Throwback Thursday: The Dennis Rodman Experience

Basketball Banter just celebrated its 5th birthday and the party was off the hook! Kendrick Lamar performed, Kendrick Perkins hosted, and all sorts of NBA stars came out to show love.

In all seriousness though, much love and appreciation to everyone who's supported this blog over the years; whether it's those who've helped me with connections, helped me build my reach by sharing social media content, and especially those who've bantered about basketball, both in online and in person. I started doing this with provoking thought and discussion among both casual and hardcore NBA fans in mind, and it's always great to hear I've been able to do that. Profound thanks.

Since it is Thursday and all, I'm gonna go diggin' in the crates to share my favorite piece from these past five years with you guys: an up-close-and-far-too-personal encounter with NBA and Annals of Celebrity Antics legend Dennis Rodman.

This piece went up in February 2009; Banter was less than a month old, and for anyone who may have missed or forgotten, it was a totally surreal experience that should be taken in. I can still remember writing this in the back of class the following morning; completely aghast in awe as I zoned out my prof, trying to come to grips with just what the hell I'd seen. I'd braced myself for something inappropriate, but clearly not well enough.

So, without further rambling, I'll pass the mic (aka the cut/paste function) to my 21-year-old self, and let him tell you about the night Dennis the Menace came to town:

I work for a Halifax-based catering company that regularly puts on massive charity dinners at their multi-purpose facility, which are usually headlined by celebrity guests of honor. Over the past couple of months, I've been fortunate enough to catch many great acts on the company dollar; the hilarious Jerry Seinfeld, the inspirational Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, and most recently, the incoherent ramblings of Dennis Rodman.

The event in question was for the Progress Club, a community outreach and support organization that holds an annual sports dinner, attracting upwards of 1,000 people. Among the other celebrity guests last night were NFL and NHL Hall-of-Famers Jim Kelly and Bryan Trottier, Olympic gold medalist Adam Van Koeverden, and of course Rodman, who were escorted prominently to the head table by Las Vegas-style showgirls. Dennis refused to walk with his girl, insisting that she strut several feet in front of him while he staggered behind (giving the first of many indications that he was highly inebriated), not-so-discretely staring at her ass. Having been an NBA fan for years, and well-versed in Rodman's antics, I could've predicted such things, but from the looks on the faces of hundreds of wealthy socialites in the audience, they clearly had no clue what they were in for. In retrospect, neither did I.

As the event carried on, the guests of honor got up one-by-one to address the audience. There were stories of Stanley Cup victories and Olympic triumph, overcoming adversity and seizing the moment; the usual stuff you'd expect from celebrities at a charity dinner. A few jokes were told, a few jabs made at fellow guests; it was light-hearted fun... And then came Hurricane Dennis, a storm which I stood in the eye of, ten feet away from the stage.

Everybody before him had a general tenor to their words, clearly a few things prepared and a message for the audience. Rodman, heavily bent on Sambucca and God knows what else, clearly had no idea what he was embarking upon when he drew the largest applause of the evening as he was introduced. When the raucous noise finally came to a halt, leaving a massive room in complete silence, some drunk dude in the audience yells out "I loved you in Double Team!". Whoever this guy is, he's clearly the early favorite for Man of the Year.

The Worm's speech began with an unceremonious bashing of the event's host (...and this was after a woman loudly asked him if he was "available later on"). TSN analyst Rod Black had begun the evening with an admittedly kinda corny cheering activity to amp up the crowd. "That was total bullshit", Rodman said laughing, which was followed with "...Nah, nah, I'm just playin' man, whatever your name is". He then turned to Van Koeverden, a kayaker, and referring to him as "the guy with the boat", gave him extended praise for...well..I'm not really sure what. These were the first signs of an incoherence that was about to take full form.

When it became obvious that Dennis was completely out to lunch and had no material to work with, Black intervened and asked him to tell a story, presumably something about playing with Michael Jordan, battling the World's biggest athletes as an undersized post player, or winning any of his five titles. With little hesitation, Rodman launched into a graphic re-creation of the previous night at a Newark airport bar, where a woman had propositioned to let him "fuck her while her boyfriend watched". Astounded and disgusted, there were a few laughs from the drunker audience members, while most sat jaws-dropped in the largest collective awkward silence you'll ever not hear...but it kept coming.

Black dug a little deeper: "Well tell us a story about the craziest thing you've ever done on the basketball court"...I immediately envision him saying something like "Well...this one time a referee was giving me lip, so I headbutted him" or "I chased a loose ball out of bounds and tripped over a cameraman many years ago...I decided it was a good idea to kick him in his junk", but he immediately comes out with "When I was with Carmen Electra...I did her on a basketball court...on her back. True Story". Unreal.

As his speech gradually lost its grip on coherent English, Rodman got into a story that began as his tale of upbringing in an empoverished neighborhood ("one thing we didn't have in the ghetto that alllllllll you people here always had growing up was opportunity"), delved into a revival of black/white tension in 60's southern US ("I was like wow...watching these white people coming through the neighborhood...blacks were beating on them, killing them..and today nothing's changed") and led to his legal troubles ("..I was a janitor at the airport...I stole like 50 grand worth of watches"), which allegedly helped him find basketball as salvation.

Before he got his act together and turned pro though, his mother abandoned him, leaving him unemployed and resourceless for a year ("I went to pack my bags...well, I had no fuckin' bags to pack"). He loses his composure and sheds a few tears as he tells the audience about the $20 and "get a job" note she left him as she ran off with her fiance. Even amid the hilarity and ridiculousness of what I've witnessed so far, my face goes stone-cold and my heart rattles. It's impossible not to feel for this man, who despite his immense celebrity has clearly led a troubled and turbulent life, understandably shaken 30 years later by those events. After this meltdown, Rodman loses all focus and breaks out into racially-charged rant, apparently about how he met the family that now runs his company. I'm sure he meant it as a touching tale of how inter-ethnic relations have grown over the years, but the intent is lost in translation as he drops the phrases "big, tall n*****" and "little white kid" no fewer than twenty times, swearing profusely and stammering repeatedly, before Black finally intercedes and cuts him off after 15 minutes of this tirade. He returns to his seat amid hesitant applause and the most "...what the hell did I just witness" grimaces since Michael Richards' last stand-up gig.

I don't really know what to make of it either. As I sit here the next day, still trying to wrap my head around the spectacle, I'm astonished by how deliriously inappropriate Rodman was, even having known he's never done anything PG-rated to speak of. Seeing the state he was in last night saddened me; here was pound-for-pound the greatest rebounder and defender ever to step on a basketball court beyond buzzin' and acting like he was with a few close friends rather than 1300 upper-classmen who weren't on the same wavelength. It was unfortunate, surreal; one of the most ridiculous things I've ever experienced. Being there was really beyond what words can describe, but hopefully I did a decent job.