THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 16, 1996 TAG: 9606140087
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E6 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: BY ANN G. SJOERDSMA
LENGTH: 94 lines
A FATHER'S DAY quiz for sports fans . . . TRUE or FALSE:
Flamboyant Chicago Bulls star Dennis Rodman grew up without a father.
Don't know? Can't tell?
Well, you won't learn much about Rodman, the child, from reading his best-selling shock memoir, ``Bad as I Wanna Be.'' The man of many tattoos and hair dyes knows how to revise history.
But you will glimpse the past in the little-known ``Rebound: The Dennis Rodman Story'' (1994), co-written by Rodman, sportswriter Alan Steinberg and Rodman's surrogate ``mother,'' Pat Rich.
TRUE. The loss of his father at age 3 was a defining one for the NBA's only drag queen.
But also TRUE, Rodman, an insecure, go-along kid who seemed destined for street crime, was helped by coaches, surrogate fathers and teammates who taught him the lessons of hard work, and right and wrong, and gave him the direction he sorely lacked.
From these men, the skinny kid nicknamed ``Worm,'' who shot up to 6 feet 8 inches at age 20, learned to rebound. On the court and off. If they thought he was ``good enough,'' maybe he was. Maybe he belonged.
Rodman's is an extraordinary story, strongly influenced by the absence and presence of ``father.'' It is hardly surprising that when Pistons coach Chuck Daly left Detroit for the New Jersey Nets in '92, Rodman, ever fragile, fell apart.
Philander Rodman Jr., U.S. Air Force, began living up to his name during wife Shirley's pregnancy with Dennis and continued his infidelities through the births of two daughters, Debra and Kim. Having foolishly married him after a three-month affair, the shy Shirley left Philander when Dennis was only 3.
She was not prepared for her son's reaction.
``My daddy is coming back,'' the 4-year-old Dennis, prone to anxiety-induced allergy attacks and unsightly facial sores, would insist. And Shirley didn't contradict.
But Philander never returned. And Dennis grew ``angry, confused, and even more withdrawn.''
Frail and easily frightened, Rodman stole from his mother to pay off schoolmates who beat him up for lunch money. Though fast, he was rejected by the high school football coach for being too small. A 5-foot-9-inch bundle of nerves, he quit the basketball team after riding the bench for half a season.
Quick to quit and to cry, Rodman often sought solace from his overprotective mother. But he grew to resent the attention she paid Debra and Kim, who soared to 6 feet and became college basketball stars. He began hanging out with boys - his first real friends - Shirley called ``hoodlums,'' looking for trouble.
And he found it, landing in jail after stealing some watches from the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, where he worked as a janitor. Though jail shook him up, Rodman lacked the self-confidence and drive to make something of his life.
When two coaches from Southeastern Oklahoma State came to recruit the unemployed 22-year-old, whom they had seen play a brief stint at a nearby junior college, the future NBA superstar had to be dragged out of bed. (The ``bad'' Rodman tells a different story.)
He signed up, though, and a week later met an emotionally troubled 13-year-old white boy named Bryne Rich who would change his life.
During his three years at Southeastern, Rodman became an NBA-caliber player, motivated in large part by the desire to please his ``adopted'' family, James and Pat Rich and their three sons.
In James, a hard-working man who also lost his father at age 3, Rodman writes in ``Rebound,'' he ``had a father figure in my life that really took a personal interest in what I did and how I did it, and not just put me in the background.''
He was always ``pushing me to get over the hump and do better.''
In Bryne, who had killed his best friend in a hunting mishap, he had a little brother and a faithful friend.
Rodman lived on the Riches' cattle farm, learning to fish, ride a tractor and castrate bulls, and was transformed by the Riches' love and moral instructions, as they were by his accepting spirit. With the Riches in the stands, Dennis played better; he scored for them.
They believed, so he believed.
At age 25, Worm went in the NBA draft - just as Bryne had predicted - in the second round, 27th pick overall.
In the NBA, the moody, hyperactive Rodman found yet another home - this time as a ``Bad Boy'' Piston with father Daly. But then Dad left; and Rodman refused to play for his ``stepfather.'' Eventually he was traded to the San Antonio Spurs, where he made his colorful metamorphosis. Rodman became the ``master,'' living by his own rules. Vulnerable no longer.
Bulls Coach Phil Jackson knows the importance of ``father'' - of the male authority, the coach - in Rodman's life. He has made a winner of a 35-year-old man going on 16. So, no doubt, does the dignified Michael Jordan, whose own strong father always guided him and whom Rodman now reveres.
Is Dennis Rodman bad? Naah, he's Everyman's confused, immature, rejected son, trying to please, and earn love and respect, sometimes screwing up, but always coming back, harder. With heart.
You gotta love him. Yeah, you do. TRUE. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
``Rebound: The Dennis Rodman Story'' offers a glimpse into the
basketball star's past. by CNB