Kenny's Second Shot

~ We're given second chances every day of our life. We don't usually take them, but they're there for the taking. ~

Andrew Greeley

Today, I was catching up on some reading today before I get the see the Queen graduate from college. I got an article that was a pretty decent timing of an NBA guard who really turned his life around. I am talking about Kenny Anderson. Now I can tell you my story about him.

Kenny Anderson was very known in NYC as a top tier point guard, but I remember when he was playing at Georgia Tech as part of “Lethal Weapon 3,” with Dennis Scott (3-D) and Big Brian Oliver. They were a force on the court, making it all the way to the final four. I still remember when got drafted by the Nets. He was pretty good making it to one All Star game and playing in playoff games. After that he met Tami Anderson from the Real World Los Angeles and married her. After I remember that, it was like his world just turned upside down; moving from team to team, partying, infidelity, and having a big ego throughout his career. All this backfired from him leaving him broke, divorced and serious no education.

Now let’s fast forward to now. Kenny Anderson is now a NYC basketball hall of famer, he runs a basketball Academy at 24 Hour Fitness, which is a private company, and now he has done something that he should have done a long time ago, get his degree.

After the child support and the squandered millions, Kenny Andersonwas the one who registered for college, who mastered the digital classroom, who studied in his spare time.

“My son sees me with books in my knapsack and he says, ‘You’re 39 years old, you’re still going to school?’ ” Anderson said of his son Ken Jr., 9.

The payoff will come Saturday at St. Thomas University in Miami, when Anderson will don his cap and gown and graduate, 19 years after leaving Georgia Tech.

The degree is a statement that his life did not end after 14 years in the N.B.A., after the tangled relationships with hisseven children with five women — much better now, he said — and the vanished salary, somewhere above $60 million. He did that himself, too.

So Kenny, I say congrats to you on your life turn-around. You bounce back in a way others cannot. I really tip my hat to you.

How do you really feel about this turn–around story of Kenny Anderson?

The Education of a Point Guard