By John F. McCarthy
The Abominable Screed
Dennis Rodman was the NBA's version of "The Blind Side."
Meaning that "The Worm" had a life experience similar to that of the NFL's Michael Oher.
But Oher was born the year Dennis Keith Rodman was drafted into the NBA – 1986.
And though you are more familiar with Oher’s touching rags to riches story - where an upper-class white family - "raised” an adult black professional athlete prospect while he goes to college – you still don’t know Michael Oher’s name – but you do know Dennis Rodman’s.
So how "The Worm" got the Tiannamen Square Sawed Off Shotgun Tip-Off Tour of North Korea - while Mr. Oher got the Tinsel Town Major Motion Picture Deal - with Sandra Bullock - might be a question better put to Mr. Rodman's agent.
Because the story arc of Dennis the Menace's life was more precipitous - he was sweeping out Dallas Fort Worth International Airport for a living, when he had a tremendous Alien-like growth spurt – growing fully thirteen inches in one – his nineteenth – summer.
His two sisters were all All-American college basketball players - so when the Rodman family genes finally kicked in with their male progeny – going from 5’6” to 6’7” - it didn't take long for he and his folks to realize that this was his Jed Clampett moment.
Their son was now nearly as tall as an oil derrick - he was the "bubbling crude" that Jed found at the end of a gun - and they seized the day and enlisted him in the Beverly Hills of local community colleges in Texas – Cooke County.
But our Mr. Rodman had trouble coping with the stresses of college life – and flunked out after only one semester because he couldn’t make the grade. A lesser man might have quit there, but “The Worm” didn’t. When the Byrnes – a white family in Southeastern Oklahoma “adopted” Rodman – it was the turning point that allowed him to metamorphose out of his shy introverted cocoon.
By the time Detroit Pistons drafted him out of his second college – they already had a superstar (Isiah Thomas) – a nickname “The Bad Boys” – and a winning tradition.
But new coach Chuck Daley saw the potential in this gangly, goofy-looking, wide-eyed kid from New Jersey. He himself had never coached before in the pro game – he was a legend in Pennsylvania high school basketball – and stifling defense was his secret weapon.
Other than rebound, Dennis could do nothing other than defend – he couldn’t shoot a round ball into a hoop to save his life – but he was joining a team that was almost bigger than his ego would grow to – with guys like: Bill Laimbeer, Rick Mahorn, Vinny “The Microwave” Johnson, Adrian Dantley, John Salley and Joe Dumars.
They were more sharp elbows - and black and blue hard knocks – and hardly-seen socks –
than had ever been seen before in the NBA - but those were welcome sights to the folks who had been weaned on Gordie Howe’s style in Hockeytown.
To score against those Detroit Pistons - you had to pay a physical price - Daley was big on D-fense - and the frisky "Worm" was about to glow in his “new” strategy.
After all, Dennis Rodman was not a worm at all; he had long arms (what they call "wingspan" in the NBA - and quick feet - perfect for this new "ball-denial" style of pro defense.
But one inchworm step forward, two Amazon steps backward ....
In his first NBA year, our Dennis allowed the Boston Celtics to win a crucial Eastern Conference championship elimination game in the final seconds - because he began celebrating too early - abandoning his vigilant defensive stance prematurely. Even then he was kind of flighty – and high strung.
But he was ahead of the curve on piercings and tattoos - Ink, Inc. if you will.
It took years for the "Bad Boys" to finally unseat Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Danny Ainge and Dennis Johnson as Eastern Conference Champions in the NBA.
When they finally did - it was an heroic accomplishment - one worthy of someone who went from $2 an hour to $2 million a year! The Worm's Detroit Pistons won back-to-back NBA Championships - earned by holding off another upstart (also cut from his high school basketball team) named Michael Jordan - who played for the Chicago Bulls and seriously challenged Detroit's basketball ascendency - nearly keeping them from getting airborne.
"The Jordan Rules" were a complicated set of trap defenses - designed by Daley to keep Michael Jordan from dominating the game - and ruining the Pistons' chances - but all "The Rules" ever were - was to simply put Dennis Rodman on Michael Jordan - guarding arguably the greatest player who ever played the game.
After the Championships, Success, and maybe other elegizing-enebriating substances besides Euphoria, informed "The Worm" that maybe it would be a good idea to bring a loaded shotgun to "work" at the Pontiac Silverdome one day - where the Pistons used to play and practice. Oh our Dennis was different - even then.
When Michael finally overcame "The Rules," and started winning championships of his own - Rodman figured, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em - and soon "The Worm" turned good for Jordan, Scottie Pippen and the Chicago Bulls - helping them eventually amass three NBA Championships (after first helping Detroit win two).
From sweeping out airport lobbies for minimum wage - to NBA superstardom - is a stretch maybe only Dennis Rodman himself has ever accomplished in modern-day America. He was on five NBA Championship teams – Jordan was on six.
He got to date Madonna and marry Carmen Electra; he got to wear a white wedding dress - but he was a success in the NBA despite his modest offensive abilities - because HE TRIED REAL DAMN HARD - he had an intense work ethic on the court – perhaps second to none.
Dennis Rodman IS the living embodiment of the American Dream.
It was that superhuman work ethic that "turned" him from DFW airport broom meister, to student athlete and NAIA All-American to NBA Defensive Player of The Year (twice) – and maybe one of the Greatest NBA defensive Players of All Time. (Or G.OA.T. as Jerry Rice likes to put it).
Which makes me wonder, what was Kim Jong-il's work ethic like?
And how would one know if it were a particularly good year for the “Supreme Leader” of North Korea? Did he kill more rivals one year? Build more concentration camps with slave labor? Separate more families in gulag-prisons? Stuff more imported Maine lobster down his gullet one year?
Kim Jong Un, the son, has inherited his dictator father's love of the game of NBA Basketball and probably other Jong-il Family trusted past-times (like over-eating) and “taking out the garbage” (with the sudden, but not unexpected death of trusted advisor Gen. Jang Song Thaek last month.)
As U2's Bono once asked about old age pensioners getting blown to bits during military parades in terrorist attacks in Northern Ireland - steadying the course to an end of Sinn Fein and "The Troubles" there: "Where's the glory in that?"
Now that Dennis Rodman has gone on offense - bringing Kenny Anderson, Cliff Robertson, Vin Baker, Craig Hodges, Doug Christie and Charles D. Smith and what wire service reports called "four street ballers" on a goodwill games tour of Poonyang City last week - we can see that it is not his strong suit.
Dennis Rodman is no Ted Turner. There is no détente between the U.S. and North Korea because Poonyang does not recognize basic human rights. There can be no goodwill games there until it does.
There was no “selfie” of Kim Jong Un and Dennis Rodman because North Korea confiscates tourist’s cell phones with cameras – even The Worm’s.
So though Rush Limbaugh was quick to criticize Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt and British Prime Minister David Cameron for taking a selfie with President Obama at Nelson Mandela’s funeral – at least they were free to do so!
It’s like George W. Bush used to say: “They hate us because of our Freedom.”
Knowing that the Worm is about as camera shy as Dana Bash on ginseng, pep pills and 5-hour Energy. Dennis should have realized something was wrong when he was forbidden from taking a selfie with Baby “Doc” Kim.
After all, his was a command performance for a morbidly obese dog-eating nepotistic Communist dictator.
Dennis got drunk, sang “Happy Birthday To You” to Kim “Baby Doc” - in a kind of Satanic-Cinderella parallel universe transvestite transgender upside down cake version of Marilyn Monroe & JFK, and a tipsy Worm later had a meltdown when a CNN anchor asked him about an American Christian missionary who has been held captive by North Korea for fourteen months.
I guess Mr. Rodman got paid handsomely for HIS troubles? Which might say more about the State of the American Dream than it does about Dennis.
But can "The Worm" ever get drunk enough to forget that Pyongyang Train, running up and down North Korea with just one chain-smoking NBA fan on board - death staring him square in the face - the late fearless leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea gorging himself on champagne and caviar while trying to fill an existential hollowness that goes along with making Hitlerian decisions regarding human beings in forced labor camps?
I keep reminding myself - as a fan of the National Basketball Association - that there's a lot of glory in Dennis Rodman.
But "The Worm" has turned now - and I'm left with one nagging question: "Where's the glory in that?"
© Copyright 2014 Secret Goldfish Publishing House/John
Francis McCarthy
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