I read the Player’s Tribune piece “What the Hell Happened to Darius Miles” and recommend checking it out.
Darius Miles grew up in East St. Louis where he says “You don’t have any dreams. You’re just thinking about survival.”
He was a great high school basketball player who was drafted third overall in the 2000 NBA draft to the LA Clippers.
Here’s a good excerpt:
“I hit the edge of that boat with the Jet Ski and I flipped ― I’m talking flipped that bitch. And now I’m upside down, flying through the air. And I can just see the newspapers flashing in my mind, like, NBA ROOKIE DIES IN DAMN JET SKI ACCIDENT IN SOUTH BEACH.
So I’m like, Nah, I did not survive 18 years of my life in East St. Louis to drown in Alonzo Mourning’s damn marina. We’re not going out like that.”
By age 27 he was out of the league due to injury, but his life is worth reading about. It’s an inside look at the “kid from a terrible neighborhood makes it big way too fast then loses it just as fast” story line that you hear about.
A good way to kill some time on your Friday.
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