By now you’re probably aware of the pain Keyon Dooling has lived with his whole life, and only recently shared. Now, in a new piece on Grantland, Dooling reveals more about his past, including how a simple trip to the restroom during dinner in Seattle after a charity event with Avery Bradley led to the trigger for the revelation of his past abuse.
A moment later, Dooling felt something. What the hell? He turned his head. There, right behind him, was the man who’d been pissing all over the urinals. Booze-breathed and giggling, the man looked Dooling in the eye. A glint of pubescent delight shone in the man’s doughy face. Dooling looked down. He’s touching me. The man’s hand was cupped around Dooling’s ass.He’s touching me.
In an instant, Dooling zipped his pants, buckled his belt, and turned. He reached his arms out wide and smacked his hands — clap! — inches in front of the man’s face. He’s touching me.
“Do you know,” Dooling said, “that I can kill you with my bare hands?”
[…]Dooling’s rage finally broke through. He walked to the man. He grabbed him by the throat. He can’t remember much of this now. The way he tells it, Dooling nearly blacked out. He remembers only that he had the man, that he could feel his windpipe inside his hand, that he could see the man’s fear and that this fear made Dooling feel safe. He remembers thinking, Nothing can stop me from killing this man.
That ellipse covers a lot that you’ll have to just go read because the actual incident where Dooling attacked the man happened outside the restaurant much later.
Fast forward to his retirement from the Boston Celtics, and the afternoon run in with police (after a horrible misunderstanding), that led to the cascading emotional breakdown, and ultimately, the admission of what had happened to him.
One afternoon, near the time he announced his retirement, Dooling took the kids outside. The day was cool, so they walked out to the street to catch some warmth from the sun, where they started slap boxing for fun. He crouched and put his hands up and he told his kids to do the same. They took turns lunging forward and smacking Dooling. He took some hits, parried some others, and also dodged and returned fire, tapping them upside the head when they were too slow to evade his strikes. Both Dooling and Natosha insist that the play fighting was harmless, like a dad wrestling with his kids on the living room floor. The kids laughed and squealed, and when they’d finished sparring, Dooling took them back inside.
A few minutes later, Dooling heard pounding on the door. He walked upstairs from the basement, confused. They weren’t expecting company. No one had ordered pizza. Besides, these weren’t typical knocks. These sounded emphatic — violent, even. As Keyon approached the door, he almost lost his cool. He shouted: “Who’s knocking on my door like it’s the goddamn police?!”
It was the police. Right there on his doorstep, large and uniformed and projecting authority. There were more officers in the street, their car lights flashing, waiting in case backup was needed. And now they were screaming, not at an intruder but at Dooling. “Get on the ground!” he remembers them shouting. “Get on the ground!”
These are two incidents that I was not aware of, but I think these are the two key incidents in Dooling’s adult life that have made him what he is this very day. The first forced him to confront an atrocity suffered as a child. The second led to a breakdown that forced him to admit to those he loved what he’s been dealing with. Ultimately, that admission proved to be empowering, not the sign of weakness that he’d thought it was.
And that’s the lesson here. If something like this happens to someone you love, or heaven forbid, you, speaking up and revealing the truth is ultimately empowering and healthy.
We tend to use sports as an escape from these serious topics, but sometimes there’s no avoiding them. What Dooling did took incredible strength, and he stands as perhaps one of the greatest sports role models for our children: The real person who had a good, long NBA career while overcoming the demons of his past. Our kids will idolize the mega-star players, which is understandable, but sharing Dooling’s story of pain, grief, success in spite of obstacles, shows kids a true sports hero.
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