Dennis Rodman

Basketball player

• Born: May 13, 1961
• Place of Birth: Trenton, New Jersey

SPORT: Basketball

Early Life

Dennis Keith Rodman was born to Philander and Shirley Rodman on May 13, 1961, in Trenton, New Jersey. When Rodman was just three years old, his father deserted the family, leaving Rodman and two younger sisters in the care of their mother. The family moved to Dallas, Texas, where Rodman grew up in the Oak Cliff Projects section of town. He was a shy, frail child and was repeatedly beaten up by older, more aggressive schoolmates. During high school, Rodman, at 5 feet 11 inches, failed to make the varsity basketball team.

After graduating from high school, he held various jobs, including janitor at the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. He reportedly stole fifteen watches from the airport gift shop on a dare and was arrested, though he was not charged after he told the police where the watches were. Shortly after this incident, Rodman’s mother kicked him out of the house and their relationship became distant.

Rodman’s life then changed dramatically. A tremendous growth spurt—just under a foot in a single year—resulted in a 6-foot 8-inch Dennis Rodman. At the age of twenty, he began playing basketball. After a year of junior college, the late bloomer won a basketball scholarship to Southeastern Oklahoma State University in 1983.

In 1985 and 1986, his junior and senior years of college, Rodman led the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) in rebounding, with 16.1 and 17.8 rebounds per game, respectively. At a summer basketball camp during his college years, Rodman met Byrne Rich, a boy he coached. After Rodman learned that Rich had killed his best friend in a hunting accident, Rodman comforted him and the two became friends. The Rich family was so grateful for Rodman’s support and friendship that they took him into their home. Rodman welcomed their encouragement as his basketball career began to take off.

NBA Career

Rodman was named an All-American as a senior and was the Detroit Pistons’ pick in the second round of the 1986 National Basketball Association (NBA) Draft. He began his career with the Pistons as a forward and quickly found a home as one of the high-spirited players nicknamed the “Bad Boys.” In 1992, Rodman married model Annie Banks. The couple divorced after eighty-two days, after which Rodman’s first child, daughter Alexis, was born. Banks was the initial inspiration for many off the tattoos that cover Rodman’s body.

Rodman quickly established himself as a key player on the Pistons under the welcome tutelage of coach Chuck Daly. Rodman was a strong rebounder and a crucial part of the Pistons’ defense, helping the team win back-to-back NBA titles in 1989 and 1990. He continued to build his reputation as a star player and bad boy, winning NBA Defensive Player of the Year honors in 1990 and 1991. When Daly left the team and several of Rodman’s friends were traded, the feeling that his first professional family was crumbling around him left Rodman with a cynical attitude toward the NBA. He charged that the NBA exploited its players but still expected them to have a squeaky-clean image—even when such an image was at odds with the demands of the game. He ended his career with the Pistons in 1992 after having earned top rebounder status that year.

In 1993, Rodman joined the San Antonio Spurs, signing a three-year contract. He helped the Spurs get to the playoffs and led the league in rebounding in 1993, 1994, and 1995. While playing for the Spurs, Rodman established himself as a rebounder in the tradition of Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain, both centers who were much heavier and taller than Rodman. At 6 feet 8 inches, weighing 215 pounds, Rodman was relatively small for his specialty.

While with the Spurs, Rodman had a brief relationship with singer Madonna and cemented his reputation as a renegade ballplayer and nonconformist. His bad-boy reputation and the failure of the Spurs to make the finals following the 1994–95 season were key factors in his trade to the Chicago Bulls in 1996.

From 1995 to 1998, Rodman played with the Chicago Bulls and became known as the league’s best rebounder and most tenacious defender. While he was with the team, the Bulls won three NBA Championships—in 1996, 1997, and 1998. With Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, Rodman was at the core of what many people have called the greatest basketball team of all time. In the players’ first regular season together, the Bulls won an unprecedented seventy-two games and went on to win the NBA Championship that year and the two years that followed.

During his tenure with the Bulls, Rodman grew increasingly outrageous and enjoyed a lot of media attention. He became a favorite guest on late-night talk shows. In 1996, Rodman wrote a raucous, uncensored autobiography titled Bad As I Wanna Be, which quickly became a bestseller. He made his film debut with Whoopi Goldberg in Eddie the same year, signed with MTV to do a show called Dennis Rodman’s World Tour ’96, and starred in the Jean-Claude Van Damme action film Double Team in 1997.

At the age of thirty-seven, Rodman took his five NBA Championship rings with him to Los Angeles to join the Lakers after the Bulls’ Jordan-Pippen-Rodman triple threat disbanded in 1998. The Lakers hoped Rodman would tighten up the team’s then-lackluster defense and help Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant take the team to the finals. Rodman was a problematic Lakers player, getting more press attention for his marriage to Baywatch actress Carmen Electra in 1998 than for his efforts on the court. The couple wed at Little Chapel of the Flowers in Los Vegas, Nevada, but after a nine-day marriage, Rodman filed for an annulment. Though the couple attempted to reconcile, Electra filed for divorce in 1999, which was finalized six months after they married. That same year, the Lakers released Rodman before the playoffs.

Rodman joined one more NBA team, the Dallas Mavericks, in the midst of the 1999–2000 season but was cut before the season ended. He retired from the NBA at the age of thirty-nine with a reputation as one of the game’s finest defensive players ever to step on a court.

Continuing the Story

After he retired from the NBA, Rodman played with a number of other non-NBA teams, including the Long Beach Jam, the Orange County Crush, and the Tijuana Dragons of the American Basketball Association (ABA). He played three games for the British Basketball League’s Briton Bears and one game for Torpan Pojat, a Finnish professional team.

In 2003, Rodman married Michelle Moyers, his girlfriend and the mother to his two additional children, son Dennis Jr., born in 2001, and daughter Trinity, born in 2002. Moyers (eventually Michelle Rodman) filed for divorce in 2004, though their marriage did not officially end until 2012.

In 2005, Rodman published another memoir, titled I Should Be Dead by Now, and in 2013, he coauthored a children's book with Dustin Warburton titled Dennis the Wild Bull. Furthermore, he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2011. In 2009 and 2013 he appeared as a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice, where he befriended Donald Trump, whose 2016 presidential campaign Rodman later endorsed.

Rodman courted controversy once again in 2013 and 2014 when he visited North Korea, bringing along a team of American players for an exhibition game. He allegedly befriended North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un during these visits. Rodman returned to North Korea in June 2017 on the same day two Americans were released from North Korean prisons. Despite rumors of a connection between Rodman's visit and the release of US prisoners, the White House and US State Department denied any such connection.

Summary

Though he was also known as one of basketball’s “bad boys,” Dennis Rodman was one of the greatest rebounders in the NBA. A two-time NBA defensive player of the year, five-time NBA All-Star, and winner of five NBA Championship rings, Rodman should be remembered for much more than his multicolored hair, tattoos, and nose rings.

Bibliography

Bechtel, Mark, and Stephen Cannella. “On the Road with . . . Dennis Rodman.” Sports Illustrated 103.19 (2005): 20. Print.

Bickley, Dan. No Bull: The Unauthorized Biography of Dennis Rodman. New York: St. Martin’s, 1997. Print.

Fifield, Anna. "Dennis Rodman Is Back in North Korea. Was He Sent by Trump?" The Washington Post, 13 June 2017, www.washingtonpost.com/world/dennis-rodman-is-on-his-way-to-north-korea-was-he-sent-by-trump/2017/06/12/5c9c19cc-4fd9-11e7-a973-3dae94ed3eb7‗story.html. Accessed 21 July 2017.

Ramzy, Austin. "Dennis Rodman, Frequent Visitor to North Korea, Is Back." The New York Times, 13 June 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/06/13/world/asia/dennis-rodman-north-korea.html. Accessed 21 July 2017.

Rodman, Dennis, and Jack Isenhour. I Should Be Dead by Now. Champaign: Sports, 2005. Print.

Rodman, Dennis, and Tim Keown. Bad As I Wanna Be. New York: Delacorte, 1996. Print.

Rodman, Dennis, Pat Rich, and Alan Steinberg. Rebound: The Dennis Rodman Story. New York: Crown, 1994. Print.

Rodman, Dennis, and David Whitaker. Words from the Worm: An Unauthorized Trip through the Mind of Dennis Rodman. Chicago: Bonus, 1997. Print.

Weiss, Jacqueline. “Dennis Rodman's 3 Kids: All about Alexis, D.J. and Trinity.” People, 23 May 2024, people.com/all-about-dennis-rodman-kids-7502565. Accessed 12 June 2024.

Wennington, Bill, and Kent McDill. Tales from the Chicago Bulls Locker Room: A Collection of the Greatest Bulls Stories Ever Told. New York: Sports, 2014. Print.