ESPN Films: Unguarded
After a superstar high school basketball career in Fall River, Mass., Chris Herren dominated the courts at Boston College and Fresno State before playing for the Denver Nuggets, his beloved Boston Celtics and across the world. Despite his success playing basketball, his heavy addiction to drugs worsened (Chris failed drug tests wherever he played) and quickly took over his life, before he ultimately lost control and ended up in a rehab facility.
Ultimately, Chris – the youngest and most talented of three generations of local heroes – has found redemption and personal fulfillment through the game, but only after it led him literally around the world, and down a path of alcohol and drug addiction that nearly killed him.
Now three years sober, Herren’s long struggle with addiction is told in Unguarded, ESPN Films’ new documentary premiering Weds. Nov. 30 on ESPN America.
Through personal interviews with Herren’s family, friends and coaches along with his own words as he travels the country telling his inspiring story, director Jonathan Hock weaves together the rollercoaster of events in Herren’s life over the last 15 years. Events that could have led to his death have instead brought him to a place where he now finds the most peace – coaching basketball.
It’s the way of most sports stories to show how a life’s meaning can be found on the athletic field, how dedication to the game can provide redemption and honor. But sometimes talent is a mixed blessing, and the measure of an individual ultimately can’t be taken by wins and losses.
Chris Herren came from the city of Fall River, Mass., a faded textile town where personal loyalty and a tradition of high school basketball championships had come to fill the void left by the abandoned mills in every neighborhood. Chris’ brother Mike had led Fall River’s Durfee High School to two state titles, and became the only player other than Patrick Ewing to ever make all-state in Massachusetts three years running – Chris would be the third. Like every local hero before him, Mike’s dreams began and ended with winning at Durfee. But Chris was supposed to be different. His talent was beyond anything Fall River had ever seen; he was the chosen one, and on his shoulders fell the hopes of his family, his friends and his entire city.
If Chris’ life had gone according to script, this is where the music swells, he rises to claim his destiny as an NBA All-Star and redeems all the empty days and nights of forgotten Fall River. Indeed, Chris did become a big-time college star and did make it to the NBA. But not before he fell into an abyss of alcohol and drug addiction, a decade-long nightmare in which he would lose everything that ever mattered to him.
But the story of Chris Herren is the story of hope. While we were filming, Chris marked his third anniversary of sobriety. He has reclaimed his family and the love and respect of the community. Ultimately, it was only after Chris lost the game that was supposed to be his salvation that he found his life’s true meaning. Every day may still be a struggle, and he may never be able to claim the kind of final victory that basketball would have provided, but real life isn’t always like that. For most of us, it is a daily struggle. Self-respect and the love of family are the greatest rewards we can claim. And that can be much harder to achieve than hitting the big shot or winning the big game.
I’d like to thank Chris and his family for allowing us to tell their story. For 10 years, it was a nightmare, and because the final message is one of hope, they allowed us into the darkest places we could travel with them, with a rawness and an openness rarely offered. Chris’ philosophy is that you have to give things to get things in life, and my hope is that by telling his story, together we can give hope to those still in life’s dark places, and inspiration to the rest of us as we pursue our own lives’ great gifts, whatever they may be.
Jonathan Hock – director
For details of other new ESPN FIlms, click on the titles below:
CATCHING HELL – Finding Steve Bartman
RENEE – The Renee Richards Story
THE DOTTED LINE – Sports Agents
CHARISMATIC – Horse & Jockey
In June of 1999 an unlikely chestnut colt named Charismatic, with jockey Chris Antley aboard, headed down the stretch at the Belmont Stakes, just seconds away from becoming the first Triple Crown winner in nearly 21 years. Thoroughbred racing was desperate for this story of deliverance – track attendance was in steep decline, starts like Seattle Slew and Secretariat were distant memories, drug abuse and bulimia were becoming issues in the jockey colony, and America’s love affair with the Sport of Kings was waning. Into this void stepped Charismatic and Antley, both thought to be lost causes.
Between 1953 and 1960 Richard Raskind played five times in the Men’s U.S. Open championships and never got beyond the second round. Almost two decades later, in 1977, this determined tennis player still had a dream and decided to have another crack at the U.S. Open. Playing in the Open for the next five years, the 45-year-old went one better than earlier appearances in the fifties and reached the third round in 1979. The person who stood in the way that day in New York was none other than … Chrissie Evert.
Undeniably Bartman’s actions – and he was not the only pair of hands and arms that prevented Alou from making the catch – cost the Cubs an important out at a crucial late stage of a playoff game. But the Cubs players were the ones who lost that game and Game 7 – and their shot at the World Series – in typically self-destructive fashion.