Character Driven

by Derek Fisher

  I only hope that I’m able to provide my kids with more and better access to me and the truth about who I am and how I got to be this way. My stepson is at the age now that I was when my parents became estranged. I’ve become very conscious of my interactions with him. Again, I give my dad a lot of credit for helping me become the man I am today, but he did a lot of things to help me without really explaining what he was doing or why. I told you the flak jacket story earlier, and working out with it certainly helped me, but my father basically said, “Here. Put this on. Run up and down this hill.” I felt that I couldn’t really ask questions, and as irritating as it can be as a parent to hear “Why?” all the time, understanding life requires asking questions.

  I sometimes wonder if my dad had some master plan for me, if he saw in me the potential to be an NBA player and worked out a blueprint for my success. If he had, it would have been great to know that he had that kind of belief in me. Eventually he showed me that he did, but that was after the fact. A flak jacket’s purpose is to provide the wearer with protection. Problem is, as much as it can keep things from getting in, it can prevent things from getting out. I need to keep working at this, but with my kids, my wife, and in my other relationships, I want to let my guard down, let them know that they are welcome to score in my house, and that I’m not going to block their shot and not isolate so much of my life from them.

  I also want them to know that I really do have my parents to thank in so many ways for my achievements. I know that they struggled with some issues and that they didn’t always let me in on what was going on or why, but if they didn’t talk about these things, it was because they were trying to protect us. In other cases, I’m grateful for what they did to keep us safe from all kinds of harm—emotional and physical.

  I don’t know if it was a result of their plan to keep us busy, but I avoided many of the pitfalls that plague young people whether they live in the city, the suburbs, or the country. As much as I thought growing up that Little Rock was a tight-knit, little community, it wasn’t immune to some of the troubles that affect bigger cities. Candace, who grew up in Los Angeles, lived in a very different world from mine, in some ways because I wasn’t aware of what was going on. As an athlete and a kid with involved parents, I lived in a kind of protective bubble. Sometimes that bubble got burst—one time in the most violent of ways.

  In eighth grade I was attending Henderson Junior High, which was pretty calm and peaceful. A few guys got into fights on the playground when a game got a little out of control or when rumor had it that somebody had disrespected someone else. I got into a few of those little fights myself in elementary school, but they were generally broken up by the time any of the faculty came along, and no one got in any serious trouble. Something started to change while I was at Henderson, though I was too busy with basketball and my studies to pay that much attention to it. One signal was that we were locked out of the building until ten minutes before the first class at eight o’clock. Prior to that, we’d been able to congregate inside the building. None of us really minded having to wait outside, except on cold or rainy days, and we’d get a game going.

  No one ever told us the reason for the new policy, but rumors were that every morning our lockers were being searched. That meant one thing—drugs. My mother and father had laid down the law early on about drugs. With my half brother’s problems with substance abuse taking a toll on all of us at home, I knew better than to mess with that stuff. I’d seen how sad Duane’s problems had made my mother and father, and I didn’t want to do anything that would add to their pain. I’d heard enough antidrug slogans and seen enough ads and gone through enough classroom education that I felt pretty confident that I was not ever going to be tempted by them. I knew some kids were doing drugs, but I never saw anyone doing them, and I can’t think of a time when someone showed or offered them to me. I was kept so busy and was under either my parents’ direct care or the care of a respected coach or teacher that I didn’t have the opportunity to be around those kinds of kids.

  Even if I had been directly exposed to them, I don’t think that I would have tried anything. Back then, and even for a long time after, no matter where I went, I felt that my father was in the room with me. I could feel his presence and hear his voice. So if I was ever anywhere kids were doing drugs, smoking cigarettes, or drinking, I’m pretty sure I would have got out of there as fast as I could. I knew that there was a line, and if I crossed it, I would have to pay for it dearly. I couldn’t imagine any feeling a drug or a drink could produce that would be worth putting up with what my dad would do to me if he ever found out. And I had no doubt that he would.

  I didn’t need any reminders of the consequences of getting involved in things illegal, dangerous, or both. Unfortunately, I got a big-time reminder in eighth grade. One morning we were all out on the playground/parking lot. We were hooping it when I saw something out of the corner of my eye. Someone was moving fast toward a kid who was standing in a big cluster of my classmates. This guy raised his hand, I heard a pop, then I saw someone fall to the ground. At first it didn’t register with me or with the rest of my schoolmates that someone had been shot. The gunshot wasn’t a loud blast, and with all of us out there talking and laughing, it was pretty muffled. We were all so slow to react that before anyone started yelling or screaming, the kid who’d done it had moved off campus. We all learned later that he was arrested somewhere else in Little Rock.

  A bunch of kids were around the victim, but when the faculty and security staff came out, they pushed them away and I could see that he was a kid from my math class. I didn’t know him well, but he was not someone I would think would end up getting shot. I couldn’t think of anyone I knew or had a class with who seemed like someone somebody else would want dead. Eventually, we were all herded into the school and told to get to our first period classes. My teacher made a halfhearted attempt to get us to quiet down so she could conduct class, but she eventually realized that it was not going to happen. We could see the flash of lights and hear all kinds of sirens and the squawk of police radios. By second period things had quieted down outside, so we went through the motions. I sat in class thinking about what I had kind of but not really seen. Everything was just a rush and a blur, then that little firecracker sound.

  No one had asked us what we had seen, and the police hadn’t come in to take any kind of statements, and I knew that I couldn’t identify who did the shooting. A lot of other kids were closer to the action, and I wondered if they had been taken away to make a statement. What had gone on was so far from my experience that it was almost impossible to think logically about any of it. It was truly the definition of surreal. Bells rang, teachers talked, we shuffled to the next class. Just before noon, the principal got on the intercom to announce that the shooting victim had died en route to the hospital. That’s when things got really weird. I could hear shouts and screams and a whole chorus of “Oh my God” and “No” echoing down the hallways. The principal told us that school was dismissed for the day. Once the buses arrived, we’d leave.

  I wandered out to the parking lot. It felt so strange standing there, knowing that the last time I’d been outside the school some kid I knew had lost his life. To add to the bizarre mass, a television news crew was on school grounds. Of all the kids milling around out there, they came up to me to get my reaction and ask if I knew the victim. I remember thinking how sad it was that he went from being a kid with a name, a boy in my math class, a guy like me with a locker combination, to a victim, a dead person. I told the reporter that he was in my math class but I didn’t know him well. I also said that it didn’t make sense, that I couldn’t understand why someone would do that to him and that the person shouldn’t have.

  Of course, my parents heard about the shooting and my school being let out. My mother came home from the bank and picked up my sister and me from school. She was as shaken as we were, if not more. She told us how glad she was that we were okay and asked that we all say a praye
r for the boy who’d died. I was kind of numb. None of it made any sense to me. We all watched the local evening news, and when the newscaster and on-scene reporter mentioned that gang activity was suspected as part of the motive, that didn’t make any sense either. My interview came on after that and jolted me out of my numbed state. There I was on television being critical of whoever had done this. I had said what any normal person would have, but if this was a gang thing, would they come after me because of what I’d said? I kept my mouth shut and didn’t tell either of my parents how I felt. I didn’t want to worry them, but I was concerned that I’d accidentally broken some kind of gang rule by saying what I had.

  That night I lay in bed, and the reality of what had taken place really started to sink in. This was my first real encounter with death, and even though I was already thirteen, the thought that death could come so quickly, that one minute you could be talking with your friends and the next minute bleeding out on the ground, scared me. Added to that, I couldn’t escape the thought that whoever were in that gang were going to come after me, so I had nightmares for weeks. I was also troubled that this kid, who I thought was as normal as me and my friends, was in a gang and had done something to make someone want to shoot him. Who knew what else was going on around me that I didn’t know about? I was grateful that my parents were so active in my life and kept me from those kinds of things.

  Not until I went to college and later moved to L.A. to play for the Lakers did I really find out what was going on in parts of Little Rock and even in my own backyard and at other schools. I saw an HBO documentary called Gang War: Bangin’ in Little Rock about how gang violence had erupted in my hometown. I had thought of my neighborhood and really all of Little Rock as this nice, safe community, but here was all this stuff going on that I just hadn’t seen. The documentary opened with an introduction to North Little Rock coroner Steve Nawojczyk as the narrator. After seeing hundreds of dead bodies over ten years, he is fed up with the killings and decides to do something about it. Each day Steve visits the most dangerous neighborhoods in Little Rock and attempts to calm tensions between gangs such as the Crips, Bloods, Hoover Folks, OGC, Vice Lords, and many more. A lot of these gangs originated in the inner-city ghettos of Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago, but they have migrated to Arkansas and elsewhere and expanded with the easy access to guns.

  I was disturbed to see guys I’d gone to school with on-screen talking about the gang lifestyle. I couldn’t believe it. Sitting in the place I’d rented in a high-rise in Marina Del Rey, California, I see a little dude who was gangbanging and I’d been in the choir with him! How could that kid have gone in one direction and me in another? I guess that while I was at basketball practice, other guys were out in the streets being exposed to things that I hadn’t been exposed to. Besides being sad that these guys felt that they had no alternative to crime and drugs, I was even more grateful for what my parents had done for me.

  Though this is kind of a cliché and not necessarily a cool way to think, sports really does teach you a lot about teamwork and dedication. At the time when I thought of the Penick Boys Club and Coach Ripley at Parkview and how he kept the gym open, I assumed that was just the way it was everywhere. I now realize that programs like that and people like that who work in their communities and offer after-school programs or who run midnight basketball leagues are really the best defenders. They’re offering kids refuge and hope. I’ve always felt comfortable out on the basketball court, but I can’t imagine what it must be like for some kids who feel that the only place they can go and be safe is in a gym.

  I’m fortunate to be in a position, and to work in an industry that has the desire and the ability, to give back to the communities that support us. I know that I’ve been able to help, both directly and indirectly, in some of the efforts to better the lives of kids who are far less fortunate than I was back then. The mission statement of the Lakers Youth Foundation sums up our goal nicely:

  “The Los Angeles Lakers Youth Foundation’s goal is to assist nonprofit community organizations based on need. With the Foundation’s focus on the use of sports to promote education, teamwork and self-esteem among Los Angeles area youth, our fundraising directly supports these initiatives by providing financial assistance to children and local youth programs.”

  Among the many things that we do, one simple one produces great results. Because of the pounding that our feet take in practice and in games, we go through dozens of pairs of shoes each season. I generally have a game pair—one for home games and one for away games. I also have practice pairs that I rotate. Generally, I only wear my game shoes for three or four games before they break down and I have to start a new pair. If I wear a practice shoe for more than a week, that’s pushing it to its limit. That may sound excessive and like a huge waste, but nearly every one of the pairs I discard I sign and turn over to our team’s communications director. They then get donated to a variety of community organizations, who then auction or raffle them off to raise funds. We also use some of those items and jerseys and other memorabilia in our own team-sponsored auctions.

  We have to thank the fans who generously bid on the stuff to help raise money for the Lakers Youth Foundation. Since 1999, we’ve raised more than $1.1 million through these auctions, which take place at every home game. Some of that money goes toward a favorite project of all of ours—the Lakers’ basketball court refurbishments. In combination with the NBA Cares Live, Learn, or Play program, we’ve renovated courts throughout the city, recently at Hawthorne High School, at the Boys and Girls Club of Venice, and at the Boys and Girls clubs in Santa Monica and Hollywood. You read those names and you might think, why there? No matter how glamorous you might think the address, some kids in those communities are still underserved and their clubs underfunded. We’ve done our fair share in all parts of the city.

  I’ve attended many of these opening ceremonies, and it is always great to see the kids, parents, and local community leaders show up. We often conduct a clinic after the dedication ceremony, and it is incredibly gratifying to see the kids out on the court running around and having a great time. It took me a while to get used to seeing the kids looking at me all bug-eyed. I didn’t know that a lot of them had a hard time believing that we players were real. They’d seen us on television, but seeing us in person boggled their minds. Getting down on the younger kids’ level helps a lot—at these times I’m glad that I’m not a seven-footer—and shaking their hand or putting your hand on their shoulder makes it all the more real for them and they soon forget that they were in awe.

  As much as I enjoy and find valuable the court-renovation program, I’m a huge fan of the NBA Cares Lakers Reading Centers. Last October, I attended the first opening of the season at the East L.A. Boys and Girls Club. Toyota partnered with us on the renovation project. We remodeled three rooms and a hallway at the sixty-year-old club. Fresh paint, new floor coverings, furniture, wall decorations, books, audio/visual equipment, framed photos—all went in thanks to the foundation and Toyota’s Project Rebound. Along with me, Pau Gasol, Sasha Vujacic, Andrew Bynum, Luke Walton, and several Lakers Girls joined Clyde Drexler and other folks in attendance.

  Asked to speak, I let the kids, about a hundred of them, know that their reading and learning center was a sign that adults do care about them, and their futures. I told them how important the Penick Boys and Girls Club was in my life. “I got into trouble there,” I admitted to the students, “but a lot of my dreams started there too.”

  After that, I got to do one of my favorite things. I went into the Lakers Reading Room, a space where only elementary-school kids were allowed. Pau, Clyde, and I took turns reading aloud to the kids from Curious George Visits the Library. I loved seeing the kids sitting there getting into the story. Every night I’m home, I read a book to the twins, and it’s my favorite part of the day. Later we joined the other guys in The Club, the room designed for teens, and laughed at one another as Sasha, who had an injured ankle, attempted to kee
p up with some of the teens playing the Dance Dance Revolution. While they used the floor pad, Sasha did his thing with the handheld controller. He was pretty impressive.

  The great thing about the club and the additions and renovations we helped bring about is that they provide a safe and caring environment for kids. It isn’t all about the basketball at those places. Kids can get into art, get help with homework, or just hang out and be free of some of the negative influences that are out there preying on them. With our schedules, it is sometimes hard to give up what little free time we players have to attend these events. I’m always glad that I do. As much as I might be grumbling after practice, after a late-night flight, or after a game the evening before, I walk out of those buildings energized after seeing those kids and how excited they are to see us and to have a great place to hang out. Frequently after attending those events, I get caught up in the rest of my life and those memories and feelings recede. But a few weeks later, a stack of letters will be sitting on the stool in front of my locker. Each of them will have the telltale handwriting of one of the little guys or girls from an event. Reading their thank-you notes and hearing how much it meant to them for us to be there makes it all real again. Their reaching out to us and communicating their feelings breaks down whatever defenses I might have built up. Once again, the message is clear: From those to whom much has been given, much is expected.

  While we can’t protect every kid in L.A. and defend them from all of the influences out there, a good offense is still the best defense. It would be easy for all of us to feel that the problems of this world are too large and too complex for any of us to make a difference in solving. We shouldn’t ever underestimate the power of right action. Finding that balance between being overprotective and indifferent, just as you need to keep your body weight centered over your feet as a defender on the court, is crucial to our success as parents and adults.