncles were using drugs a lot. And they didn’t have any jobs because there just weren’t enough of them where we lived. My mom had to pay all the bills and she got tired of doing that. Me and Allan moved over there with her my freshman year of high school.
I kept gambling to get us money, dice and basketball. I never lost at basketball. The big games they’d put up like $500, $1,000 on me playing. I also pumped gas when I was a kid to get money for my mom and one time for this pet we wanted. Me and one of my friends our senior year, we ended up getting this puppy. His mom didn’t really care, so she let us keep the dog. But we didn’t have the money to feed him. We were sitting there trying to think about how to get the dog food. I thought, “I’m the light-skinned kid. I’m the most innocent-looking one. If I go to the gas station and ask people, they’ll probably give me money to pump their gas.” It was just another way to get money for all of us.
I know I said my house was a crack house, and that’s true, there were people using drugs, but there’s more to it than that. It’s, what do they call it, a paradox? My house was the fun place to be. No, not for the drugs, but the kids wanted to be there. I was always trying to get away from my house, like, “No, I wanna leave my house.” But with all the other kids it was, “Let’s go over to Pooh’s house. There’s too many rules at my house. Let’s go to your house.” It was more of what was going on in my house, my mom, the big family. My mom was always playing games, cards. There was always laughter around my house.
But there were two occasions I almost died as a kid. Just dumb shit. This one time with my friend Josh. It was on the Fourth of July. I lived in the second house from the corner. On the corner is a tow truck. It’s been there for like 30 years. We were probably 12 or 13 years old. Josh goes up to the truck, takes the gas cap off, throws a light in the gas tank. Nothing. He lights up another match, throws it in there, a long jet of fire shoots out. Fire all over the place chasing us. Josh’s hand is in the fire. I’m panicking like, “What are we gonna tell your mom?” His hand starts to blister up right away, puss and everything. So we had to lie and say that it was a firework that ended up doing that to his hand because we couldn’t say that we almost killed ourselves.
The other time was when I drank bleach. Not on purpose like this stuff with Tide Pods you hear about now. Me and my friends, we’re outside playing, running around all over, playing tag. I’m running a
round for maybe 30 minutes. I run into the house to get some water. My mom is doing laundry, so I see the laundry thing on the table. Two big cups. I see the cup and it’s clear. I’m in a hurry because the game still is going on. “Gotta get back out.” It looked like it’s water. I’m like, “Great, Mom left me some water right here. I don’t have to pour me a glass of water.” I remember drinking it and then waking up with milk on my brow. My mom said I passed out and started throwing up. She called the poison people to see what was going on. They told her to give me milk. The milk made me throw up the bleach. I think I was nine or 10 that time. Dumb stuff you do when you’re a kid.
* * *
I’m the youngest: Derrick Martell Rose. My mom let my brothers name me and they ended up naming me that, Derrick Martell. They picked out my name. I never asked them why they picked that, not really. The craziest thing about my last name was my mom. That’s not really our last name, Rose. My last name is supposed to be Brumfield. My name should be Derrick Brumfield, the way I grew up. That’s my mom’s maiden name.
She got married to Tommy Rose. She ended up divorcing Tommy, but we kept his last name. Dwayne is the oldest, about 15 years before me, then Reggie about 13, and Allan seven years older. I don’t really remember Dwayne being in the house. I remember Dwayne more from my grammar school years, where I would spend the night over at his house.
I don’t know who my dad is. I remember asking my mom when I was younger, but you know when people don’t want to talk about things, that’s when you leave them alone. I kind of let her alone until I got a little bit older, when I could figure out how to express it in a more mature way instead of just coming out straightforward with it. She had a relationship or whatever you wanna call it when she was 34 and she ended up not talking to my dad anymore and he moved out of town. She hasn’t heard anything from him since then. I’m thinking he’s deceased. I thought he was deceased when I was in high school. Never been contacted once.
So, Tommy Rose was the father in my house. That’s the dad of my oldest brother, Dwayne. He’s still around, Tommy. He still goes over to my mom’s house in Homewood. We still consider him part of the family. I think my mom divorced all the men she was with, but they still have had a relationship after the divorce as friends.
I don’t look at Tommy as someone my mom dated. Tommy was damn near a father figure when I was younger because he was always around. He was the male adult figure who was most around our mom.
She won’t be around guys who are bad influences. Tommy’s working now, was always working, always had jobs, fought in the Vietnam War. Reggie and Allan, their dad was around, too. His name is also Allan. My mom kept open relationships with all the men. It’s actually kind of dope for a female to be doing that. It’s kind of different. Remember, she left them. It was for us. I’m also impressed to see how strong she was to stay away from drugs even though her brothers were indulging in that.
Mom came from a rough family from Hyde Park. She dropped out of school when she was a sophomore, had Dwayne when she was like 15. My grandmother told her she wasn’t going to help raise him. It was, “This is your responsibility.” So from then on my mom tried to get hold of everything and she ended up having my brother. But she was always working to support everyone. She had to drop out of school because of that. Had little b.s. jobs, assistant jobs, secretary jobs at schools. But she’d go weeks sometimes without getting paid because of problems at some of those places. I dealt with that. Imagine feeling that at a young age? I’d be sitting at the table going through bills with my mom, seeing the amount she had and then see it all go away for bills. Trying to process, like, “Damn, how is this possible? Is everybody going through this?”
I was just trying to get hold of what was going on and that’s when I kind of got big into gambling. I felt like I had to do something to help for all she was doing.
It was around seventh, eighth grade. I always played basketball. I started playing organized basketball in the fifth or sixth grade. But I would also gamble on basketball. My gambling was like b.s. gambling, where it’s shooting dice and shooting jump shots. I never sold drugs in my life. All the guys I grew up with, the guys I consider myself part of, they weren’t on drugs. They actually got jobs, went to school, went to college. I was lucky to be around them and to be on the same block. So with the gambling and what I saw my mom going through with the bills, my money became her money.
When I used to win dice games, I would put it in her purse to surprise her. If I ever needed money, it wasn’t like I was stealing from my mom. You know what I mean? If I need $20, I’m just gonna grab $20, because I gave her $150 last week. I also was selling the shoes Nike was giving me. That was a big thing. They’d send me shoes all the time. They did that because of my basketball, anytime I’d ask them.
The shoes cost like $250, I’d sell them for $150. You can do whatever you want with them. So I’d wear them a few times and my friends would say, “You done with those Jordans yet?” I’d be like, “Yeah, I’m done with them.” That’s what my MVP speech was all about. Nothing planned, just realizing what we’d been through and how Mom was always there for me, how we went through everything together. Never even thinking or dreaming it could come out like that:
“Brenda Rose, my heart, the reason I play the way I play, just everything. Just knowing about the days when I didn’t feel like I wanted to practice, having all the hard times, waking me up, going to work and just making sure I’m alright and making sure the family’s alright. Those are hard days. My days shouldn’t be hard because I love doing what I’m doing and that’s playing basketball. You keep me going every day and I love you and I appreciate you being my mother.”
I just said it. It was something from the heart, how I felt at that moment. It was nothing prepared. Just saw my mom sitting there and thinking back to all she’d done and had to go through for us, and now how much we had. Me seeing her work and hate what she was doing, like not having a career, just having jobs. I didn’t have to experience that. I love what I’m doing. My days are different. I shouldn’t be complaining, for real, and that’s where I was coming from with it. I saw a strong individual—a strong woman—go through something critical, and she’s good with it. Good with taking care of her sons, sacrificing for everyone.
That’s why I bought her that house the first time I got any money. She saw a house in Homewood she liked. She went to a couple locations and ended up loving a closed-off block. She’s nosy, so she can see everything that’s going on. Her neighbor’s a police officer, so it’s perfect for her.
At that time I didn’t realize how big it was for her, for everyone really. It was just what you’re supposed to do. House for your mom. But the older I got, that’s when I realized it was more than that. Because with property—people with wealth know this—you hand things down. That’s our house now. Can’t take it away from us. We could say that. We never had anything to hand down. Now that’s our crib where we could sell and do whatever we want with as Roses. We started this. Even living in something like my crib in L.A., coming from where we grew up? We talk about that all the time. We’ll be sitting and talking, and people will be crying. Can’t believe it, can’t believe we’re here.
Mom had a lot of friends that she was cool with. She used to play cards a lot. She’s a talker. Everybody close to her has been passing and she has to mourn. Two of her younger brothers died from drugs. Her third one is staying with her. You don’t know how that’s gonna be. Her aunt she used to talk to passed. Her aunt’s daughter passed. Three of her sisters passed. She had nine siblings and so many of them passed already. She used to talk to them. That’s been her special life. You know, the older you get, the more you want to talk. So my mom is real talkative and sometimes she’ll be feeling like she has no one to talk to. It hurts me to see that.
That was always my burden. I was worried not to stress out my mom. “Uh oh, you’re stressing your mom, she gonna die early.”
I was always worried my mom was gonna pass before she saw me achieve anything. I always threw my mom a kiss before games with the Bulls. She was up in the suite and she always said she was throwing it back to me, saying I was her gift from God. She always had this shrine in the basement with all the pictures and stories about me. So growing up I’m like, “I have to play basketball, make it to the next level, pray that my mom can see this.” It always was about that.
5
The name “Pooh” came from my grandmother when I was a baby. In the hood they give you all types of crazy nicknames. I was this fat, yellow, light-skinned baby who used to love sweets. Being chubby they called me “Pooh,” like Pooh Bear. Eventually they stopped calling me “Bear” and it was just “Pooh.”
At six or seven, I started to lose the fat from running around so much. But I still was into the sweets. Everything you could think of. I used to eat powdered sugar with a spoon and a cup. Straight out, hid it in my dresser drawer to have whenever I wanted. Hey, maybe that’s how I got so fast. Watched Power Rangers all day on a Saturday just eating sugar. I know, hard to believe now. I loved Power Rangers; that was my show.
I’ve slowed down with the Skittles. After they sent me that Skittles machine when I was with the Bulls, me and my friends ate all the Skittles from the machine. Probably didn’t touch another Skittle for like two years. I like Airheads now, Twizzlers, Gushers. My teeth? No problem, they’re mostly fake. That’s from when Taj Gibson elbowed me that time in training camp and busted my eye. He also chipped about nine of my teeth.
Sixth grade was when I first started to notice there was something different about my basketball. We ended up winning the sixth grade championship at Randolph Magnet School. Randolph only went up to sixth. Like I said, that’s when my grandmother died and we moved from Paulina to Marshfield and I had to ride the bus to Beasley Academic Center, where I went for the next couple of years. It was going into high school when we moved to 63rd and Talman. My brother Reggie and his wife were moving, and me, my mom, and another brother moved into Reggie’s. I lived in the attic then.
