Thomas C. Harris
Instructor: Wendy Ansley
Personal and Community Health: Section 2361
March 19, 2014
30 for 30: UNGUARDED
The documentary from ESPN details the disturbing and ultimately redemptive story of a young high school basketball player from Massachusetts who succumbs to drugs. His early marijuana and cocaine abuse led to a heroin addiction that would destroy his career and devastate his family. Unguarded (or unprotected) would certainly define the life and career of former NBA basketball player Chris Herren.
Christopher Albert Herren (born September 27, 1975) from Fall River, Massachusetts, was the Durfee High School basketball superstar. His family’s basketball legacy at Durfee included his father, grandfather, two uncles and his older brother who Chris would drink with as a freshman in high school. His brother said that it was normal to drink, drug, fight, and play hard. Recruited by Boston College after turning down offers at the University of Kentucky and Duke University, Chris was featured in magazine articles including a Sports Illustrated cover story, hyping his success. In 1994, Chris broke his wrist playing his first game at Boston College. He took a year off from playing basketball to “not study and do drugs”. Within three months of his injury, Chris failed two drug tests and was subsequently kicked off the team and expelled from college. Drugs took everything away by the time he was eighteen years old.
No college wanted anything to do with Chris Herren, except coach Jerry Tarkanian at Fresno State University. Chris got a chance to start over, however was reluctant to leave his family and friends and move over three thousand miles away. His fiancé Heather talked him into the offer,...
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...could not be there and to go back to the treatment center or don’t come back. He spent the next 20 days in a tiny, windowless room at the center called the “pot sink”. Washing dishes in that little room…Chris found the courage to recover.
30 for 30: Unguarded is both difficult and impossible not to watch. The film is like watching a “jump ball” at the beginning of a basketball game, over, and over again. Cutting back and forth from images of his beautiful family to the hard-core faces of addiction. Chris was talented, good looking, and smart. He outwitted everyone to get his high. It is sad that he could not feel the same high on the basketball court, yet found it on the street. Chris teaches young kids basketball and shares his story of recovery. He has been alcohol and drug-free since August 1, 2008. He has found peace one day at a time.
He was a very intelligent kid. He graduated from Emory University in Atlanta with a degree in history and anthropology. The day after his graduation, he went on a road trip. He drove all around the country without an itinerary. Chris didn?t tell his parents about this, of course. The only way they found out he was gone was when they went to visit him in Atlanta and his apartment was empty. He even took a new name, Alexander Supertramp.
“I 'm really not into selling the school,” Hoyt said. “I 'm not going to talk anyone into playing basketball for me. It needs to be a marriage. They need to want me as much as I want them, otherwise it won 't work. I am going to let them know why it 's a great place for them, and why it may, or may not be a good decision for them. But at the end of the day, I want them to make the best decision for themselves, because it 's a huge decision moving forward. I let them know that they are going to be looked after while they are here by not only myself, but the community as well. It will be difficult at times, but they will succeed. This place was designed for them to be successful.”
Chris McCandless had a reputation for being overly ambitious since grade school. His teachers noticed at young age he was abnormally strong-willed which he coupled with intense idealism and strong physical endurance. In high school, Chris served as the captain of his cross country team asking them to treat each race as a spiritual experience. After graduating high school Chris continued on to college where he would graduate with a bachelor’s degree, doub...
When he was a child his father “left for the gas station to get cigarettes” and has yet to return, before his father left he had abused him. His mother was a stay at home mom, she was barely able to provide for them. But when he entered college that all changed because of his dominance in the sport of basketball and he was such a big guy people were scared to bully him. In high school his report card grades dropped because he was bullied so much but even after they plummeted he was still a straight D student. But in college he was a straight A student with honors, all three times he went to college he got honors.
Growing up, Krzyzewski belonged to a group of neighborhood sidekicks tagged The Columbos, in which they could always be found taking part in playground basketball. ‘Mickey’, as he was known in this fraternity, had long been interested in sports but street ball with The Columbos is where he first learned to love the game. (Hines-Brigger, n.d.) While children usually had more than their parents in the Polish neighborhood in Chicago, young Krzyzewski was a successful point guard at Weber High School, an all-boy Catholic prep school. He was afforded the opportunity due to his parents paying extra to send him, despite his father being an elevator operator in Willoughby Tower and his mother, a woman who scrubbed floors at the Chicago Athletic Club.
David Sheff starts the story of his family with Nic’s birth and goes all the way long to the present days when his son had survived several years of drug abuse, rehabilitations and relapses. Sheff confesses that his son started to use different kinds of drugs when he was very young. At the age of 11 he would try alcohol and some pot. “In early May, I pick Nic up after school one day …When he climbs into a car I smell cigarette smoke. I lecture him and he promises not to do it again. Next Friday after school…I am packing an overnight bag for him and look for a sweater in his backpack. I do not find a sweater, but instead discover a small bag of marijuana.” (Sheff, 200...
Although many youngsters fail in the NBA, there are a few high school players who have had, or do have a successful career in the NBA. Some of these are, Moses Malone, Kobe Bryant, Tracey McGrady, and this year’s most valu...
Philadelphia is the heights rat of crim in the USA over 30-40 homicides crimes per month and drug related crimes. This links in with the other text that we are looking at, the novel “Damage done” and how is shows that sometimes facts get in the way of a good story. This all promotes the current view Australia has one drugs, the way that there is supposably an ice epidemic happing. This document follows Theroux around Philadelphia’s drug action streets while he does interviews with the criminals and follows the police around finding out what is really happing out on the streets of Philadelphia. Some events that where selected to promote this view to the audiences was the interview with the street boys, showing just how carpeted Philadelphia is how they talk of “code of silence – never snitch!”. There was all so the confronting images of the dead body left in the abandoned house, from a suspected over does on ice. The drug issue in Philadelphia is represented in way that it controls the streets nothing ever happens unless its drug related. These parts have been purposely highlighted throughout the documentary to get the most dramatic message across to the views, as dose the novel. Tis representation achieves the goal of getting the message across of how street gangs and drugs are becoming to rules the streets. This message impacts and effects the way the audients sees this type of action and making them believe that it is taking place all around them. This documentary is to inform and promote the understanding of these types of actions, this is all so done with some help of filming
Chasing Heroin is a two-hour documentary that investigates America’s heroin crisis. The documentary details the opioid epidemic and how police offers, social workers, and public defenders are working to save the lives of addicts. The documentary explores the origins and continuing causes behind the heroin epidemic such as; massive increases in opioid painkillers starting at the turn of the century, Mexican drug cartels who are now rooted in upper-middle-class neighborhoods, and the cheap price of heroin when compared to prescription pain killers. A program in Seattle called LEAD is explored. This program channels addicts into a system that points them toward help (rehab, temporary housing, counseling, methadone treatment) instead of prison
Throughout “Chasing the Scream” many intriguing stories are told from individuals involved in the drug war, those on the outside of the drug war, and stories about those who got abused by the drug war. Addiction has many social causes that address drug use and the different effects that it has on different people. In our previous history we would see a tremendous amount of individuals able to work and live satisfying lives after consuming a drug. After the Harrison Act, drugs were abolished all at once, but it lead to human desperation so instead of improving our society, we are often the reason to the problem. We constantly look at addicts as the bad guys when other individuals are often the reasons and influences to someone’s decision in
...ilies’. Michael Wamsley and Janelle Hornsby were almost killed themselves because they driven on the highway after addicting meth; moreover, they were still high many hours, the police came and rescued them. Janelle’s mother thought the behavior that her daughter did is such a waste of time. If Wamsley and Janelle haven't addict to meth in the party, they will never face the accident; still, their family will never lose hope on their child.
Jealous, Benjamin Todd. "Lessons from an HBCU’s Demise." The Conversation. N.p., 9 Sept. 2013. Web. 14 Nov. 2013.
He was normal in High School. Very involved with people on cross-country team. Chris was a captain on the team and a very intense captain. The guys on the team really loved chris and how exciting his runs were. Chris would purposefully try and get the running team lost and have to run back to somewhere familiar to find there way back home.
Chris a sixteen year old African male enter into therapy seeking professional help. Chris grew up in an urban neighborhood in New York, together with his mother and father. Chris develop problems due to longing attention. He begins to act out, hang around with the incorrect crowd, and get into fights.
... was to report to the NCAA every six months if any school that is a member of the organization hired him until the year 2015. This was to report his continued total compliance with the NCAA regulations.