Basketball player Dennis Rodman was born in 1961 in Trenton, New Jersey. Rodman’s father left the family when Dennis was fairly young, and his mother struggled as a single parent trying to make ends meet. The family moved to Dallas, Texas, where Rodman and his two sisters spent their formative years. By his own accounts, Rodman’s teenage years were not easy; his talents on the court had yet to surface and his small stature at the time led to meager opportunities following his graduation from high school.
A sudden growth spurt in his late teens sparked Dennis’s desire to try basketball again, this time as a student at Cooke County College in Gainesville, Texas, for one semester, and then at Southeastern Oklaholma State University, where he excelled as a three-time NAIA All-American. His talents eventually caught the attention of the Detroit Pistons, starting a career on the court first at the small forward position and then later as a power forward. Rodman would go on to play for the San Antonio Spurs, the Chicago Bulls, the Los Angeles Lakers, and the Dallas Mavericks before retiring.
Off the court, Dennis Rodman established a reputation as the “bad boy” of the NBA, with multi-colored hair, tattoos, and piercings. In recent years, Rodman has also appeared in a number of films and on a few television shows, including the reality shows Celebrity Big Brother, Celebrity Apprentice and Celebrity Mole, on which he won the main prize in 2004. Most recently, Dennis Rodman began writing and blogging for OPEN Sports; he has also authored five books, the most notorious of which is his biography, Bad as I Wanna Be (1996.)
