Saturday, February 24, 2007

DJ Fought and Defeated His Inner Demons

There have been a lot of tributes to former NBA star Dennis Johnson after his sudden death this week from a heart attack at the young age of 52. I found this one in the Boston Globe to be particularly interesting because it addressed Johnson's problems in 1997 with a domestic voilence incident with his wife.

This is brought up not to diminish the man he was but to add more depth to his legacy. You see, he came back from that and did so the hard way--he worked at it. He kept his marriage together by going through counseling he needed. After falling off the fast-track to an NBA coaching job, he put in time in the minor leagues, which is where he was when he died.

The measure of a man, in my opinion, is not so much how few mistakes he makes in his life but how he recovers from them. In that regard, Dennis Johnson measured up very well.

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