Game Over 
SPORTS • Dennis Rodman
On the court and off, he’s in a league of his own.
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It came along because he grew nine inches, from five feet eleven to six feet eight, in the two years after he graduated from high school. “All of a sudden I could do things on a basketball court I’d never dreamed of doing,” he wrote in Bad as I Wanna Be. “It was like I had a new body that knew how to do all this shit the old one didn’t.” A friend of his sisters’ saw him playing in a pickup game and suggested that he try out at the junior college where she played. He got a scholarship but flunked out. A coach for Southeastern Oklahoma State University had seen him play, however, and he started there at age 22. At the school’s preseason camp Rodman met a thirteen-year-old boy named Bryne Rich, who had troubles of his own: He had accidentally shot and killed his best friend in a hunting accident the previous year. For Rodman, this was the third formative event of his life, along with his father’s departure and his growth spurt. Black man and white boy bonded, Rodman moved in with the Rich family on their farm, got up at five in the morning to do chores, led his team to the small-college final four, and made the Detroit Pistons as a second-round draft choice in 1986. He was a rookie at 25. The rest, as they say, is histrionics.
Most great athletes grow up accustomed to attention and adulation and getting everything they want. Away from the arena, they want privacy. Rodman grew up with hurts and resentments. His book is filled with them: the black girls who ignored him (now he dates white women and briefly was married to one in 1991), the family in which he grew up the runt (now he considers the Riches his real family), the prospect of life as a janitor or worse (now he denigrates the young players who get rich without working hard). He presents himself as underpaid, underappreciated, and a victim (“I don’t fit into the mold of the NBA man, and I think I’ve been punished financially for it”). His favorite music is not the aggressive rap of the neighborhoods where he grew up but the grunge of Pearl Jam, the sound of lost Generation X types. Dennis Rodman’s very public life consists of trying to make up for what he did not have, and nothing yet—not the championships, not the records, not fame, not infamy, not Madonna—has succeeded.
We climb into the Mercedes, our number now reduced to three, for the drive back to RodMan, during which the interview is to take place. “All right, writer,” Rodman says from the front passenger seat. “What do you want to know?” I ask him something about growing up in Dallas. “Call my mother,” he says. “Is your family close?” I ask. “My mother and sisters are,” he says. “I’m not.” I start to ask about living with the Rich family. Call them, he says. Okay, let’s try the $25,000 trust fund you set up for the children of James Byrd, Jr., the black man in Jasper who was dragged to death in June, allegedly by white supremacists. That elicits a little information—he had talked to Jesse Jackson about doing something to help—but no animation. He speaks in a monotone. Only when the conversation turns to basketball does he brighten. I ask him why the Bulls always seem to win the close games. “Talent helps,” he says, “but you got to know the game of basketball. You have to study the game, visualize in your mind what the game is, live the game, be the game. You got to have the will to be a great player. The kids coming into the league today, they don’t have it.” Now he is talking with real passion. “I have a brain chip of each individual I play against. I know what he’s going to do before he knows.”
Physical attributes are the least of the reasons why Rodman is a great rebounder. Karl Malone, the man he shut down in the finals, is one inch taller and 36 pounds heavier. His assets are the knack to identify the spot where a missed shot will end up and the will to jump again and again, tipping the ball to keep it alive, prolonging the punishment of his body, until at last the ball is his. Do not be deceived by the missed practices, the technical fouls, the headline-grabbing antics: This is a very serious athlete. It is no coincidence that two of the three teams he has played for, the Pistons and the Bulls, have won multiple NBA titles; the third, the San Antonio Spurs, had the best record in the league in the 1994-1995 season, Rodman’s second year there, only to lose to the Rockets in the playoffs. Rodman does not have fond memories of San Antonio. “It was a little too small for me,” he says. “I stood out too much. I’m pretty much normal for New York or Europe.” The Spurs might have won the whole thing if they had worried less about Dennis’ behavior. “The Spurs didn’t understand the fundamentals of winning,” he says. “As long as you’re doing your job, why should anybody else give a damn?”
We are not going to RodMan after all: Our driver turns into a subdivision of ranch-style homes with lots of acreage, then into a driveway. We are at Rodman’s residence. Near a one-goal basketball court sits a pink motorcycle with silver-studded black leather seats and an inscription on the back, “Topless riders only.” Rodman and the driver vanish into the back, leaving me alone in the den. Bookcases line one wall, their shelves vacant except for one that contains about twenty volumes of Bad as I Wanna Be in various languages. The bookcases rest atop cabinets, on which are scattered dozens of magazines about African American life and coiffure: Ebony, Essence, Jet, and Vibe; Black HairStyles, Modern Hair and Braid, Sister 2 Sister, Blac-tress, and Sisters in Style. After almost an hour, Rodman and the driver emerge, and we get back in the car. “We’re going to get some lunch,” he says and camps on a cell phone to recruit additional company while we drive around looking for a restaurant. We end up at a California Pizza Kitchen, joined by a volunteer from RodMan. Introducing the new arrival, Dennis says, “I have agents, and I have puppets. He’s a puppet.” Apparently the puppet’s job is to keep Dennis unbored, which he does with an endless series of quips and commendations. When I ask how the wrestling match involving Dennis and Karl Malone was arranged right in the middle of the NBA finals, the puppet says, “Only one person in the world can pull that off. The Black Moses.” He explains how Rodman is the leader of his people: “You didn’t see a lot of athletes with tattoos before Dennis,” he says. “You can’t find a kid coming into the NBA today without a tattoo.” It’s not the Ten Commandments, but it will have to do. Far from engaging in outrageous conduct, the Black Moses is subdued throughout his lunch of grilled chicken salad. He eats no bread and leaves the plate half full. Only one visitor interrupts us, a gorgeous California blonde who comes over to indicate her availability; Dennis ignores her, letting the puppet field the play.
After lunch we will be going our separate ways, him to the gym for an hour-and-a-half workout, me to the airport. I still have one last question: “Why are you moving to Plano?”
“A lot of athletes live there,” he says.
“Texas and Florida,” the puppet adds. Texas. Florida. Not California. I get it. Welcome to Texas, Dennis, and rest assured that we won’t take any of your money with a state income tax.
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