Here's an article from almost 2 years ago,
before all of the marajuana concerns. This reveals another underlying issue for Sanders: he was raised basically fatherless. The short time (6 years) he did have his father in his life, Larry Sanders Sr. was an alcoholic wife beater. This is probably the cause of the emotional instability, as he even referenced "scary flashes" in this article:
Sanders, a candidate for both the Defensive Player of the Year and Most Improved Player awards, most often provokes two questions among NBA observers.
1. How did he block that shot?
2. What is wrong with that guy?
Sanders, now in his third year from Virginia Commonwealth, is second in the NBA with 2.8 blocks per game and tied for the league lead with 14 technical fouls. He's been fined $50,000 for criticizing the officials. He's sarcastically flashed thumbs up to the referees after being ejected. He's been sent home by his (former) coach for a "team conduct issue." And he's absolutely lost it during an extended jawing match with the Pacers that got him tossed from a game last April.
In this week's Sports Illustrated, senior writer Lee Jenkins goes deep to answer both questions, chatting with Sanders about his craft, his upbringing and his many interests outside basketball, which include drawing, skateboard building and gospel music.
Jenkins uncovers a back story so haunting that it makes you re-evaluate any knee-jerk reaction you might have to his on-court disciplinary issues.
The ugly episodes came on weekend nights, when Larry was four and five years old, tucked into bed. “I remember flashes,” he says. “Some of them won’t ever go away. Some of them are really vivid, really terrifying. There were occasions I’d be sleeping and I’d hear my dad come home late. He’d been drinking and gambling, and he’d use my mom as an outlet if he lost. I’d hear a chair crack against the wall or a loud scream. He was so big. She was only 5'5".?” (Sanders Sr. says he has never had a drinking problem.)
Larry’s mother, Marilyn Smith, hid her pain. “I didn’t tell him what happened,” Marilyn says. “I don’t believe in hate. I didn’t tell him what Daddy did. I wanted him to love his father. But I had to get him out of there so he wouldn’t see anything.” Marilyn left home with her six-year-old son and seven-year-old daughter, Cheyenne, even though they had nowhere to go. “No one really took us in,” Larry says. “We lived on the streets.” They slept in a shelter for battered women, where Larry shared a bed with his mom and his sister, and they shared a room with another family. “I felt like my mom was my lady,” he recalls, “and I had to take care of her.” He rarely left her side. They were kicked out of the shelter for breaking curfew one night and moved in with Marilyn’s mother, who, despite being bedridden with diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis, already had 16 family members spread through her living room, garage and trailer. “We felt we had to duck from my dad,” Larry says. “He couldn’t know where we were, or we were afraid he’d come get us.”
They settled in a Section 8 house off a dirt road in Vero Beach, where Larry spent hours at the kitchen table with his notepad and the Indian River Press Journal. “Drawing was a way for my mind to take a break from everything I’d seen and focus on the lines,” he says. “It was a release for me. I could zone out and just be there.” Marilyn bought him a black skateboard, another vehicle that allowed him to escape, up ramps and down driveways with new friends.
Marilyn wanted to keep her children close, so she worked wherever they went to school, whether it was Citrus Elementary or Olive Middle, whether she was a bus driver or a crossing guard, a cafeteria cook or a substitute teacher. But she could not shield Larry from trouble. He was expelled from fourth, fifth and sixth grades. “I didn’t fight a lot, but I had a problem with authority,” he says. “I’d get into it with teachers.”
There are layers and layers to this piece. Did you know, for instance, that Sanders wants to open a shelter for battered women? There's just no way to read this profile without fundamentally changing how you perceive the Bucks' 24-year-old big man.
Source:
http://www.si.com/nba/point-forward/2013/04/14/larry-sanders-bucks-sports-illustratedSo none of this is new stuff. The "artist" thing isn't media fluff. He legitimately means it. He took psychology at VCU so he could "figure out why people do bad things." He basically grew up trusting only his mother, probably believing that people were inherently bad, and he clearly struggled with some sort of untreated mental instability due to his circumstances. Basketball used to be his outlet, but when it got too crazy, he started to suffer again.
I do applaud the guy for his decision, and if anyone wants to argue against the word "applaud" I'll be happy to. Hopefully he finds the solace in basketball that he once had and joins a strong, supportive group, either as a player or a coach. Maybe he goes back to VCU to help Shaka Smart. Almost all of his players grew up fatherless, and they're all fiercely loyal to him. Either way, I wish the best for the man.
Topic: Larry Sanders...Why I quit Basketball (Read 44036 times)