Mental Wellness

Episode Transcript
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(00:03):
Good afternoon, good morning wherever youare. This is Spencer Haywood, then
the Spencer Haywood Podcast. It's calledthe Spencer Haywood Rule. And my guest
today is two wonderful people from theNBA Players Association. We have Derek Anderson,
former NBA player and just a terrificstory and he's going to walk us

(00:28):
through his life. And doctor WilliamParham, who is over all psychological and
medical mental medical for the NBA PAand just a wonderful individual who has spoke
to me and talked to me aboutmental health and mental wellness and mental wealth.

(00:51):
So I'm a little bit better ofa person because of him. Thank
you both for joining me. AndDoc let's let's start off with you tell
us a little bit about yourself.Well, first, thank you for the
invitation, and I hope you andyour audience are all well and navigating successfully
in this COVID pandemic and the relatedto streams. I'm a psychologist by training.

(01:14):
I've been in practicing psychology for aboutforty years. I was born in
New York, but actually grew upin Los Angeles, so called Los Angeles
my home. I've earned a PhDback in nineteen eighty and they've been practicing
ever since. Currently serveing in acouple of roles, one as a professor
in the school's Education at Loyal MarymountUniversity, teaching a number of courses and

(01:38):
doing a number of projects, butone of my favorite courses is in trauma
psychology. I'm also the director ofthe Mental Health and Wellness Program the National
Basketball Players Association, role that wascreated and I occupied for three years.
Excited about what I'm doing. Inaddition to those two roles, serve on

(02:01):
the mental health and wellness task forus in the United States Olympic Comparalympic Committee,
and also have participated in the InternationalSociety and Sports Psychology where we actually
generated two papers on the mental healthand wellness of the lead athlete. So
my passions have long time been centeredaround making sure athletes are visible as people,

(02:24):
not a just statistics, not justnumbers, not just entertainment, being
the human beings. And for alot of reasons that we may mean I
get into, they've not been ableto share their real journey, oddly enough,
which is where their emotional wealth comesfrom. So we can talk more
about that later. But again I'mpleased to be here, thank you for

(02:46):
the invitation, and look forward tothe conversation. Well, thank you so
much, Derek. How are you? I'm doing well, what's up we
Michigan people, how are you doing? Kind of if it's a little bit
of a background, Derek, beforewe go into your great book, just

(03:06):
tell us a little bit about yourlife and your athletic life right now,
and then we all go into theother aspects of it. I was fortunate
enough to win win middle school,high school, college and NBA championships,
and I learned at an early agebeing unselfish is how you win. I'll
developed that mindset as a basketball player, and it just happened to make me

(03:28):
a better person every single day Iwoke up. So it was just one
of those things that I really admire, using sports to make me a better
person and being a better person helpingme to be a better athlete. So
again, I'm excited to be onhere. And I was of course Flint,
Michigan and moved to North Kentucky.So my life has been based around
basketball all my life and meaning thosetype of environments. So just blessed it

(03:52):
being the position I am and lookingforward to having this conversation. Okay,
so you you started out in Flint. Uh, you know, I know
all of the you know, thethe drama of Flint, Michigan in terms
of the water, in terms ofgeneral motives, moving out of town and

(04:12):
leaving the city short, the desolateand we still having recovered. Yeah,
and what was it like growing up? It was a similar situation. My
father actually worked in a plan andwhen the plans folded, it was like
everybody's home life just kind of likewent south, Like we didn't have the

(04:34):
stores open. It was the crimewave came in the eighties, the drugs.
It just everything went from like beinglike a close net family to like
individualize in the projects and in regularhomes. So it it really affected a
lot of our lives. I mean, unfortunately, some of my family and
friends had to stay there, andI was fortunate enough to move back to

(04:56):
Louis, Kentucky, where my momis from sou It was tough, man,
but growing up we had to walkeverywhere five inches of snow. I'm
eight eight years old walking up toschool and it's like almost a mile,
and you know, it was justtough man, but it talked to your
resilience to talk to you, togo get what you need to get done,
taught you to not make excuses.So um, it was one of
those situations that I was fortunate enoughto have instilled in me to do the

(05:19):
right things, regardless for situation you'rein. So Flinn was just another one
of those things that made me bea better person, and I took it
to loew and try to be betterthat it ended helped me out. Okay,
did you meet up with Junior Bridgemanwhile you when they are at Louisville?
Oh? Yeah, My uncle Georgewas friends and he talked. I
met him when I was maybe ajunior in high school. I met Junior

(05:41):
Bridgement at that time and remained friendsever since. Wow wow wow. So
let me ask you in terms ofyour basketball because I was looking at your
records. You first started out incollege at Ohio State. What happened over
there? Well? I tore him, I left ACLAUP and I had to

(06:01):
red shirt and they were going onprobation for some of the other teammates were
getting into trouble and guys were transferring, and we had like one guy coming
back beside me, and I'm like, I didn't want to rehab for that,
so it was because I was happythere. It's just everything went bad
for our rookie, our freshman class. So I decided to go rest my

(06:23):
knee. Transfer And when I transferred, it was based upon my injury in
the situation dealing with a hill ofState. But I was going to Louisville
coming out of high school just Ididn't have parents at that time, so
I couldn't afford financial ada, couldn'tget anything done, so I had to
go where I was gonna get afree scholarship. So that was the reason

(06:43):
I told the ill say, so, what happened with your family background in
terms of your parents, what wasgoing on with him? Yeah, Once
my dad lost his job and couldn'tget work, he went to the streets.
My mom took us to Louisville.She got hooked on drugs. Eleven
years old. My brother ran awayfrom home. So I was a single

(07:06):
kid living by myself in Project Guys. I asked other people to help me
out and they did. I workedit when Dixie carrying people's bags, making
five or ten cents. This isnineteen eighty three, eighty four, and
then I just basically just worked therest of my life. I played basketball,
went to school, worked hard,worked two jobs. I was I

(07:27):
bet a girl who's seventeen and Iwas fourteen and she was pregnant. And
then I was a single dad fortwo almost two years. We lived in
a project housing. I took careof my son, worked two jobs,
played basketball, And that's how itworked. So that was what we did.
I did to make that to makeit work. Wow, awesible.
You know, I'm a recovering person. This is my thirty fourth year.

(07:50):
I speaking of Doc Doc. Iwas telling you earlier off camera that you're
teaching that loyala Merrimount. We werehaving practice in nineteen eighty for the eighty
Championship and I fell asleep at practiceand drugs had caught up with me,

(08:11):
you know, because at that timethe NBA Derek at that time, in
the nineteen eighty seven eighty, wehad a crisis in the NBA of substance
abuse, and I just fell intothat bag. You know, I don't
know. I'll often look back andsaid, how did it happen? I
know how it happened. You know. I got in with the wrong crowd.

(08:33):
I got in and thinking that youknow this is okay. And I
watched my game go from twenty threepoints per game all the way down to
seven points per game and five reboundson which I was a twenty three and
ten guy when I started with theLakers there and then by the end of
the season, I watched it alldisappeared. So that was discourage of the

(08:56):
drugs at that time, not onlyin the NBA, but in society,
and it touches and it touched allof us. And Doc, just tell
me a little bit more, becausewhat happened was when I first saw help,
I went to a recovery center andthen they encouraged me because we had

(09:18):
a psychologist on staff to seek helpwhen I got back, but I was
reluctant to it because I thought,well, you know, I'm a black
guy. Why am I, youknow, going to see a psychologist,
because I mean, there's nothing wrongwith me. I just got a problem

(09:39):
and denial, you know, ofcourse, well I don't know. First
of all, thank you for sharingand Kudles for thirty two years of sobriety
and both Googles and there really havingcircumstances that were quite a tremendous overwhelming I
can't even imagine the tsunami wave ofemotions that around it both of you.

(10:01):
But that also is a testament.Your tests became your testimony. The fact
that you are here now, livingbreath and really doing good work is really
again a testament to the strength thatyou really have. And Spencer, when
you sort of joked and said there'snothing wrong with you, that actually is

(10:24):
more true than you realize. Unfortunately, medicine and psychology back in the day
really operate under what we call themedical model, which is rooted in pathology.
Pathology is a study of disease.So the approach physically and psychologically,
there's something wrong with you, There'sa deficit, there's a void. I

(10:48):
don't believe that. I've never believedthat. I think there are a number
of colleagues who don't believe that eitherboth of you are full wonderful human beings.
And the facts are given the circumstancesyou both had to endure, there's
zero way we would be on thisscreen if you didn't already have in you

(11:11):
the talent, strains you make,gifts and genius that the creator blessed you
with. You don't always know orknow how to access it if we did
know. But those strains are therenonetheless, and sometimes it takes adversity of
huge magnitude to stimulate and get thatthing moving. And you get persistence,

(11:31):
courage, and learn how to focus, you learn how to set a goal,
and you just put yourself out ofthere. So those gifts and talents
you already have, there's nothing anypsychologists can give you. At best,
the most well trained psychologists and healercan facilitate you discovering the genius that you

(11:52):
have already been in possession of andcan never lose any part of as long
as you live. So you bothare warriors and again are evidence of what
I'm saying, and it's an honorto be with both of you. This
one. Yeah, Well, whatI was what I was speaking of,
I was speaking of the denial factorbecause I just I just couldn't figure it

(12:16):
out why and how I got intothis into this quandary in my life,
and so I had some of thedenial about it. And as the denial
is important, but even that wordsuggest that you're doing something wrong and you're
not confronting the issue. I lookat a different way. Denial is very

(12:41):
self protective. You didn't want toconfront but could likely happen. So I
take a different spin on it.Even denial self protection. Well, you
know in in a a NA andall about twelve step programs, they always
come up denial. It's not ariver in Egypt, so so you know,

(13:05):
it was just it was just difficultfor me. And then when I
started to seek the kind of helpthat I needed to talk it out because
I would go Derek to my twelvestep meetings and we would end up just
talking about basketball. So that's whyI had to switch over to the psychologists
because I wanted to learn more aboutme. And then in that process,

(13:30):
I learned that, you know,and I had to I had to just
go back and talk to family membersand everybody. What happened to Uncle John,
Uncle Jeff? You know, ohthey died. You know, they
just they drink themselves to devis oryou know, you would go in and
then I would talk about my sistersand my brothers. You know, I've

(13:54):
lost two brothers and two sisters tothis disease. And I wondered, often
wondered why my mother didn't drink whenwe were in Mississippi, because everybody was
drinking It was the you know,working in the cotton fields and coming out
and then going into you know,the juke house, and then church on

(14:18):
Sunday and praise the Lord. Itwas a culture and I kind of got
in touch with that. And thenI decided, well, you know,
this is not the journey I'm goingto take. I'm going to take a
different road and try to work onmy sobriety and work with programs. I
had a program back in Detroit,Magic Johnson brother worked me, Larry,

(14:41):
all of us worked the program forthe city of Detroit where I was over
this program and we had pre apprenticeship, construction trading training going on. We
built homes. We got people whowere locked in, shut into their homes.
They couldn't get out because they will, you know, wheelchair bound,

(15:01):
so we had to build ramps andthings like that. We got a number
of young students who had dropped outof college a chance to to to go
back and dropped out of high schoolto go back to high school. Get
that ged and they finished their theirtheir task and we put young students into
college and it was a good experience, great experience. And then I moved

(15:24):
out here and I became a golfer. So what the heck that's a good
thing. Yeah, that's a goodthing. Derek, tell me more about
your life. You know, Iknow you're working with the NBA PA at
this time. Uh what what elsedo you do? What? What?

(15:46):
How do you maintain yourself? Howdo you how does how is your maintenance
on you and your family? How? How did that work? I was
fortunate enough again to have to kindof grow up early. So when I
grew up early, I had amental capacity of like my daily habits became
who I was personally. So allI do now is it's help other people

(16:07):
be the same way. I thinkthat's why doctor Parham and I work really
well together because we have the samevision. It's like we're selfless people and
we give of ourselves and for me, if I give back to my community,
and I give back to young kids, to older people, to whoever
it is, and it's just knowledge, it's just knowledge with love, and
you share that with people. It'slike we're not perfect at anything, but

(16:30):
we are perfect at trying to bethe best person you could be. And
I just speak to people. Ispeak motivational speaking to colleges, to students,
to people my Acts of Kindness program, which is called program You.
What I do is teach people toprogram yourself and don't let the world program
what you spoke up earlier. Iskind of like hanging with certain people seeing

(16:52):
your mom not drinking, not figuringit out. I think seeing those things
affected you, but it didn't actuallyprogram. And trying to program people to
think the right thoughts, to putthe in the rights perspective, and to
do daily habits that are your norm. Because if you walk past somebody,
never speak, you'll do that nomatter where you go. But if you
speak everywhere you go, no matterwhere you go, your habits it's the

(17:15):
same. So I just try toteach those things daily life habits, and
I do that all over the country. And uh, and I'm just fortunate
enough to work with the PA nowthat I get to help them my former
players survive. It's driving the nextlockers. Go ahead, doctor you have,
I was gonna say. And he'sdoing a fabulous job. And I
can't tell you the relational capital thatTHEA has, not only because he was

(17:37):
a hooper of some fortune and fame, but he really is a person to
day can relate to. And againhe has a story that he didn't ask
for. But he also doesn't wantto cry about it. He really just
says, Okay, that's not good. And I have talent, ingenious and
the vision. It's not a reflectionof me what they did. I have

(18:00):
an inner strength. And in fact, the invisible models of unhealthy behaviors in
the form of appearance or others,are actually role models for what not to
do and how not to lead yourlife. See people make a mistake of
thinking role models or only those whoare doing positive things around you that you

(18:21):
can emulate. And while that isabsolutely true, the people who enter your
circle of influence who really are not, who are struggling mightily, they also
are role models and visions of whatyou don't want to become and the decisions
you don't want to make. AndDerek has been a master at doing that.

(18:41):
And we have a young league now. A lot of these kids are
coming in early as a result ofyou, Actually, Spencer, and I
peopn't want to get off there withoutacknowledging that you've been in that game for
a while. They probably talked aboutit. Add up an item, but
I certainly want to know you toknow that or a historic figure of some

(19:02):
renowned based on that as evidence ofwhat we see him to leave. Now,
all these uns coming in with phenomenaltalent by the and so Derek's age,
his experience is the exact perry forthis particular generation of guys coming into
league. And so it's absolutely noaccident that he is merging with us at

(19:23):
this point in time. Oh wow. And you know, I was just
looking at the two players that havecame out about their mental wellness and their
mental wealth is Kevin Love and DamorrowRosen, And I'm looking at their seasons
that they are having. Derek,it's phenomenal because you have the burden off

(19:48):
of you and they are having anincredible season and everybody saying, Damorrow Rosen,
I never saw him like this.I've never seen this game like this,
you know, with the burden oflike worrying about well, you know,
what are the fans are going tosay? What are you know?
What are my expectations on my team? But if you can lay your burden

(20:11):
down and get into the game andhave you mentally focus that, well,
you know, I'm going to makemistake. Basketball is a fifty percent mistake
game because you get somebody out hereand they're shooting fifty percent, and you
say, whoa man, what agreat player is? You know, but
it's a mistake game, so youcan't hold onto it. And I see

(20:33):
it in his game. I seehim having the joy of his life because
he has, you know, letthat burden down. And I wonder often
wonder with all of this new health, like you, doctor par Parham,
I wonder why our players have thestigma that they don't use mental health as

(20:59):
much as they sho well, becausethere's not just players, it actually is
everybody player. There's been a promotionsig that we've all been raised. You
don't air of the family linen,you know, tell people the real true
secrets. Everybody has Uncle Joe,Art, Betty who they know. It
is not right that they just don'ttalk about it. And so we have,

(21:22):
as a society, culturally, spiritually, have been given messages from all
of our lives not to do that. And if you do, there are
some grave consequences to that. Andin some cases that is accurate. And
when you put on the dimension ofgender, men have really been influenced not
the same thing, and be tough, not the assist and a whim when

(21:47):
you add the dimension of race orpersons of color and other marginalized groups really
don't have any trust and really disclosethem. For you, guys, when
you put on the dimension of celebrityand all of some people who never knew
who you were, all of asudden, you've got people coming out and
would work asking for stuff you reallydon't want to leave on our will.

(22:07):
Plus, each of you knew,as do most professional players, that the
career as a professional player does notlast forever, so you really want to
make all of yourself available, includingnot running the risk of it leaking out
that you're getting help because that mightaffect trade, etc. So essentially we

(22:30):
are incentivized in multiple ways to saynothing. But it is no accident to
me that when we look at alarger contextual picture of Black Lives matter,
the hashtag need movement, and there'sbeen a lot of other hashtags collectively,

(22:52):
those have been considered as the identityreclamation. People have essentially said I'm tired
of this, I'm not going totake a thing. And it was within
that context that Kevin Love and deMarta Rosen and Kelly oubre Ty Lu came
out as a coach with his strugglesthat they came out I mean, and

(23:12):
this recent came out of the Clippersformerly important Reggie Jackson with his story actually
saying that Dave saught help and lookout her who the truth of the matter.
Also, these things have been Thereare a lot of players, marquee
and not marquee players who also havea story who are beginning to get talked

(23:36):
about, but they don't think Iwanted to keep in mind and a gotta
use you Spencer as an example.I can't begin to imatch back in the
day an African American man, ayoung man taken on the Supreme Court.
It's just mind boggle that. I'msure folks said, how they're the you

(24:00):
know what and up for rights,but you got it done. The very
logo of the NBA is Jerry West. If you read his book west On
West, My Charmed and Tormented Life. He had a lot of challenges as

(24:21):
well that he now speaks about,never talking about it. And he was
a phenomenal player. But that's thegenius about which I speak. You guys
could hoop at that level without talkingabout stuff. I can't imagine where this
league would go if everybody had aplace in a space to share their story

(24:45):
because every story has a person,but every person has a story. If
they can lay that burnt down andbegin that heal, I'm telling you we
would see phenomenal exponentially more talent.Well you just mentioned Kelly Hubery and the
players, Reggie Jacson, all ofthese guys are haven't phenomenal years Darren Derek?

(25:10):
What can we do? How canwe get everybody into the program?
How is it for? I thinkwe can keep an anonymity at level because
as the doctor reminded me, youhave traits and whatever else you know,
to use everything as a leverage.How can we get them to understand that

(25:33):
there's help available, Not that thatyou needed, but this is just a
part of your toolbox. Well youteach them the Spencer Haywood way, and
you fight until you win. Youknow. I think you you said the
standard like a lot of other people, and we follow those standards. If
you notice everything about this league,it's been built upon other shows, and

(25:56):
I think we can take that.When you started and continue to push,
it will come like you, likeyou being able to get kids to school
early, save some kids who couldget their parents food who couldn't get their
parents help, you know, likethe kid. I know a guy who's
younger, I wanna say his name, and he was able to come out
of high school. It's one ofhis relatives on drug. He was able

(26:22):
to get help financially a drug.He's been cleaned for almost thirty years.
So imagine the impact you had justwhat you try to do, and imagine
with doctor Parker and I tried it. We continue to stay folks, and
I think the first how about youjust finish, you know, I think

(26:45):
we do the best week. Allwe can hold for man is to keep
fighting way and keep pushing and eventuallywe'll finish the race and everybody, everybody
will will get an opportunity to bethere one day. Yeah. Well,
let me just you know, forthe education of the audience at the age

(27:07):
of nineteen, in the nineteen sixtyeight Olympics when Alvin Hayes, west On
Sale, Kareem Abduljibar and others boycottedthat sixty eight Olympics, and some say
they signed a pro contract because backthen you had to be an amateur.
And they looked at this freshman,which was me, and said, oh,

(27:30):
you can save us, you canwin the gold medal for us.
So they put that on my backand showing up. I went out there,
played as hard as I can Icould, and we won the gold
medal. And then the following year, in our big picture of like the
University of Detroit, we were notthe schedule that we have now. We

(27:55):
were playing Notre Dame, Marquette,Villanova, and saw So I became an
All American, a College All AmericanOutstanding College Player of the Year, and
I averaged thirty three points and Ithink in twenty one rebounds per game.
And right after that, the ABAwent after because we had the ABA in

(28:17):
the NBA. The ABA went afterKareem because Kareem was the MVP, and
Kareem decided, no, I thinkI'm going to go to Milwaukee. And
so at that same time, wewere building a dynasty in Detroit. We
had George Gervin, we had anumber of other players online to come with

(28:37):
us at the University of Detroit.Providing that Will Robinson got the job,
and Will Robinson for long time scoutand assistant to the general manager of the
Pistons and the first black coach tocoach n NC to a division one that
was my father because I was likeyou, Derek. I came up out

(28:59):
of Mississippi, and I had toleave Mississippi because I was getting big.
The farmers were saying, oh mygod, we got to keep him on
the farm. We got to makesure. So they put me in jail
overnight. And once I got outof jail, my mother put me on
a bus and said, you gotto go up north. So I went
up north, and luckily I wasadopted by will Robinson and James and Ida

(29:21):
Belle had just a tremendous, beautifullife as a family. And and then
I decided, well, you're notgoing to sign Will Robinson. I want
to leave college. So the onlyplace you could go was to I had
an offer from Belgium. I didn'tknow where it was. I thought it
was in Mississippila. But anyway,so in Denver, John McLendon, who

(29:48):
is just a phenomenal coach who taughtDean Smith and all those those coaches who
went under that trail of coaches fromSmith at Kansas, and he was a
coach and coacher on the Nate Smithback then. So he was the coach
at Denver and the ABA, theDenver Rockets, which is the now the

(30:11):
Nuggets, and Denver signed me toa contract at the first underclassman and we
were I'm supposed to get maybe,you know, ten points, five rebounds.
I got thirty points and twenty reboundsfor the season and was the MVP
Rookie of the year, leading scoreleader, rebounding MVP of the league.

(30:34):
And so the coach and and everybodysaid, we got to lock him in.
We gotta give him a real goodcontract. So they gave me a
burning made off contract, which meantthis contract was so horrible. If I
would play my rest of my yearsin Denver, I couldn't draw my money

(30:59):
for that particular contract for the fiveyear contract until I reached age fifty to
age seventy, and I had tobe a member of the Ringsby Truck line
driving trucks or whatever in order toreceive it. So Jerry Clangelo, who
had just came over and said,we're going to raid the ABA like the

(31:22):
ABA's Raiding Hour players like Rick Barryand all of them jumping from the NBA
to the ABA. So they wentafter Connie Hawkers. He got Connie Hawkins
the first year. This was theexplanted themes with Seattle and Phoenix, and
sam Shuman said, I am goingto go get Spencer Haywood. So he
signed me to a contract, areal contract. And I'm thinking, you

(31:45):
know, well, I haven't finishedmy four years of college, and so
Sam Shuman said, We're gonna playyou anyway. And so when I walked
out on the floor and they said, ladies and gentlemen, we have an
illegal player on the floor, numbertwenty four, and we have an injunction.

(32:07):
And this injunction he has, hehas to lead the gym. So
they put me out on the busand I waited for ten more games,
and then I got an injunction toplay. And once I got this injunction
to play, all of the gameswere played on the protest and then we're
coming into into Cincinnati to play againstthe Big Old and all of those great

(32:31):
players. All of a sudden theytell me we have an injunction. I
was on the floor getting ready togo into the game, and he says,
well, ladies and gentlemen, wehave an injunction, and this time,
this injunction, he must be escortedoff the grounds in which this arena
sets on. Now I'm twenty oneyears old. I haven't reached twenty one

(32:54):
yet, but this was the wholeprocess. So they put me out into
the snow. And you know whowas on the background of all of this,
Doc and Derek was the NC TWOA. They were saying, you are
going to rob us of our fouryear players and going to take all of
our money. And in the meantime, they had told the owners of the

(33:19):
NBA had told the older players inthe NBA, you let this case be
one. You guys are going tobe pushed out on the back end,
and so Oscar Robinson, Jerry West, Tommy Hansen, all of those players
that no, we're standing with it, and Lord and behold. In nineteen

(33:45):
seventy one March first, the casewas before Thurgood Marshall, and Thurgood Marshall
was making a statement that we allowhockey players, tennis players, all other
sports to come in, but thetwo revenue sports, which is basketball and
football. So he ruled in myfavor, and that's when we had seventeen

(34:08):
teams. We moved from seventeen teamsall the way to thirty teams, and
we started to develop what we havetoday in the NBA. So you had
Julior serving, George Gervin, allof the players coming in, Bob McAdoo.
They came in earlier and we have, but we had a chance to
expand and really grow the league theway it should have been grown. And

(34:32):
then we had, you know,the Players Association, which is in nineteen
seventies or the nineteen sixty four theyhad to boycott the All Star game before
they would let the player representatives,Tommy Hanks and all those guys to set
up a union, which you guysare part of. Right now. Wow,

(34:59):
that's a well but you know,it's very rich history. And to
ask answer our question you asked earlier, what can we do to get these
young guys in? I think certainlywhat Da and I and Michael Burnell,
who is our other partner, aredoing and what we have planned. We're
really excited for men all the awareness, most which is in May. I

(35:19):
think more can be done about listeningto the stories at all of you.
You are not forgotten heroes, andit would be a wonderful panel even if
during next All Star we can nextyear to get all of you together and
do what we're doing here and justhave a panel and put together a clip

(35:42):
of exactly what you're talking about,but not so much focus on the events
which are important. But again,you are a black man, twenty one
year old kid going up against Goliath, and you had other folks, wild
allies included supported you. That whereour young guys they don't know any of

(36:07):
that stuff. They don't and Ithink we are doing them a disservice by
robbing them of the history. Everybodyknows. Well, yeah, there are
four others and we're going on theshoulders of grace, but they don't know
the story and the mental health storyof what you had to overcome personally and

(36:27):
privately. And I can't imagine thehate mail and the N words, and
there's that other that you got thatyou don't speak about it. And I'm
not trying to agitate it up now, but one again, that's part of
your dignity and pride, and that'sthe kind of messaging our young kids need
to here. Yeah, well itsort of boiled over. I had so

(36:50):
much that I had pushed down becauseof my upbringing and Derek, I was
brought up in civil City, Mississippi. It ain't no silver and it ain't
no city. It's just cotton pills, and so to go through all of
that stuff because I was in thetotally segregated society and my family we were

(37:13):
worried, you know, who's goingto do something to us later or whatever
would happen. And my mother toldme a story years later, and I
always wondered why she waited so late, just as I was leaving Mississippi to
tell me this story, and ithurt me so badly, and I was
just really, I mean, Inever expressed it to my kids or anyone.

(37:39):
This is the first time I talkedabout I will be talking about it.
Is that when she was eleven yearsold, my grandmother died and she
worked in the big house on thefarm, and so my mother had to
take her place at eleven go tothe farm. The farmer rapes her.

(38:05):
She has a baby, my oldestsister third. So we lived with this
whole, this this thing around.We couldn't talk about it because it was
life and death. And so Ihad all of this anger, all this
stuff pushed down, and then thecase in itself that just beat me to

(38:27):
death. And for years now,even to this day, people come up
to me, Oh, you're theone who broke the four year of college
rule, or you sure didn't messup to college? You know you're you're
there a bad thing. And I'msaying, well, what about all of
the players that I have created overthirty two billion dollars? What the player
contracts? What about those families whodidn't have an opportunity to work, to

(38:52):
go out and make a living forthemselves. We were that those people,
Derek. We are those people whogave our family a leg up so that
we can roll. Look, yeah, that's incredible story. Well, yeah,
I'm here with I'm with the psychologist, so I can let it all.

(39:15):
Well, but you know something,you're saying, here's something both you
and DA have experience, and againyou don't talk about it, and there's
no evidence that there's any remnants ofit. But I mean, I wrote
an article a couple years ago calledInvisible Tattoo, which really is a story
of several Elie players, and it'sabout trauma childhood for the athletes, that's

(39:37):
what all of you have. AndI use the analogy from the tattoo because
when you ink yourself or get inked, it's painful, it's it hurts.
Depending on where you're part of thebody. It's excruciating with people, and
it takes time, but once it'sthere, it's a nice picture, and

(39:58):
it's often symbolic of something about youthat you can't go to the restroom and
wash at all. And so whenwe have as children before the age of
ten, a lot of that trauma. No kid has the emotional intelligence or
cognitive sophistication want to know what reallyis going on, let alone the long

(40:19):
term implications of it. But there'sa lot of emotional scrambling that goes on,
and each one of those emotions isinked into your soul and spirit and
creates a memory, a reflection ofsomething you don't want to go back to
until COVID hits, until your courtcase hits, and all of that stuff

(40:44):
comes to bear. And so againpart of what we're carrying around, and
it really is a testament to thestrength. There's a lot of these invisible
tattoos. And again to look atboth of you all and to know you
there be no evidence of it.And in fact, my guests to some
of you said, well, Imade it this far, why go back
and surface all that stuff. Myanswer is that there's still a lot of

(41:08):
hidden gems of talent because it's notthe situation that occurred, it's how you
responded. But breaking that down,there was curs there was curiosity, there
was stamina, there was a deplication, there was self agency and belief somewhere
that I could do this. Youwere following an inner voice this isn't me.

(41:31):
This is happening to me, butit's not me, And there was
a quiet voice in there that keptdriving you. That's the treasure in the
chest that I'm talking about and tellingstories is how to get this out?
Wow, I mean this is true. It's awesome. It's awesome. So

(41:52):
now so when you're saying a tattoo, because I was looking at tattoos back
when I went to study in Egyptwith doctor Ben asked while doctor asked,
while Quasi, as well as asJohn Henry Clark. I went to make
a study in nineteen ninety three withthem in African history, study all of

(42:16):
Africa, throughout Egypt and throughout Africa, North Africa, which is false part
of Africa, all down to theask one. Damn. I was trying
to find myself because I was justhoping that I could see what it happened
to me. Why it happened tome? And what lineage do I have

(42:37):
to keep me balanced? And whatdid? I found some wonderful things and
I would see in the paintings andon the hieroglyphs the Egyptians had tattoos.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Andthere was a lot of symbol ritualism behind
it. Yes, and I thinkthere's it's a form of art and expressions.

(43:00):
But again you explaining it about youknow, can you explain one more
time for the warning. Yes,it's the emotions that we have a lot
of times, particularly these kids.We don't understand how we feel them,
but we don't know what they mean. And just like when you go get
a tattooed, an artist will dipthe his needle into an ink, well,

(43:24):
draw it out and etch whatever he'sat you and then going again and
again. Well, each emotion thatyou have, both you and Derek had
as a kid going through whatever youwent through, each of the feelings is
equivalent to one jar bowl of ink. So whether it's depression or confusion or

(43:49):
you know, overwhelmed or whatever,and each of those is an eat that's
used to etch the invisible image ofwhat happened. And again, like you
can't erase, and a real tattoo, you can't unsee, unhear, or

(44:09):
unfeel anything that happened you in thepast. You don't have to let it
dictate your life. But it's alwaysthere, and it's holding onto the past
because hear me now, the pastdoesn't hold on to you. You hold
on to the past and you don'thave to. And both of you again

(44:34):
have been quite distinguished in your careersdifferent generations. But the parallels are just
remarkable. That time you didn't askfor but you found something in here,
not out there. Right, youdon't have to go to the wizard to
go find out that you had.The brands are occurred all the time.

(44:55):
It's already there, and unfortunately ittakes sometimes have our circumstances to bring those
out. On other occasions takes morepositive circumtances to bring it out. Either
way, you're stuck the rest ofyour life being wonderful, brandic, glorious.
But the option we have we don'tever have to tap into that genius
if we don't want to, butit's there for the table and take that

(45:19):
to the bank. What can wedo? And I say we because all
of us as former players and youare working right with right beside doctor Parium
to make how do we get thisstigma away from mental health and mental wellness?

(45:45):
How do we do we have ahotline of something that players can call
in and be have the anonymity andsuggest to get a feel of like maybe
letting something like I look at aplayer like and I'll just use this name,
but I really feel for him.It's Russell Westbrook. I just think

(46:08):
this and what you and Doc aregiven to the players association an individual like
that with he and his family onthe QTa quietly away from everything, well,
I think he would benefit greatly.Yeah, I for me, we're

(46:29):
already doing a lot, but wedo have a highline. We have all
that information on our site. Ithink the more we show examples, the
more people see it. Have youever noticed a pizza commercial? You wasn't
thinking about pizza, but you'll seea pizza commercial, then you'll think about
it. I think. I thinkwhat we're doing now is bringing it to
the attention to people. And themore we put that out there, the

(46:50):
more people will be coming to us. There'll be more receptive, there'll be
more open. You can't force peopleto open up you can just give them
an opportunity and that's just like anythingin life. So for us, it
just giving them that opportunity knowing thatwe're here putting it out there, sharing
it with them, sharing other stories. People will start coming out now and
and just sharing the journeys. Youknow, we're not asking people to lay

(47:13):
down the whole scenario of their life. Who we are asking them to be
better in the life that they're innow. So we're doing We're doing a
good enough job now, but wecan do better. And I'm just excited
to be a part of this journeywith doctor Barham. Awesome work you guys
are doing. And again in thissegment here, I would like to talk
a little bit about basketball. Youknow, I have my pick that I

(47:38):
think is going to be in thefinal. I mean, and I want
you to to share what's going onin the basketball world. Now. Let
me just say these are my picksand this is not that and Stone.
I love Chris Paul, I lovePhoenix Sons. I just love this team
and I love but Chris Paul haddid you know he did something fantastic for

(48:02):
us as retired players when we whenI was the chairman of the board for
the Retired Players Association. Chris Paulcame in and I kept asking people like,
how do we get health insurance?Because our guys are dying. We
had players who needed heart transplants,and late Archibald, you know, he's

(48:22):
a great Hall of famous and Chrisand your team and a team of all
of your players just came in andsaid, we want, we want you
to have the same health insurance thatwe have. And y'all gave us a
health insurance policy with some fifteen fifteenand a half million dollars per year.
So I love Chris Paul, Ilove Steph Curry, I love your executive

(48:47):
board at that time. But speakingof that, I still think that it's
going to be Golden State and Brooklyn. Now tell me you're those guys.
I agree with Joan Golden State,but I'm gonna stay with Phoenix only because
I feel like they've been there.So I'm gonna roll with Phoenix and I'm

(49:12):
running back back with Milwaukee. I'mgonna go back. Yeah, yeah,
I'm actually going to be side.But yeah, I think Golden State is
wonderful. I think depending on everybody'shealth, I still think with Clay coming
back. They're still sort of findingtheir way. I'm really excited about the
Phoenix. In fact, even thoughChris Paul was out of camera, Payne

(49:34):
had stepped up big time and JohnI just finding his way, so I
think, and they've been there before, and they just have that taste and
a lot of NBA championships, includinggoing back to Isaiah Thomas, Magic Johnson,
Larry Bird. The year before theywon that next championship, they got

(49:58):
beat badly and they use that asa as a chip. So I'm pulling
for Phoenix. I think Milwaukee isgoing to emerge because when I see you're
understand, what the hell I'm takingthe gam over. I mean he's outside
inside who was lags dropped? Imean he's just doing it all. And

(50:22):
I can see how he excites Middletoneverybody else and Drew Holiday boy, that
guy just so I think they haveit. But I do think they're going
to have some contention. I thinkBrooklyn, I think it's still struggling,
still struggling. I think Night's game, so you know me, but I

(50:43):
think it's important. But I thinkthat, you know, let's not take
our eyes off Memphis and John Morant. Yeah, and I have a couple
more players around the match. Whohe is the new face of the league,
Y asked me. But again,I think in the ultimate championship would
be Phoenix no One. Okay,but what do you guys think about teams
like Utah Jazz which is trying tofind their way and they are pretty close

(51:08):
as well. And then we lookat not looking at what's happened in the
past. But I think the Celticsare someone that I'm sort of looking at
differently, as well as the seventysixers. But I don't think the seventy
sixers have enough. I don't thinkseventy sixes are built to individualize as is

(51:32):
Boston. Boston has no playmakers.All they have is a Brown and Tatum
or scores. They don't know thatthey need a facilitator, so if they're
not going, the team isn't going. I think that's the same with Philly
is they don't have a facilitator.They got Hardening and Tobias, They're they're
all individualized scores. When you havea good team, you need a point

(51:53):
guard. And I think that's whatDenver has missed it ever since they've gotten
rid of Rubio. I think whenthey made Donovan Mitchell and Ingles before they
traded him, they were all theseare all individual teams. And I played
on individual teams where our starting linewas me, Scottie Pippen, she Wallace,
Like we had all individual players.We didn't have a point guard.

(52:16):
Yeah in Portland, So if youdon't have solid point guard like we did,
we had Jason Williams and Gary Garyup Baby, so we had two
solid point guards. So if youcan get a solid point guard, you
can win. But I think thoseteams you mentioned are two individualized all a
lot of talent, but you needa team to win a championship, and
I think without that leadership at thepoint guard, if though those two teams

(52:39):
won't make it. They'll they'll givesome good runs, but I don't think
they'll make it out of either anyof those series against those other better teams.
Yeah, do you do you guysthink that Lakers are gonna get into
the play playing game. They couldbe dangerous if they did, because they
don't have anything to lose. Youknow, they're like, hey, we're
here now, Like the way thatmakes the noise people be like, where's

(53:01):
this team been at? These shocksof people take get in. Yeah,
I would agree, but I thinkthey will shocks with you. But I
think they have a long way togo to be of shocked values. I
think Lebron is clearly nineteen years inhe's still playing like a rookie, and
he's showing somewhere and tear. Butgosh, for thirty seven years old,

(53:22):
thirty eight, he is a marvelnineteen years, nineteen years in the league
playing that kind of game. Oh, but there's some wear and tear,
and they have a lot of injuryand a lot of other sort of chemistry.
I think it'll be scary if theydo get in there, because they
da hurrics. I think they'll havenothing to lose. Yeah, I think
it's gonna be tough to get through. Well, I want to thank you

(53:45):
both for joining me today. Iwant to thank you for this wonderful conversation,
and I want to thank the NBAPlayers Association for their help as well
as the NBA and Nike. SoI just want to thank you all for
joining us today. And remember it'sthe Spencer Haywood Rule, so hopefully we'll

(54:12):
get it named eventually so the playerswill know that there's a story behind their
journey into the NBA. So Ithank you both very much and I'll see
you down the line. Thank youso much, thank you so much,
thank you. Change the world Jesuscan never ever to save. This is
a change. Change the world JesusKing, never ever to save. This

(54:36):
is a change. This podcast wasproduced by Hardcast Media

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