In 1989 I got a phone call from Rex Chapman. His dad asked him to call me because a member of my family asked his dad in Owensboro. Rex called because famous adults will (most of the time) go out of their way to brighten a sick kid’s day.
He was an early-20s adult working in sports entertainment and marketing. I was a 13-year-old kid in rural western Kentucky who liked Nintendo games and was having a new experience in chemotherapy treatments. There was not a whole lot to talk about between the two of us after he encouraged me to keep fighting my cancer. I asked him about three different times how he liked Charlotte. He put me on hold twice and finally said he had to go.
I’m sure he was slightly annoyed that I drug out the phone call. But my day was brightened, and then some.
Basketball and sports in general meant a little bit more to me than it did at the start of that fifteen-minute phone call. After beating cancer, I lived and died with the Wildcats from 2 1/2 hours west of Lexington. Due to this foundation laid by Rex, a few years later I began thoroughly enjoying the on-court exploits of a Cuban-American Wildcat. I left my tiny town to go to class at UK and to fully enroll in the Kentucky Basketball experience. I’ve never left Lexington as a result.
My love of Kentucky sports may have caught fire later in my life due to my family’s flames, but Rex’s phone call was the spark that started it.
Years later, when famous folk figured out that social media could be a fun, direct contact with fans, Rex jumped in and was bemused by my sense of humor and my fanatical devotion to Young Dave Baker. I reminded him of that 1989 phone call and thanked him for it. I never tried to pester him too much online or pretend that I was anything to him other than a fan — I’m not a Nator. I watched him transition from ex-professional athlete to sports personality on the cusp of becoming a prominent UK-focused commentator and felt the same sense of pride one has when someone you are a fan of finds success.
Because I was a fan and not a friend, I had no idea that Rex was struggling amidst the success. I hadn’t heard about his divorce until he got Deadspinned for stealing. I knew the rumors about his gambling but I didn’t know about the Suboxone. I still don’t know what led Rex to broadcast his “done deal” prediction, but it sure seemed like he was aiming for career suicide. Just like I hide my faults from public knowledge, I wasn’t supposed to know any of Rex’s issues lurking in the shadows of the spotlight.
That spotlight will never leave Rex. His fame of being a former Kentucky/NBA player and the infamy of his publicized failures will follow him everywhere. Even into Fayette Mall.
A few days before Christmas, I happened to be walking through Macy’s when I saw Rex shopping in a clothing section. Everyone’s obvious attention weighed heavily on him. He slouched his huge frame between the racks of clothing, holding a phone up to his ear and trying very hard to convince the gawkers that he was engaged in a conversation.
We had never have been introduced to each other in person, so he would have never recognized me as “that funny Twitter dude who once wouldn’t let me get off the phone in 1989”. I wanted to go over to him and shake his hand. I wanted tell him that I was glad he was in the public again and moving forward in his life. Our eyes met and I nodded with an approving smile. I was afraid that approaching him would encourage others who may not be fans of his anymore. So I kept walking, hoping that he took my nonverbal communication as an expression of encouragement.
I hope it brightened his day. I hope that he felt like there’s one Rex Chapman fan still out here.
