Speaker 1: Charges. That's created by Poor Delays and Control Media. It's
Speaker 1: produced by dB Podcasts in association with I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: This time a former Son's player who you might remember
Speaker 1: as t Rex. More video in just a moment, But
Speaker 1: this is Rex Chapman's mug shot, and we are learning
Speaker 1: a lot more about the Charge Up the Chargeman. I
Speaker 1: remember coming out of jail that night and I remember
Speaker 1: calling the guy who should it to me and like, listen,
Speaker 1: I need more because him is so good. It almost
Speaker 1: killed me. You know, I wish people challenged me in
Speaker 1: other areas of my life. My wife is less than
Speaker 1: a quarter mile away from this scene, and she's about
Speaker 1: to find out that her husband is a heroin addict.
Speaker 1: You're a walking, fucking miracle man. Welcome to Charges. I'm
Speaker 1: your host, Rex Chapman. Today on the show, we have
Speaker 1: perhaps one of the best players to have his career
Speaker 1: and potential completely ruined by addiction. Compared to a lot
Speaker 1: of the guests we'll have on this show, you might
Speaker 1: not know him, so let me give you a little background.
Speaker 1: Chris got his own Sports Illustrated photo shoot, which in
Speaker 1: was about as big a deal as trimming on Twitter
Speaker 1: for a week straight I spoke with a number of
Speaker 1: Chris's former coaches, teammates, and opponents, including our resident two
Speaker 1: time NBA MVP Slash Charges executive co producer Steve Nash,
Speaker 1: and he told me that Chris should have played in
Speaker 1: the NBA for ten, twelve, fourteen years he played for two.
Speaker 1: Come join us today on a crazy and in some
Speaker 1: ways cathartic episode of Charges with us Today is Chris Harren,
Speaker 1: perhaps one of the best players to have his career
Speaker 1: and potential completely ruined by addiction. Chris was the pride
Speaker 1: of Fall River, Massachusetts who became a McDonald's All American.
Speaker 1: He would land at Boston College and go on and
Speaker 1: start at Fresno's a under legendary coach Jerry tart Kanian.
Speaker 1: But we will get into why he changed schools later.
Speaker 1: He was drafted by the Denver Nuggets in the second
Speaker 1: round of the ninety nine NBA Draft thirty third overall,
Speaker 1: and then played for his hometown Boston Celtics the following season.
Speaker 1: He then head overseas to play basketball in China, Turkey, Italy,
Speaker 1: Poland I Ran. He did all of this while battling
Speaker 1: a massive drug addiction. A drug addiction so consuming that
Speaker 1: he would overdose and need to be brought back from
Speaker 1: the dead more than once. You might know of Chris
Speaker 1: if you're a true hoops junkie, which if you think
Speaker 1: about it, what a term, right, or you may know
Speaker 1: him from the incredible documentary on him as part of
Speaker 1: ESPNS thirty for thirty series called Unguarded by Jonathan Hawk,
Speaker 1: or his memoir Basketball Junkie. Chris is an author, motivational speaker,
Speaker 1: and wellness advocate. Chris has founded three organizations that provide
Speaker 1: programs and services with the goal of overcoming setbacks and
Speaker 1: navigating life's challenges. It's great honor to be here with
Speaker 1: Chris today. And Chris, I'm so glad you survived to
Speaker 1: talk with me. Bro. No man, I'm honored honestly, you know. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, aside from everything you just talked about. Um,
Speaker 1: you know you are one of the reasons why I
Speaker 1: picked up a basketball. You know, there's no doubt about that.
Speaker 1: So I remember, you know, cutting out sports illustrated pitches
Speaker 1: of you, and so it is it's great to be here,
Speaker 1: and um, I'm glad we're here in this uh talking
Speaker 1: about recovery and so on. That's really cool bro, Thank you. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I reached out to a guy yesterday who I spent
Speaker 1: time with in the NBA, A coach. Um. Now, he's
Speaker 1: not much older than I am, but I reached out
Speaker 1: to him yesterday because I told him, I said, weren't
Speaker 1: you uh with Chris? At one point he said yes,
Speaker 1: And I want to read you what he said. See
Speaker 1: if you can guess who it is, I'm sure you can. Wow.
Speaker 1: I love Chris, everyone does. Most likable kid I ever coached,
Speaker 1: even and back then, very unselfish. Only player who would
Speaker 1: actually buy me lunch. I remember doing defensive slides with
Speaker 1: him on his recruiting trip in his hotel room, showing
Speaker 1: him we could teach him to guard the ball. He
Speaker 1: knew he could score, but was concerned he wouldn't be
Speaker 1: able to guard. Who is it? Johnny Welch. Johnny Welch,
Speaker 1: Johnny Well you know exactly how great is that? Dude? Yeah?
Speaker 1: He's the best. He I mean, I want to be
Speaker 1: here today. Um. He made me, you know, he brought
Speaker 1: me into the lab and created this basketball player. So
Speaker 1: you know, without John Welch, I would have never made
Speaker 1: it past college. Um. But what people don't know about
Speaker 1: our relationship too is he was instrumental into supporting my
Speaker 1: recovery as well as introducing me to recovery. So on
Speaker 1: so many levels, so impactful. You know, just a great man,
Speaker 1: a great mind, a great soul and uh you know,
Speaker 1: nothing but cherished beautiful memories of Johnny Welch. That's so
Speaker 1: great here, Yes, truly hit son. Riley has been playing
Speaker 1: here at Kentucky the last few years as a walk
Speaker 1: on so and he just graduated. So I can't believe
Speaker 1: that he was just a little guy. It seems like yesterday,
Speaker 1: you know, could you please, you know, set the scene
Speaker 1: where you're from Fall River in Massachusetts. The city it
Speaker 1: seems like it shaped you. And as a kid from Kentucky,
Speaker 1: I can kind of understand that. Tell me about fall River,
Speaker 1: you know, Fall River was a booman city back in
Speaker 1: the twenties and the thirties, textile, a lot of mills um,
Speaker 1: but a lot of blue collar, a lot of blue
Speaker 1: collar people, hard working. You know, the city in itself
Speaker 1: is a tough city. But you know the lineage, the
Speaker 1: history of diffy basketball just you know, growing up in
Speaker 1: that time. You know the Celtics, you know they were
Speaker 1: kind of second back seat to diffy basketball. To me
Speaker 1: as a kid, you know, diffy basketball meant everything to me,
Speaker 1: you know, especially with no internet and no access. You know,
Speaker 1: all I cared about it was Tuesdays and Friday nights
Speaker 1: going to watch diffy basketball. So you know, my father
Speaker 1: played hoop. My brother was unbelievably successful as a high
Speaker 1: school basketball player. Did you guys play together? You and
Speaker 1: your brother? He was older by too much, right, yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so he You know, I came in his freshman year
Speaker 1: of college. So I was a freshman in high schoolhen
Speaker 1: he was a freshman in college. You know, I was
Speaker 1: blessed with probably more athletic ability. He was blessed with
Speaker 1: more heart in a sense, you know, in toughness. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know he's he but come on, yeah yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: well listen, I was blessed with enough of it accepted. Yeah. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, he was a tough act to follow, and
Speaker 1: playing in front of, as you know, thousands and thousands
Speaker 1: of people as a fourteen fifteen year old kind of
Speaker 1: shapes you and sometimes negative I understand that. Man. You know,
Speaker 1: the town I grew up in sixty thou people, Owensboro, Kentucky,
Speaker 1: and four high schools my dad coached. He played, he
Speaker 1: played an old a B A but he you know,
Speaker 1: I was always Wayne Chapman's son. But he coached at
Speaker 1: Apollo High School, and that's all I wanted to do,
Speaker 1: was the only thing I wanted to do. I went
Speaker 1: to his practices every day. Nothing else mattered. And you know,
Speaker 1: as I grew up, you know, started getting better and
Speaker 1: better and stuff, but it was always rewarded, you know, positively.
Speaker 1: When that's all I knew how to do. I didn't
Speaker 1: give a shit about anything else, school, nothing else, you know.
Speaker 1: So I wonder, you know how similar that might have
Speaker 1: been for you playing for Durfy completely. You know, I
Speaker 1: often tell people, especially when I speak to kids, like,
Speaker 1: you know, I wish people challenged me in other areas
Speaker 1: of my life, you know, like I wish somebody came
Speaker 1: up to me and you know, and said, you're really
Speaker 1: good at basketball, but you really struggle, you know, being yourself.
Speaker 1: And you can play and perform in front of a
Speaker 1: lot of people and score a lot of points, but
Speaker 1: you really struggle with yourself on a Friday night with
Speaker 1: kids that you've known your whole life. So you know,
Speaker 1: in my my mission today and all the public speaking
Speaker 1: I do and all the kids I'm in front of,
Speaker 1: you know, it's about awareness. It's about you know, challenging
Speaker 1: our children socially and emotionally and exposing them to different
Speaker 1: life skills, coping skills, skills that I never had. And
Speaker 1: you know, I'm listening to you talk about you know,
Speaker 1: you didn't care about school and it was just scoop,
Speaker 1: and internally I kind of cringe, right, because that's that's
Speaker 1: the thing. Yeah, I mean, that's one of the things
Speaker 1: I'm most embarrassed by, you know, is that lack of
Speaker 1: effort that I put in into so many other areas
Speaker 1: of my life. Lack of curiosity. That's what gets me,
Speaker 1: you know, just I didn't care if somebody did tell
Speaker 1: me I was messing up. I remember them telling me
Speaker 1: in school sophomore year, and I had no plans on
Speaker 1: leaving school early, but they said, rex, you know, this
Speaker 1: is a class you're gonna need. And I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna need that. I'm not gonna need that,
Speaker 1: and then I left. And then guess what that degree
Speaker 1: would have been coming really handy about seven or eight
Speaker 1: years ago, right, you know, I couldn't even coach basketball
Speaker 1: because I don't have a degree. So you're in high school.
Speaker 1: You're dominating though on the court, you know, but off
Speaker 1: the court, what were your vices? What were you doing? Drinking? Smoking,
Speaker 1: you know, and did that affect your game at all
Speaker 1: as a high schooler? You know, I think so drinking
Speaker 1: and smoking primarily occasional pills. Right, If I could get
Speaker 1: my hands on if some valu yeah, if some parents
Speaker 1: had surgery, will get ahold of their Viking ins um,
Speaker 1: someone you know had their wisdom teeth pulled, or you know,
Speaker 1: one of our friends had a little orthoscopic surgery. So
Speaker 1: we weren't afraid of that. From the outside looking in,
Speaker 1: I would say a lot of people would not have
Speaker 1: projected my struggle because the game of basketball took me
Speaker 1: away from it. It was an escape for those two hours,
Speaker 1: and you're dominating. You know, you feel superhuman in many ways, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And not to mention the fact too, like, you know,
Speaker 1: a AU was just kind of coming into its own
Speaker 1: and it was yet to be taken over by the
Speaker 1: sneaker companies. But I was playing you know, seventy eight
Speaker 1: Games of Summer, right, So I'm traveling to Vegas to
Speaker 1: Tennessee to Florida. So I'm away from the scene. It's
Speaker 1: just when I come back to the scene, right, I
Speaker 1: come back and I dive right in part of me.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if you struggled with that, but
Speaker 1: I wanted to be normal, and you know, like I
Speaker 1: was envious to the kids who didn't have, you know,
Speaker 1: all this pressure, you know, in this ability, and I
Speaker 1: just wanted to be normal, right, And you know, it
Speaker 1: is kind of like the whole be careful what you
Speaker 1: wish for. I dreamt all of my friends from age
Speaker 1: eight to grow to be able to play basketball. They
Speaker 1: all dreamed for it, and then it happened to me.
Speaker 1: You know, I just wanted to get a scholarship somewhere.
Speaker 1: What I wasn't prepared for was I was so socially
Speaker 1: inept if I wasn't around my good friends when I
Speaker 1: came to Kentucky. Part of me coming to Kentucky was
Speaker 1: that I got to bring two of my boys from
Speaker 1: high school to live in the dorm. That was the deal.
Speaker 1: That was the deal, A part of the deal. So
Speaker 1: and they did you know they lived downstairs, my twins,
Speaker 1: Kevin and Keith Vanderpool. There my boys to this day.
Speaker 1: But I almost had no confidence around anyone else. I
Speaker 1: got really weirded out with people looking at me, wondering
Speaker 1: if they were talking about me, talking shit about me,
Speaker 1: or are they loving me up? And and I in
Speaker 1: securities of the time. They're lining me up, you know,
Speaker 1: they're sizing me up. They're not saying, oh, look at
Speaker 1: Chris Harren, What a good guy. You know, I'm thinking
Speaker 1: immediately they're talking about me. So um, and that's alcoholism
Speaker 1: at its best in a sense, right, is untreated alcoholism.
Speaker 1: But um, you know, I too did not have the
Speaker 1: deal on the table of bringing my homeboys to Fresnel.
Speaker 1: But but they I know they were there, but they
Speaker 1: came anyway. We're gonna get to that. But part of
Speaker 1: that high school thing. And I didn't win, Chris, I
Speaker 1: didn't win in college. We were good, but we didn't
Speaker 1: win it. But we won the third region to go
Speaker 1: to the state tournament my junior year in high school.
Speaker 1: And it might I feel because all my boys got
Speaker 1: to do that. They got to go and play in
Speaker 1: rupp Arena. I knew I was gonna go and play later,
Speaker 1: but it's you know, so that high school thing huge
Speaker 1: special especial it's you know, and and unfortunately, right, so
Speaker 1: during high school, they were writing a book about you know,
Speaker 1: Far of a Dreams and you know in that book
Speaker 1: are quite a few of my friends, and you know,
Speaker 1: we all struggled, right, we all struggled like whether it
Speaker 1: was heroin, cocaine, alcoholism. And you know, I say to
Speaker 1: kids all the time, like, you know, that's the scariest
Speaker 1: thing about addiction. Nobody knows who has it yet, you know,
Speaker 1: nobody knows who's gonna be the one suffering so much
Speaker 1: as an adult, you know, because of some of the
Speaker 1: decisions we're making today. And you know, to grow up
Speaker 1: and walk to school with these kids and go to
Speaker 1: elementary and recess and play whoop in their driveways and
Speaker 1: you know, go down to parks, and then fast forward
Speaker 1: twenty years later, we're all shooting heroin and jam and
Speaker 1: coke op on those you know, it's tragic, it is.
Speaker 1: Take me to your dorm room at Boston College. You know,
Speaker 1: cocaine's a serious step up from weed and booze and
Speaker 1: pills um. And that wasn't that long after Lenny Bias
Speaker 1: had died, which was a huge deal nationally and especially
Speaker 1: in Boston. What was it about that coach that intrigued you?
Speaker 1: Because I played against guys with guys who did coke
Speaker 1: who and they were a fucking nightmare to guard. And
Speaker 1: I assumed if I did that, I would a die
Speaker 1: right away or I would love it, and so I
Speaker 1: never did it. So I'm really intrigued to know. And
Speaker 1: how did it make you feel? Playing as well? It
Speaker 1: probably would have had the same exact effect on you
Speaker 1: that it did on me, um, because and only people
Speaker 1: that really partied on coke can identify with this. But
Speaker 1: it was kind of my truth serum. It allowed me
Speaker 1: at three thirty in the morning to sit there on
Speaker 1: a couch and talk about who I was, my feelings
Speaker 1: when I'm struggling with It just opened me up and
Speaker 1: it made me unbelievably transparent and vulnerable. Now, you know,
Speaker 1: at three o'clock the next afternoon, when I'm just shaking
Speaker 1: it off and waking up, I'm like, what did I
Speaker 1: talk about? You know what I mean? But at that moment,
Speaker 1: you know that social awkwardness that you talked about, you know,
Speaker 1: it takes yeah, and it takes that away. It takes
Speaker 1: that away, and it kind of it allows you to
Speaker 1: kind of spill your guts. Um, that was one of
Speaker 1: the attractive things to me. You know, obviously I had
Speaker 1: no idea you know how attracted I'd be to it.
Speaker 1: You know, I I truly said it, and I meant it,
Speaker 1: you know, because of Lenny Bias. Right, I'm saying to myself,
Speaker 1: I'll do this one time and I'll never do it again.
Speaker 1: And fourteen years later, Um, but it's a tough drug.
Speaker 1: My dorm room, you know, eighteen years old, five in
Speaker 1: the morning and I'm watching kids carrying their backpacks going
Speaker 1: to class, and you know, I was just I couldn't
Speaker 1: identify right, and I'm depressed and I'm digging a hole.
Speaker 1: And I just remember the Boston College Athletic director, you know,
Speaker 1: bringing me into his office and saying, we need to
Speaker 1: help you, and I need you to to write down
Speaker 1: who your teaches us I can contact them. And I
Speaker 1: was like, buddy, I don't even know my teachers. You know, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm with you. And that was like three months in
Speaker 1: four months in you know what I mean. I just
Speaker 1: I just didn't know him. I wasn't going And you
Speaker 1: know I say that laughing because you and I can
Speaker 1: identify but also with great embarrassment. After breaking his risk
Speaker 1: during a Boston College home game in November of things
Speaker 1: started going off and into the rails of cocaine addiction.
Speaker 1: Within three months of his injury, Chris failed two more
Speaker 1: drug tests for marijuana and cocaine use. He was expelled
Speaker 1: from the team and the university. So you get kicked
Speaker 1: out at BC. How crushing was that? You know you
Speaker 1: live not far away. Yeah, it was crushing. I couldn't
Speaker 1: wrapped my head around it, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I was doing a lot of coke, a lot of party,
Speaker 1: and it's embarrassing. Right. So I had just got done
Speaker 1: being a feature in Sports Illustrated coming off the McDonald's
Speaker 1: All American Game. BC was you know, we had a
Speaker 1: top five recruiting class, so there were high expectations and
Speaker 1: then it's over and any in hindsight, right, my mother
Speaker 1: she's at the time, you know, thirty nine years old
Speaker 1: and she's got to find out her son has a
Speaker 1: major cocaine addiction, you know. So it's just devastating on
Speaker 1: so many levels. I can dive into it a little
Speaker 1: bit more today than I did at eighteen. I was
Speaker 1: just like, yeah, big mistake. Let's keep it moving. You know,
Speaker 1: when you go to Fresno in the middle of nowhere,
Speaker 1: friends they move out there with you. Uh do you
Speaker 1: ever think, man, I gotta find a way to stay
Speaker 1: away or did you think, you know, these are my people,
Speaker 1: they'll help keep me safe. Could you even negotiate that
Speaker 1: I wouldn't keep them safe? You know what I mean? Like,
Speaker 1: that's the thing I remember growing up as a kid,
Speaker 1: and I remember, you know, parents say, oh, you gotta
Speaker 1: stay away from that kid, you know, And I'm like,
Speaker 1: you have no idea they have. Parents are saying the
Speaker 1: same thing about me, you know, Like you know, people
Speaker 1: tell me, like, you can't hang out with your friends.
Speaker 1: Those friends don't shouldn't be hanging out with me, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, let's keep it real, right, So I fight
Speaker 1: out to Fresno and I get put in the arms
Speaker 1: of Danny Tarkanian and John Welch, And that year of
Speaker 1: sitting out was so there was so much relief, right,
Speaker 1: no pressure. You were crushing them, bro, I mean crushing
Speaker 1: them your body. You know you were. You could tell
Speaker 1: you look different if you look at my sophomore year,
Speaker 1: that red shirt year to my sophomore year, my body.
Speaker 1: Johnny Welch had my body like I was a fighter.
Speaker 1: You know, I was ready and he put me in
Speaker 1: that position. And you know we played. There was some
Speaker 1: great players at Fresno and extremely competitive. Johnny Welsh could play. Oh,
Speaker 1: he could play man. Yeah, got after it too, after
Speaker 1: you Yeah, and you know he'll listen to this. But
Speaker 1: what Johnny Welch won't tell anybody. I think he's for
Speaker 1: three on right hooks on me. I ducked them all.
Speaker 1: I've I've you got some fight to get your background too,
Speaker 1: and I know he does too. He gives no fox man,
Speaker 1: I mean on the nicest guy though off the court.
Speaker 1: Nicest guy, yeah. The great and future Hall of Famer
Speaker 1: Jerry Tart Kanyan May you rest in peace, gave Chris
Speaker 1: a second chance to play by bringing him cross country
Speaker 1: to Fresno State in Chris made his debut for the Bulldogs,
Speaker 1: but after a breakout season under coach Tark, Chris's addiction
Speaker 1: caught up to him once again. Chris felt a drug
Speaker 1: test during his junior year and was forced to go
Speaker 1: to rehab, the first of many trips he would make
Speaker 1: over the next several decades. I saw your press conference
Speaker 1: I saw your press conference and just started bawling because
Speaker 1: I mean I could say you couldn't look you couldn't
Speaker 1: look at anybody. The breaking news concerns one of Jerry
Speaker 1: Tarkanians star basketball players. There's a news conference about to
Speaker 1: get underway at President State, and perhaps some of you
Speaker 1: may know. I haven't battled the first one problem for
Speaker 1: the past four years. I am his days every one
Speaker 1: I sent back in that clips up. It's time for
Speaker 1: mental focus. I'll get Hi my letter back in auto
Speaker 1: and discussion this feep with my doctor's coach kid clue
Speaker 1: that should sep away for the best ball program. I
Speaker 1: fress I finis I We'll be back to oh my
Speaker 1: best Thank you now. This was June, But imagine this
Speaker 1: scenario happening in today's seven news cycle. A top draft
Speaker 1: prospect battling addiction coming soon to an NBA team near you.
Speaker 1: Today's NBA franchises wouldn't touch Hearon or anyone else with
Speaker 1: a ten football, A true testament to just how gifted
Speaker 1: he was as a player. To tends to have executives
Speaker 1: turning a blind eye or two two holes in character.
Speaker 1: For Chris, it was more of a growing chasm ever
Speaker 1: eroding before our eyes. What do you remember about your
Speaker 1: you know, your pre draft workouts and draft night specifically,
Speaker 1: you know, I remember just in complete fear, right like
Speaker 1: if it wasn't for Danis. So Dannis still gave me
Speaker 1: a little bit of comfort, you know, like he Kentucky Wildcats. Yeah,
Speaker 1: no doubt, no doubt. And I remember working out for
Speaker 1: the Nuggets and him throw me in his car and
Speaker 1: driving me back down to the Pepsi Center, and you know,
Speaker 1: we both shared stories about our childhood and what we
Speaker 1: had to face and what we went through. And I
Speaker 1: felt that if at thirty three Dennis who was going
Speaker 1: to take me after our conversation, So that gave me
Speaker 1: a little comfort I was sitting that was kind of
Speaker 1: your backstop, no doubt. And it was a very guard
Speaker 1: dom minute draft, like Baron Davis and Steve Francis and
Speaker 1: William Avery and Fontigo coming. There was just a lot
Speaker 1: of guards going in the first round. So you know,
Speaker 1: I fell and I waited for you know, Daniel, and
Speaker 1: and I was fortunate enough to land there. I uh,
Speaker 1: it was a party. The streets shut down in four River,
Speaker 1: you know, we were escorted in My wife and I
Speaker 1: and you know, the party began, the celebration began, and
Speaker 1: it was just another mountain to climb, though, you know,
Speaker 1: like as exciting as it was, like I saw another
Speaker 1: mountain and I was like, fuck, man, I gotta climb
Speaker 1: this one too. I watched your your draft footage, and
Speaker 1: I was just every pick that went by. Of course,
Speaker 1: like every fan, I'm just crushed and crushed and for
Speaker 1: your wife, Heather, and and you're a young man who's
Speaker 1: already been in rehab, man who's already been and I
Speaker 1: can't imagine that. But on the drive down to the party,
Speaker 1: you were so excited, so excited in the car and
Speaker 1: you got out and immediately you got up in front
Speaker 1: of these people and you they are your people, but
Speaker 1: you got emotional. You felt like you had something to prove. Still.
Speaker 1: It was beautiful and heart wrenching all at the same time.
Speaker 1: I thank everyone for coming down here. This has been
Speaker 1: We all fought for this for a long time, and
Speaker 1: everyone stood behind me throughout this whole thing. And thirty
Speaker 1: three number one, it feels the same, and it's has
Speaker 1: time to relax and have fun and let's enjoy the
Speaker 1: playing dead. You know, so many emotions right, so much
Speaker 1: hard work, so much you know, commitment, you know, all
Speaker 1: the people who questioned me and my addiction, and like
Speaker 1: you said, you know, being in rehab at twenty and
Speaker 1: one years old and facing that adversity to finally get there.
Speaker 1: But for me, it was a little different, right Like
Speaker 1: when I jumped on that plane to go to Fresno,
Speaker 1: I had no plans on playing in the n b A.
Speaker 1: I had zero plans. I just wanted to be a
Speaker 1: good college basketball player, and I wanted to prove myself
Speaker 1: at that level. John Welch put that dream in me,
Speaker 1: and he made me realize, well, maybe I can. So
Speaker 1: it was hard work, It was a lot of dedication,
Speaker 1: It was a lot of discipline. But there was a
Speaker 1: lot of sadness to it, and there was a lot
Speaker 1: of emotion attached to it. So I was so far
Speaker 1: away from living in the moment, you know, the way
Speaker 1: we lived, the way I lived today, living one day
Speaker 1: at a time. I was so far away from that mindset,
Speaker 1: and I just wish that I could have cherished those
Speaker 1: moments when they they weren't cherishable. Bro, I feel so
Speaker 1: much of what you're saying. You know, I reached out
Speaker 1: to several people that I know knew you for this,
Speaker 1: you know, Rick Pattino, Jason Kidd, Steve Nash, every last
Speaker 1: one of them talk about what a good player you were,
Speaker 1: what a great guy you are. Your teammates always loved you,
Speaker 1: and that speaks volumes. So you're in Denver your rookie year,
Speaker 1: and I think you played out there with a couple
Speaker 1: of well at least with one guy, Dice. Antonio mcdice,
Speaker 1: he was my young guy in in Phoenix, but then
Speaker 1: he ends up out there with you guys and Nick
Speaker 1: Van Exel. Who else was on that team? And what
Speaker 1: was it like playing on that team? Was it? And
Speaker 1: what was your Holy shit, I'm in the NBA moment, phenomenal,
Speaker 1: phenomenal team. Just men, right, Bryant Stith, Popeye, Jones, Roy Rodgers, Uh, Antonio, Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. Um,
Speaker 1: just a lot of Chauncey Billups, Ron Mercer was on
Speaker 1: that team, um for a little bit, and just a
Speaker 1: lot of as salt of the Earth type dudes. George
Speaker 1: McLeod who I spent most of my time with, right,
Speaker 1: Big George, I know, Big George, Roy Rogers and mcdice,
Speaker 1: great teammate, you know, he was. He was a special guy,
Speaker 1: and they were all you know, they embraced me. Antonio
Speaker 1: took care of me. You know, I could honestly like,
Speaker 1: I love Antonio mcdyce for what he did for me.
Speaker 1: Uh dude, one of the sweetest people you'll you'll ever meet, right, No, humble, kind,
Speaker 1: very kind, very soft. And you know, I was playing
Speaker 1: my NB a moment um, you know, just one of
Speaker 1: them and includes Dice. I was coming down the court
Speaker 1: and I just threw it and I was like, uh fuck,
Speaker 1: like this is going in the third row. And he
Speaker 1: just came out of nowhere and was like, I'll take that.
Speaker 1: And I was just like, that's the NBA. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the NBA. I'm telling you, it wasn't an amazing We
Speaker 1: used to because when I was playing in probably that
Speaker 1: still had illegal defense. So what we would do, I'd
Speaker 1: run a side pick and roll. Dice would come out
Speaker 1: and when they would push it down to the baseline,
Speaker 1: I would just fly straight to the baseline, running out
Speaker 1: of bounds because they couldn't help on the week side,
Speaker 1: and Dice would go to the rim and I just
Speaker 1: just throw it up and he would catch it anywhere.
Speaker 1: I mean imagine being able to do that totally. He
Speaker 1: uh see, when I was with them, you got spurts
Speaker 1: to that right, Like moments he became just like this
Speaker 1: unbelievable turnaround seventeen Sea shooter, right yeah, just amazing automatic yeah,
Speaker 1: automatic automatic. So um, you know, but many moments I
Speaker 1: remember Dannisti looking down the bench and saying like come
Speaker 1: on in, you know, and and entering that game for
Speaker 1: the first time. Um, you know, I remember having such fear.
Speaker 1: You know, like the guards today they don't experience, you know,
Speaker 1: getting put in the post, and you know, being a
Speaker 1: six one six two white kid, I'm like Gary Payton
Speaker 1: Jason Kidd, like these guys are gonna drag me down
Speaker 1: into the block tonight. You know, I would lose sleep
Speaker 1: over that. Yeah, you know the same as me. You know,
Speaker 1: I played in an era where Clyde Drexler and m
Speaker 1: J and Glenn Rice are the two's and I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna get posted up all night. I better be really good.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, right, it's a completely different game.
Speaker 1: I needed like twelve fouls if I was gonna, I
Speaker 1: was gonna guard that. Um. But you know that experience
Speaker 1: in Denver, was it was beautiful. It really was like
Speaker 1: I had my moments, you know, I remember and George McLeod,
Speaker 1: he'll remember this. I remember, you know, being at the
Speaker 1: Rolex in Miami and you know what I mean. And
Speaker 1: that was and that was for Rick Ross made it
Speaker 1: pretty right, like the Rolex was grimy and yes dirty,
Speaker 1: and I didn't go back with the rest of the guys.
Speaker 1: And I just remember coming in at like four thirty
Speaker 1: five thirty in the morning and Big George kind of
Speaker 1: like grabbing me and saying, like, this isn't how we're
Speaker 1: doing it. You talk about that team with such reverence.
Speaker 1: It's like a couple of my Phoenix teams, you know,
Speaker 1: where I just felt I was playing my best. You
Speaker 1: know what breaks my heart is that this is your
Speaker 1: rookie year. And that's what I asked Stevie Nash. I said,
Speaker 1: how good was Chris? He said he was really good,
Speaker 1: and he said, you know who knows. But there was
Speaker 1: no reason he shouldn't have banged out ten, twelve, fourteen
Speaker 1: years in the NBA, and maybe whatever happened was going
Speaker 1: to happen. I just wish that you could have had
Speaker 1: a little bit more of that in Denver for another
Speaker 1: couple of years to maybe see, if you know, some
Speaker 1: of that behavior that you were exhibiting could have become
Speaker 1: habit and that growth, right, I had a lot of
Speaker 1: growth that year, you know, to be with Chauncey and
Speaker 1: watch the Popeye Jones and they were very selfless, right,
Speaker 1: I played with very selfless men that year, and they
Speaker 1: were older. So I remember getting traded to the Celtics
Speaker 1: and I was supposed to be excited and I was hotbroken.
Speaker 1: See June comes true thrown up right down the street.
Speaker 1: Is uh, It's an amazing things to this day to come.
Speaker 1: You know. I dreamed about this a long long time
Speaker 1: ago as a little kids. So I can't say enough
Speaker 1: about it. You know. I've also been traded more than
Speaker 1: once in my career, and let me tell you, it's
Speaker 1: hard having to uproot your whole life, family and future.
Speaker 1: October seventeen, two thousand, a day that changed Chris's life forever.
Speaker 1: On this day, Chris Herron and Bryant's Death were traded
Speaker 1: to the Boston Celtics by the Denver Nuggets on Monday
Speaker 1: for Robert Pack and Calbert Cheney. I can't even imagine
Speaker 1: how conflicted Chris must have felt heyding from a group
Speaker 1: of veterans in Denver who had his back to a
Speaker 1: Celtics team in search of chemistry. Years before re establishing
Speaker 1: a championship pedigree. Chris was nearly twenty five. That trade
Speaker 1: back home was the beginning of the end for him
Speaker 1: in the league and the start of his road to
Speaker 1: a life where he would play only twenty five games
Speaker 1: in Celtic Green. He would never make it back to
Speaker 1: the NBA. When you get traded to the Celtics, it
Speaker 1: kind of falls apart. Tell me about what you were doing,
Speaker 1: who you're doing it with, uh, and how that double
Speaker 1: life felt? Brutal right? It was, you know, twenty two
Speaker 1: hours a day was dedicated to keeping this secret and
Speaker 1: the other two was to practice with Rick Pottino, you know,
Speaker 1: so you know I was introduced to Oxy's It was,
Speaker 1: you know, right right around nine thousands, and it wasn't
Speaker 1: in the headlines, you know, the head We were on
Speaker 1: the cutting edge. Yeah, we want exactly on the cutting
Speaker 1: edge and that and at that time they were calling
Speaker 1: it hill billy heroin. That's what they were calling it
Speaker 1: back then, hill billy heroin. And it seemed to settle
Speaker 1: you know, in the Kentucky West Virginia, Ohio, and then
Speaker 1: it skipped and it went up to Maine and then
Speaker 1: it worked its way down. But I just as I say,
Speaker 1: I'm one of the unfortunate ones that takes a painkiller
Speaker 1: and feels phenomenal. You know, I wish I was that
Speaker 1: guy who threw up and couldn't take it. Does do
Speaker 1: that thing that we talked about earlier. Though I remember
Speaker 1: taking it in two days, I knew I was in
Speaker 1: love what it did. It made me feel nicer, Like
Speaker 1: people would come up to me, chatty, people would come
Speaker 1: up to me, and you know, people maybe at one
Speaker 1: of my son's baseball games that only wants to talk
Speaker 1: about basketball, and all of a sudden I was talking
Speaker 1: to him about basketball. I felt like a nicer, better
Speaker 1: person and that was pretty alluring to me. And I
Speaker 1: can only imagine it had to feel a bit the same,
Speaker 1: no doubt, And you know it's I jumped, you know,
Speaker 1: from forty milligrams to milligrams quickly, you know, like I
Speaker 1: would be out with people and they would know the
Speaker 1: extent of what I was taking and they would shake
Speaker 1: their head, and I'm like, that's just to get right
Speaker 1: you know, like I didn't. I mean, I'm I'm right,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm functioning, I'm playing, I'm practicing. Um, did
Speaker 1: your body ever give out? Only when I didn't have it? Right,
Speaker 1: It's when I didn't have it then that's when that's when, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so sick. So if I had it, I was okay.
Speaker 1: And that doesn't mean I was okay. I could have
Speaker 1: had oxy cotton every day and never felt that sickness
Speaker 1: in my career would have nos dived, you know, because
Speaker 1: the grind, you know, the time, the energy, the emotion
Speaker 1: that's put to that addiction is just ruthless, and you
Speaker 1: know all of the other things that come along with it,
Speaker 1: the health and some of the things that you go
Speaker 1: through when you know, uh, heavily dependent on opiates, but
Speaker 1: a lot of lonely nights, man, a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of lonely nights. And I just remember remember going
Speaker 1: to bed at night and saying to myself, like, what
Speaker 1: is it going to be like when everyone finds out?
Speaker 1: You know, what is this? What is this going to
Speaker 1: look like? And you feel like a fraud? That felt
Speaker 1: big time, big time, and uh, you know, I was
Speaker 1: just saying this. There was a time especially during the Celtics, right,
Speaker 1: I had access to money, and I would deal with
Speaker 1: guys and I would show up and I would buy,
Speaker 1: you know, thirty forty OxyS and they would pull me
Speaker 1: to the side and say, like Chris, like, you have
Speaker 1: a lot of money, man, just buying bok, why do
Speaker 1: you keep coming out? And in hindsight, looking back at
Speaker 1: that behavior, like sadly, I just wanted that day to
Speaker 1: be my last day, you know, so I just kept
Speaker 1: coming every day, you know, when I could have dropped
Speaker 1: twenty grand on the table and said give me and
Speaker 1: paid a lot less for it, right, right, But I
Speaker 1: didn't want that many on me because I had the
Speaker 1: the ambition and the gold to quit, but I didn't
Speaker 1: have the tools. Yeah, it reminds me. I say, I
Speaker 1: was just fortunate that I was finished playing. Well, I
Speaker 1: really wasn't. I had another three years left on my deal.
Speaker 1: But I was hurt and all of that. However, the
Speaker 1: second I took oxy Con, I never played another game
Speaker 1: in the NBA. I retired shortly thereafter because that's all
Speaker 1: I wanted to do. And I remember driving from Phoenix
Speaker 1: down to Tucson. You know, I couldn't get him from
Speaker 1: the doctors anymore. I'm taking like fifty sixty Viking in
Speaker 1: today about ten oxies and just chewing them up, you know.
Speaker 1: And so at some point and I got tired of
Speaker 1: running around two dealers. So somebody told me, hey, you
Speaker 1: can go down to Tucson right out the back of CVS,
Speaker 1: you know, meet my boy down there. And so two
Speaker 1: or three times, man, I drove from Tucson back to
Speaker 1: Phoenix and probably speeding, you know, in a sports car.
Speaker 1: And I've got four big bottles see under, you know,
Speaker 1: five hundred apiece in there, so two thousand pills. If
Speaker 1: I'm pulled over and there for me, they are for me.
Speaker 1: But if I'm pulled over, I'm not sharing them. And
Speaker 1: so but if I'm pulled over, just they're taking me
Speaker 1: to prison. This is with intent to distribute. And that's
Speaker 1: the end, because they're not going to believe that I'm
Speaker 1: taking all that ship. It's mind boggling to me. How
Speaker 1: many times did you get in trouble with the law?
Speaker 1: Do you remember? You know, the law started coming when
Speaker 1: Heroin came. A former high school basketball star is in
Speaker 1: trouble with the law. Chris Heron made a name for
Speaker 1: himself at Diffy High School in Fall River before playing
Speaker 1: at Fresno State and going tow On Friday, Heron was
Speaker 1: arrested in Portsmouth on drug charges. Investigators claimed heroin residue
Speaker 1: was found in That's when I really started to struggle
Speaker 1: as far as dealing with with Lauren Fossman because of
Speaker 1: the overdoses. Right, and and that's another thing, Like I
Speaker 1: did most of my heroine and most of my oxy's
Speaker 1: in the car, Like I would drive down, get it,
Speaker 1: do it, and go back to my home empty handed. Right,
Speaker 1: So most of my use was between point A and
Speaker 1: point B, right from the dealer's house to my house.
Speaker 1: It was all gone. So there was a lot of
Speaker 1: you know, multiple times I overdosed um, you know while
Speaker 1: in my vehicle, so d uise and so on and
Speaker 1: so far started coming pretty regularly. You know. When I
Speaker 1: overdosed for the first time, it was in two thousand four,
Speaker 1: and you know, I was in a dunkin Donuts drive
Speaker 1: through and I took my foot off the brake and boom,
Speaker 1: I bumped into the woman in front of me. You know,
Speaker 1: when I come through and uh, you know, there's blue
Speaker 1: bags everywhere. A hypodermic needle, and I'm like, my life
Speaker 1: just changed forever, and everybody who loved me, you know,
Speaker 1: Like my wife is less than a quarter mile away
Speaker 1: from this scene, and she's about to find out that
Speaker 1: her husband is a heroin addict. And you know, the
Speaker 1: next day the Boston Herald, the headline was, what a
Speaker 1: shame is that your rock bottom? Gosh no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I had so many of them. Um, you know, And
Speaker 1: that's the thing, right, Like it's every day, you know that,
Speaker 1: like every day is low, you know, like there's no
Speaker 1: good days. There's no good days when you know, I'm
Speaker 1: looking at my children and I'm then going to the
Speaker 1: A T M Machine to spend five dollars. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: maddening and it's psychotic, you know. You you said it
Speaker 1: so well. I Mean, one moment, all we can think
Speaker 1: about is ourselves, and then the next moment, the second
Speaker 1: we get in trouble or whatever, we start thinking about
Speaker 1: all those people who love us. Isn't that amazing? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: And listen, you know two thousand four people weren't really
Speaker 1: overdosing on heroin, right, Like it was so uncommon and
Speaker 1: that it almost somewhat flew under the radar. You know,
Speaker 1: like a weirdly but you know, I I remember coming
Speaker 1: out of jail that night and I remember calling the
Speaker 1: guy who who sold it to me and like, listen,
Speaker 1: I need more because it was so good it almost
Speaker 1: killed me, you know. And that's how sad we are,
Speaker 1: you know, that's how sick we get that we wake
Speaker 1: up every day to pay to take a chance of Diane.
Speaker 1: You know, every day we chased death for that feeling.
Speaker 1: You know. So I remember going on the Texas road trip, right,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, fuck, like Texas. That means we're going
Speaker 1: for like seven days, eight days. That's stress man, right,
Speaker 1: So I would just fly him. I would FedEx fly
Speaker 1: him down. So when I got to certain hotels, whether
Speaker 1: it's in San Antonio or Dallas, the concierge would say,
Speaker 1: you know, Mr Herron, you have a package. You know.
Speaker 1: That was a full time job. Well, Christmas rear would
Speaker 1: continue overseas. This would begin a downward spiral of drug
Speaker 1: use and charges, tabulating seven felonies in all. This included
Speaker 1: a then thirty three year old Heron being arrested for
Speaker 1: alleged heroin possession after police found him slumped over the
Speaker 1: steering wheel of his vehicle in June two thousand and eight.
Speaker 1: The car was partially on the sidewalk with its engine
Speaker 1: running and in gear. Police said, with the amount of
Speaker 1: times Chris used in his vehicle, it's blind luck he
Speaker 1: didn't hurt anyone. And then he lived to share his story.
Speaker 1: I remember you'll like this. I'm playing in Turkey and
Speaker 1: Istanbul and I had a guy shipped me out a
Speaker 1: bunch and I remember going to the place to pick
Speaker 1: it up and I opened up the package and all
Speaker 1: the pills are gone, and a guy in customs wrote
Speaker 1: me a nice note saying like this is unbelievably disappointing
Speaker 1: that this is what y'all life has turned to, Like,
Speaker 1: guess some help for your family man, And he took
Speaker 1: them all, but I could see all the green oxy
Speaker 1: from the eighties still stuck to the newspaper. But the
Speaker 1: build up to that was I had an inclination walking
Speaker 1: into that package place in Istanbul that someone had gone
Speaker 1: through my package. And when they walked out, it was
Speaker 1: wrapped in yellow tape and they said, do you want
Speaker 1: to claim this? And I was like, I want to
Speaker 1: claim that, just in case, just in case, you know. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: So the madness that comes with, you know, with that drug,
Speaker 1: the desperation, um, you know was the everyday thing. Yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: I want to take a moment if you're comfortable talking about,
Speaker 1: you know, getting clean. I was in rehab three times,
Speaker 1: and I want to tell you just from I've always
Speaker 1: been felt very fortunate, especially after going to rehab, that
Speaker 1: I never stuck a needle in my arm. You're a walking,
Speaker 1: fucking miracle man. You know, it was long odds making
Speaker 1: it to the NBA, but what you're doing now, well,
Speaker 1: it's life changing, not just for you, but for a
Speaker 1: lot of people. Talk to me about your getting clean,
Speaker 1: the sobriety how you know, I know everybody's different. You
Speaker 1: and I we had to get off of opioids, which
Speaker 1: is essentially heroin, right and in your case actual heroin.
Speaker 1: So what was your process of getting clean? You know,
Speaker 1: towards the end, I was so out of money, right,
Speaker 1: like we were living so rough. Do you remember? And
Speaker 1: see how you say that right now and you say
Speaker 1: it and it just rolls out. I say it myself,
Speaker 1: but I also remember there was a time where that
Speaker 1: was I was terrified of But what if I have
Speaker 1: to say that someday? Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and you know,
Speaker 1: like we're talking, you know, not enough money to pay bills,
Speaker 1: no lights, no heat, and and we will live in
Speaker 1: rough and I had run out of things to sell.
Speaker 1: You know, the pawn shops wanted nothing to do with
Speaker 1: me anymore. So I was I primarily was become a
Speaker 1: vodka drinker. Right. Vodka shuts the noise off, It hits
Speaker 1: you quick. And occasionally I would mix heroin in and
Speaker 1: you know that last overdose two, you know, wake up
Speaker 1: at thirty two, and you know, all I could think
Speaker 1: about was killing myself. Like I was like, you know what,
Speaker 1: like I can't do this to my kids anymore, you know,
Speaker 1: like my poor children. You know, they deserve so much
Speaker 1: more than what I'm giving them. And you hit a pole, right,
Speaker 1: a pole, and they you were supposedly dead for thirty seconds?
Speaker 1: Is that true? Well, just knock can right, the knock can.
Speaker 1: So is that what happened? Yeah? Yeah, so so not Yeah,
Speaker 1: so knock cam brought me back, and um wow, I
Speaker 1: I just remember waking up and saying to myself, like,
Speaker 1: you know, I have to find a way to end
Speaker 1: my life, and I don't know how I'm gonna do it,
Speaker 1: you know, there's multiple ways I can do it, but
Speaker 1: I just remember a suicide being such a strong thought. Um,
Speaker 1: and a lot of that came from not wanting to
Speaker 1: face the people who loved me and not wanting to
Speaker 1: you know, completely unravel my wife's life. You know, my
Speaker 1: wife's sacrifice so much to stay with me, like she
Speaker 1: went against her loved ones, her family's request to leave me.
Speaker 1: So long story short, the recovery process. Chris Mullen, you know,
Speaker 1: like Chris Mullen and Mully and Liz, you know, they
Speaker 1: made a connection to a guy named Murph, and Murph
Speaker 1: connected me to day Top and you know I checked
Speaker 1: in and at thirty two years old, I was introduced
Speaker 1: to a different way of treatment. It was behavioral modification.
Speaker 1: It was a therapeutic community, which means, you know, very aggressive, authoritative.
Speaker 1: You know, like no phone calls, if your bed's not made,
Speaker 1: if your socks aren't old, if you close on color coordinated.
Speaker 1: I was living in a room with eight people. I
Speaker 1: got screamed at to put my feet on the floor
Speaker 1: in the morning. So a different world. And but you know,
Speaker 1: a month and a half into that, Heather has given
Speaker 1: birth to Drew, and you know, I got a little
Speaker 1: bit of time under my belt, I'm feeling somewhat confident.
Speaker 1: I got a community of like eighty guys who I'm
Speaker 1: living with, and I'm like, I'm gonna go home and
Speaker 1: do this. And I failed, and I relapsed that day,
Speaker 1: and thankfully I made it back. And I was one
Speaker 1: of the lucky ones because um I stayed in treatment
Speaker 1: or some form of treatment for almost eleven months, and
Speaker 1: it was almost eleven months before I made it back.
Speaker 1: Yeah to my family. But unbelievable story. Side story is
Speaker 1: Murf Murph, who Molly introduced me to, who got me
Speaker 1: the scholarship at day Top. He changed my life, He
Speaker 1: saved my marriage. He talked to my wife every single
Speaker 1: night when I was in day Top after I relapse. Now,
Speaker 1: Murph was a super fan of Mulley. Two years later,
Speaker 1: Mulley's being inducted to the Hall of Fame and I
Speaker 1: will be in attendance, and all I care about is
Speaker 1: that Murf is gonna be there. And I finally get
Speaker 1: to a high five hug kiss, you know, the guy
Speaker 1: who saved my life. And Murph dies of a heart
Speaker 1: attack and Penn Station. I never meet him. I never
Speaker 1: met the man I never met the man that saved
Speaker 1: my life. And I was hours away from hugging this
Speaker 1: dude and he passed away. You know, the Mullins opened
Speaker 1: the door and Murph, he spent countless hours counseling my
Speaker 1: wife and helping me without me knowing. Makes me want
Speaker 1: to cry. It makes me want to cry. So, you know,
Speaker 1: as I tell people in my wellness center, right, like,
Speaker 1: get comfortable with monotony, you know, because recovery can be
Speaker 1: very monotonous at times. You know, you're gonna listen to
Speaker 1: the same stories, You're gonna hear the same voices, but
Speaker 1: you're blessed to be present for that monotony. And you know,
Speaker 1: for eleven months, I laid this foundation with the help
Speaker 1: of so many guys and women, you know, and that
Speaker 1: foundation has given me, you know, twelve and a half years.
Speaker 1: When did you decide you wanted to tell people about,
Speaker 1: you know, these horrible things that have happened in your
Speaker 1: life And what was the goal? So didn't have one. Right,
Speaker 1: I was driving around repossessing vehicles, you know, with a
Speaker 1: childhood friend and I lost my license, right I had
Speaker 1: to you know, three d Uise under the influence of
Speaker 1: her many times. So now that job is gone and
Speaker 1: I'm in a meeting and you know, this guy who
Speaker 1: has twenty five years sober says, I got a woman
Speaker 1: who's gonna give you the keys to a school gymnasium.
Speaker 1: You're gonna teach basketball. So I started teaching. Who wasn't
Speaker 1: it therapeutic? It was beautiful. You know, I'd be in
Speaker 1: the gym with some kids who could really hoop, and
Speaker 1: then I, you know what, the next session is a
Speaker 1: you know, a little fifth grade girl with harry legs
Speaker 1: who can barely reach the rim, you know what I mean. So,
Speaker 1: but it was all a beautiful experience for me, because
Speaker 1: I'll tell you this, those parents who dropped their children
Speaker 1: off to me first, I will always be indebted and
Speaker 1: unbelievably grateful that they gave me that chance. You know
Speaker 1: that with you, I did the same thing in l A.
Speaker 1: I did that for a couple of years, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, they knew me, their parents knew me. The
Speaker 1: kid didn't know me, their parents knew me, and they
Speaker 1: trusted me. And but when I watched you coaching these kids,
Speaker 1: You're perfect with them. You were so good with them.
Speaker 1: What relationships do you have with guys in the league
Speaker 1: or college, and do you ever have a desire to
Speaker 1: get into basketball in that regard in that capacity. So
Speaker 1: while I was teaching basketball, a woman called and she said,
Speaker 1: you know, I know you lost your license and I
Speaker 1: want you to come to my school to speak. And
Speaker 1: she said, I don't have a budget for it. I
Speaker 1: can just give you a dunkin Donuts gift card. So
Speaker 1: I went on to speak in her class. Word of
Speaker 1: mouth went on to a couple of more high schools
Speaker 1: and the next thing, you know, I'm speaking, you know,
Speaker 1: two hundred times a year. And you know in the
Speaker 1: speaking game is it's all word of mouth? Right, If
Speaker 1: you don't bring it, and if you're not authentic and
Speaker 1: you're not you know, responsible in front of those children,
Speaker 1: no superintendent of principle is gonna say, hey, bring him in.
Speaker 1: So I'm very proud that I've been able to do
Speaker 1: this for almost ten years. It was not planned. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't have many relationships. Um, you know I do.
Speaker 1: I do have relationships, but you do know I do.
Speaker 1: But a lot of it too stems from people circling
Speaker 1: back for help, right, and they know that I'm available,
Speaker 1: and they know that you know, yeah, totally so. But
Speaker 1: Billy Donovan is a special dude. Um, you know you
Speaker 1: said that. And Chauncey Billips is an unbelievable man. Uh,
Speaker 1: Johnny Lucas at times we cross paths, um, you know.
Speaker 1: And oddly a lot of my stuff is football. I
Speaker 1: spend more time with football than I do with basketball.
Speaker 1: Uh really yeah, so you know, whether it's going into Alabama.
Speaker 1: I'm with Alabama multiple times every year with savings. So
Speaker 1: a lot of football guys, a lot of you know,
Speaker 1: I've been working with Alabama for ten years. I've been
Speaker 1: with Florida State and Jimbo than transition to Texas A
Speaker 1: and m um you know stoops, stoops? Who's Mark? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Who is that Kentucky? He was with jimbo Um at
Speaker 1: Florida State. That's when I first met him. So the
Speaker 1: football game has been really good to me. I do
Speaker 1: a lot of work with the NFL with UH and
Speaker 1: I did the Rookie Symposium every year for the NBA.
Speaker 1: That's great, Let's say it. It is. It's really powerful
Speaker 1: what you're doing. Uh. If you were playing today twenty
Speaker 1: one year old Chris Herron in today's NBA, imagine I
Speaker 1: want to be afraid of the post. That's right, That's right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to be afraid of that. Mean Toronto had
Speaker 1: they were starting Kyle Lowry and Fred VanVleet, I mean
Speaker 1: you could have never. I love those guys, they're all stars,
Speaker 1: but you couldn't have started that backcourt in the eighties
Speaker 1: and nineties. I mean straight to the post and you're
Speaker 1: just playing out of rotations all night long. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: were built for this, right, You're built different game, totally
Speaker 1: different game. And uh, you know, I'm a fan and
Speaker 1: I always will be. I'm unbelievably grateful for what the
Speaker 1: game gave me. Um, I believe you know, the commitment
Speaker 1: that it required and the patients has also kind of
Speaker 1: transcended into my recovery. You know, that work ethic, you know,
Speaker 1: like you talked about in the opening, it's hard. You know,
Speaker 1: it requires a lot of due diligence and commitment, and
Speaker 1: you know, there were a lot of times I didn't
Speaker 1: want to wake up to go to a gym to
Speaker 1: shoot at a little orange thing. And there's times I
Speaker 1: wake up and I don't want to walk into a
Speaker 1: meeting to in my seat, But you know, I claim it.
Speaker 1: What's the Heron Project and Heron Willness. So Heron Project
Speaker 1: was all about Mulley, right, like I wanted to be.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be Chris Mullen. I wanted to make
Speaker 1: the phone call he made, and I wanted to make
Speaker 1: that phone call and witness somebody's life change, and like
Speaker 1: he did for me. And the Heron Project, you know,
Speaker 1: I started it ten years ago. Over six million dollars
Speaker 1: worth of scholarships over the years, thousands fantastic, Yeah, thousands
Speaker 1: and thousands of people have been put into treatment because
Speaker 1: of Haron Project. And you know, we support families, um
Speaker 1: we provide scholarships and sober living after we give people
Speaker 1: sober coaches, recovery coaches. Um. So, just an unbelievable organization
Speaker 1: that really stems from Murph and Mulley and Heron Wellness.
Speaker 1: You know, at ten years sober, I took a chance.
Speaker 1: It was my dream, you know, to start this company
Speaker 1: and to be you know, uh, part of the whole process.
Speaker 1: And you know, Heron Wellness is located in Massachusetts. Residential
Speaker 1: people live there. We have twenty four beds. I like
Speaker 1: it small, I like it intimate. I want people to
Speaker 1: get as much attention as they deserve. What advice would
Speaker 1: you give your younger self a teenager or two listeners
Speaker 1: all over the world who might be struggling with addiction
Speaker 1: or or with the loved one who is you know,
Speaker 1: I think when we're in the middle of that storm,
Speaker 1: it's so daunting, it's so far away, you know that
Speaker 1: the hope is gone. And even when kind of hope
Speaker 1: piques its way back in, and you really ask yourself,
Speaker 1: is it worth it? Like and I'm too far gone? Man?
Speaker 1: Like you know here I am, I'm thirty two, I'm
Speaker 1: shooting heroin, I have track marks on my arms, I'm
Speaker 1: smoking meth um, multiple felonies, arrest d you wise, like,
Speaker 1: what am I going to get sober for? Sobriety has
Speaker 1: tested me and has given me more, you know, pride
Speaker 1: and confidence and just just such empathy for other human
Speaker 1: beings and you know, and and growth that I never
Speaker 1: ever thought that I could attain. And you know that
Speaker 1: guy that we talked about, you know, back when we
Speaker 1: were eighteen years old, socially awkward and needed all homeboys around.
Speaker 1: You know, recovery has replaced them and has provided me
Speaker 1: people that you know, has guided me, uh for the
Speaker 1: last thirteen years, so please don't lose sight of that.
Speaker 1: Please don't ever think it's too late, because I would
Speaker 1: have never ever imagined my life could be this good. Chris,
Speaker 1: from the bottom of my heart, bro Um, I want
Speaker 1: to thank you for joining me sharing your story today.
Speaker 1: It means it really means the world to me. Um.
Speaker 1: If you ever need anything, please feel free to reach out.
Speaker 1: You know you got my number. My door is always open.
Speaker 1: I'm wishing you nothing but the best. Bro. We're in
Speaker 1: this together, team, gain no doubt, we no doubt. But
Speaker 1: I do want to say this, and I mean this
Speaker 1: with all my heart. You were a childhood hero of
Speaker 1: mine and you know and as you were of many,
Speaker 1: but I was one of those kids that fell asleep
Speaker 1: to your picture and wanted to dream the life you
Speaker 1: will live in. And uh, if it wasn't for you,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have been in the driveway. So I love you,
Speaker 1: thank you, and we'll keep in touch. Much love, bro Hey.
Speaker 1: Make sure to follow Chris on Twitter at Sea Underscore,
Speaker 1: Harron Harron talks at hair and talks at Hair and
Speaker 1: Project and at Hair and Wellness. Thanks Bro, Thanks Chris,
Speaker 1: no doubt, Thank you, Thanks for being an Inspiration Charges
Speaker 1: Shet Sintenis and Charges Celebrity Gang Charge We came along
Speaker 1: with from Living Lawless Judge. Charges is created by port
Speaker 1: Lay and Control Media is produced by DV Podcasts in
Speaker 1: association with I Heart Radio or more podcasts. For my
Speaker 1: heart radio, visit I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts