Rebirth:
Ex-NBA star uses story to inspire

By Patrick Wilson
Winston-Salem Journal Reporter
Wednesday, March 29, 2006

David Thompson tried cocaine at the end of his first season playing for the Denver Nuggets, when he told a teammate that he was mentally and physically tired.

"I've got something to take care of that," his fellow player in the American Basketball Association told him.

Thompson said that cocaine altered his mood for the better.

"I wasn't tired anymore. I just felt good," he said.

But drug and alcohol addiction, he said, hindered his career as a professional basketball player and jeopardized his relationship with his family. It was only through counseling and his Christian faith that he overcame it about 18 years ago.

Thompson, considered one of the best college-basketball players ever, shared his story with 750 people at the Benton Convention Center last night during the annual fundraiser for Associates in Christian Counseling.

Thompson grew up in rural Cleveland County, the youngest of 11 children. He and his brothers built a basketball court on dirt.

He was a good student. By eighth grade, he was 5 feet 8 inches tall and could dunk a basketball. He did well on the SAT test and went to N.C. State University from 1971 to 1975, where he led the Wolfpack to a national championship in 1974. The team went 57-1 in his last two seasons.

Thompson began partying in college and started drinking every day after N.C. State won the championship.

One night, he was driving home from a party, ran off the road and hit a tree, totaling his car. He walked home and called the police to report the car as stolen. He decided that he should stop drinking.

"I stopped drinking for two whole days, and that's all I could stop for," he said.

In the ABA, Thompson was nicknamed "The Skywalker" because he was known for his 44-inch vertical leap. In 1978, he was awarded a five-year, $4 million contract. At the time, it was the highest contract ever in professional sports.

Thompson was enshrined in the basketball Hall of Fame as a player in 1996.

Thompson was an NBA all-star four times, and he won the MVP award in the 1979 All-Star Game. But his career ended in 1984 with the Seattle Supersonics when he got in fight in a nightclub in New York. A man pushed him down the stairs, injuring his knee.

That was when, Thompson said, his addiction grew deeper. His wife went to support groups for loved ones of alcoholics. In 1987, Thompson spent four months in jail because he failed to show up for counseling required after a domestic-violence allegation involving his wife.

Drugs and alcohol "had taken me from the top all the way down to the bottom," he said.

A pastor counseled him in jail. "That's when I accepted Jesus Christ as my lord and savior and that's when my life started to turn around," he said.

After a separation from his wife, Cathy, for several years, they reunited. His family helped him recover.

"I can say today by God's grace that I have been clean and sober now for over 18 years," he said. "Right now, my life is happy, joyous and free."

Thompson is now a motivational speaker and lives in Charlotte, where he co-founded a nonprofit organization called 2XSALT, which serves children.

Sydney Pennix-Samuels of Alamance County brought her son Sidney Pennix, 10, to last night's banquet. She said that Thompson's experience is something children should hear. Her son smiled when Thompson gave him a high-five and signed a copy of his book.

"I think his story was great," Sidney said. "He could have been one of the greatest basketball players in the world, but he got messed up in drugs and alcohol. So I learned not to make the same mistake he did."

This article originally appeared in the March 29, 2006 issue of the Winston-Salem Journal and is reprinted here with their permission.