Bad as I Wanna Be
"Everything I do is about confidence. After years of struggling with my identity . . . I've become totally confident about being who I am. I can go out to a salon and have my nails painted pink, and then go out and play in the NBA, on national television, with pink nails." There is only one basketball player in history who could make that statement--Dennis Rodman. His much ballyhooed memoir sets out to shock and certainly will succeed, much in the manner of Rodman's pal and fellow author Howard Stern, whose books apparently provided the model for the boldface-smeared typography used here. Still, there is more to this book than shock effect. After adjusting to the profanity, the explicit descriptions of sex with Madonna and others, the revelations about cross-dressing and bisexuality, and the attacks on fellow players (David Robinson, in particular), many readers will be surprised to find that Rodman has a fascinating coming-of-age story to tell: the saga of a skinny street kid who grew nine inches in the year after high school, who blossomed as a basketball player because of his willingness to do the game's grunt work, and who reached stardom only to contemplate suicide and, later, vow to face the world and the game strictly on his own terms. And Rodman's terms are like no other, especially in the sanitized, image-conscious NBA world. We may tire of his repetitious rants, we may reject his wild nonconformity, but finally, only the most inflexible of readers will fail to admire Rodman's unabashed honesty and irrepressible energy. Rodman brings controversy wherever he goes, of course, and his book will do the same. Remarkably, though, it just may be worth the trouble.Bill Ott