Basketball Junkie

February 28, 2011
In this blunt, self-deprecating memoir, Herren tells his story as one of the greatest high school athletes to come out of southern New England. Fall River, Mass., has a storied basketball tradition, and Herren's achievements on the court made him a local hero as well as bringing him to the attention of national recruiters and Sports Illustrated. Overwhelmed by expectations, Herren avoided school and abused drugs and alcohol. Although Herren managed to make it to the NBA, his life continued to spin out of control until he OD'd in his car and was found unconscious with a bag of heroin on the seat beside him. Herren offers explanations for his downfall but doesn't make excuses. Neither does he glorify the partying and excess that made his life a blur. What he does achieve is something more valuable: giving a stark portrayal of the surreal existence led by young sports stars in a world of rapacious agents, vicious rivals, oblivious fans, and educational institutions that enable their "student" athletes to get away with almost anything. In the end, this is a sobering, cautionary tale for star-athletes-to-be.

February 15, 2011

Another memoir from a gifted athlete who traded on-court success for a needle in the arm.

The story of Herren, a Massachusetts high-school basketball legend who scored a dream gig with his hometown Boston Celtics, is all-too familiar. With the help of Providence Journal-Bulletin sports columnist Reynolds (Rise of a Dynasty: The '57 Celtics, the First Banner, and the Dawning of a New America, 2010), Herren offers an unflinching look at a life of wasted potential, submitting his undiagnosed ADD, pressure from family and community and hereditary substance-abuse issues as mitigating factors, but manfully assuming full responsibility for his actions. He shows the frightening ease with which an athlete flush with game and cash can not only live a life of excess, but conceal his addiction from employers, teammates and friends. In painful detail, he recounts one horrific episode after another, from getting kicked off the Boston College team to blowing thousands of dollars a day on painkillers to, high on heroin, passing out on his way to buy donuts for his kids and being resuscitated by police. After burning countless bridges while his professional career sputtered in increasingly obscure foreign outposts, he finally hit rock-bottom in a rehab facility when, deprived of drugs and cut off from his long-suffering wife, the thought of not being able to raise his children gave him the strength to fight his way to sobriety. He rejoined his family, found gainful employment and started a thriving basketball academy and educational-speaking business. Metaphorical hoops junkies may find the paucity of game action disappointing, but Reynolds's work in fleshing out the contextual details and Herren's self-eviscerating forthrightness make this a worthwhile read.

Nothing that hasn't been written before, but told with such bluntness and heart that you can't help but root for Herren to stay clean.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

April 1, 2011
In Fall River Dreams (1995), sports journalist Reynolds profiled crumbling Fall River, Massachusetts, its revered Durfee High School basketball team, and its brightest hope, Chris Herren. Herren went on to be a blue-chip prospect recruited by the nations top-tier college programs and even showed promise as a young combo guard in the NBA. But the whole time, he battled addiction, first to alcohol, then cocaine, then OxyContin, and then heroin, bouncing around European and Asian leagues before his drug problems completely overtook his life. In this memoir, he lays bare the flaming wreckage of his career and how the game never mattered as much to him as partying did. He avoids doling out blame, but the immense family and community pressure to win and his failure to develop emotional maturity off the court are the stuff that sports nightmares are made of. His story of wasted opportunity, the crushing toll of addiction, and a hopeful chance at a sober life outside the spotlight may seem familiar, but that doesnt make it any less compelling.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)