Unguarded: The Story of a Basketball Junkie

Over the weekend I had the pleasure of watching the ESPN Film "Unguarded". It is the story of Fall River native Chris Herren, a former high school and college standout who made it all the way to the NBA. Chris would eventually fall into a drug problem that would ultimately end his career. I have actually followed this story for the past year, as a former AAU basketball coach there is a buzz among the coaches and I had heard that Chris Herren was running basketball camps for AAU kids in Rhode Island. Several months ago I had an article in the Providence Journal about Chris' new life and promoting his book "Basketball Junkie". In that article it was announced that ESPN was doing a documentary on it. I bought the book and read it in less than a couple of days.
This film was well done, however it left out how far Chris would go to do drugs. The film was basically bits and pieces of his nationwide speech tour, where he would share his story with high school students, AA meetings and at the Daytop treatment center, where he was a patient. The Chris Herren story is a sad one, and if you know it from beginning, Chris never had a chance. He was your prototypical high school sports star in a town that loved basketball. He was following in his family's footsteps of great basketball players and had been anticipated as the next great superstar, at 12 years old. That is extremely unfair for a kid that age to pressure him into that type of role.

What the film is trying to capture is that Chris was a prisoner of Fall River. The town had sunk his hooks into him and would not let him go. As much as I wanted to believe that it is simply not the case. Chris had a very strong support system. His brother and especially his wife were always there for him, hoping to make him kick his terrible habit and his addictive personality. That was Chris' major flaw, he was a good person, a good son, a good brother, a loving husband and father. Neither the book nor the movie portrays him as an evil man as you see in many cases with drug abusers. If it was just a case of the city he was from, then once he left Fall River the problems would not have followed him to Fresno, Denver, Boston, Bologna, Istanbul, Tehran, and so on. Chris was a junkie and his body literally could not function without drugs.

In the film, Chris shared some stories of his actions during his drugged out times. The book is Chris sharing all those stories and the desperation he was facing as his body had conformed to his addictive personality. A couple of the stories shared.

• When needing shoulder surgery as a member of the Boston Celtics his body was so accustomed to Oxycontin that he was not responding to anesthesia
• When he was in rehab in Utah, while at Fresno State, his roommate’s girlfriend would sneak them drugs by putting them in a tennis ball and throwing it up to their balcony
• While playing in China, he was at his apartment during an off day watching his son. He went downstairs to meet his dealer, he was already high. He had thought he had locked himself out of his apartment and broke down to door to get in. Come to find out, he was on the wrong floor.

The book and movie both miss the mark on one facet. They definitely mentioned it but they could have gone into it more. The true hero of this story is not Chris, but his wife Heather Herren. It could easily be claimed that Heather did not sign up for. That is wrong, not only did she sign up for it, she was going to beat this thing with Chris, she was the rock that made the family stay together. She treated Chris like he had any other sickness. Just because his sickness was a drug addiction, doesn't make him any less sick. She would not bail on him if he had cancer, so she would not bail on him during his dark times. Heather is the true hero of this story and as Chris stated in the first 15 minutes of the documentary when recounting a story, "Heather saves the day again"

I truly recommend seeing "Unguarded" and if you are truly mesmerized by this story then you should read "Basketball Junkie". It is a nice memoir and you will get the true detail of what Chris Herren was going through. I want to thank Chris Herren for sharing his story with the world, he is not alone, he has his family, his friends and everyone either watched his movie or read his book in his corner. Go get em Chris!

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