Pubdate: Wed, 18 Sep 2002
Source: Sun Journal, The (NC)
Copyright: 2002 The New Bern Sun Journal
Contact:  http://www.newbernsunjournal.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1733
Author: Pat Coleman, Sun Journal Staff

THOMPSON TAKES MESSAGE ABOUT CHOICES TO CHERRY POINT

CHERRY POINT -- Former basketball great David Thompson believes life is 
about choices. He admits to having made some bad ones.

On Tuesday, he spoke to Marines about his bad choices, abusing drugs and 
alcohol.

"Life is a series of choices," said Thompson, who was voted Most Valuable 
Player in the ABA and NBA. "A lot of success and happiness in your life 
will depend on your ability to make the right choices."

His appearance at Cherry Point's station theater was part of an annual 
Alcohol and Substance Abuse Prevention and Control program conducted by the 
Marine Corps. Since his recovery from drug and alcohol addiction, Thompson 
has become a motivational speaker who shares his experiences, from his 
sheltered upbringing to his rise and fall as a professional athlete.

The youngest of 11 children, Thompson grew up in Shelby in a Christian 
home, where his father was a Deacon at a Baptist church.

"At the age of 5, I sang in the church choir, and also at the age of 5 I 
was taught how to play basketball by my older brother," he said. "Since my 
brother was seven years older than I was, and was a much better basketball 
player than I was at that time -- let's make that clear -- he always ended 
up beating me by one or two points. That would really upset me, but it made 
me play hard and it spurred on my competitive desire."

Thompson credits that competitive spirit with not only his considerable 
list of accomplishments on the basketball court, but throughout his life.

He began to reap the benefits by the time he was in high school.

"I worked hard in school and made good grades," he said. "I was highly 
sought after by most of the major colleges throughout the United States."

But, it was on a visit to one of those schools that Thompson said he made 
the first of his wrong choices.

"I was introduced to alcohol," he said. "I drank some cheap wine. I was 
sick for two days. I lied to my parents and told them I had the flu. The 
first experience was such a bad one, I didn't drink for some time."

The combination of his exceptional basketball performance and his 92 grade 
point average ultimately gave Thompson his pick of universities in his home 
state and he chose N.C. State.

"I was smart. I made the right choice," he said.

Going away to college represented Thompson's first time away from what he 
characterized as "that good, strong Christian influence" of his family. 
During the first week, he was drinking again. Orientation week parties gave 
way to fraternity parties and one nearly cost him everything, he said.

After drinking too much, Thompson decided to take a shortcut home on a back 
road. He said he swerved to avoid an oncoming car and hit a tree, totaling 
the car but somehow avoiding injury. He walked back to his dormitory, 
called the police and reported the car stolen.

"I was lucky," he said. "If I had stayed at the scene of the accident, I 
surely would have gotten a ticket, but most of all, I could have lost my 
life, and that really shook me up, and I decided to stop drinking, and I 
stopped drinking -- for two whole days."

With the Wolfpack, he earned the nickname "Skywalker" for his 44-inch 
vertical leaps and racked up an impressive list of awards by the time he 
graduated. He was drafted by both the NBA's Atlanta Hawks and the ABA's 
Virginia Squires.

"I was the No. 1 draft pick in both the NBA and the ABA," Thompson said. "I 
signed with the Denver Nuggets for the highest amount of money ever given 
to a rookie athlete up to that time."

In 1975 he signed a contract for $2.5 million. Three years later, he signed 
a contract for $4 million. Thompson estimates, with endorsements, he was 
making close to $2 million a year. He had all the material possessions he'd 
ever dreamed of -- a luxurious house complete with an Olympic size swimming 
pool in Denver, a condo in Seattle and fancy sports cars.

"I got involved with drugs and alcohol and ended up losing all of those 
very things I worked so hard to gain," he said. "Not only did I lose those 
material things, I lost things that were far greater than material things, 
because material things can be replaced. I lost my self-esteem and self-worth."

He said he also lost his freedom for four months. He went from the highest 
paid professional athlete to a jail cell.

"That's where drugs and alcohol will take you," he told Marines. "They will 
take you from the top all the way down to the bottom. All it will do is 
ruin lives, destroy careers and break up families. Most of all, drugs and 
alcohol kill."

After 14 years of sobriety, Thompson's advice to the Marines was to avoid 
drugs and alcohol in the first place.

"You never know where it's going to lead," he said. "Let me tell you, 
overcoming my drug and alcohol problem is the most difficult thing I've 
ever had to overcome."

While he may not have a lot of the material things he once had, Thompson 
said he considers his life "far richer than it has ever been."
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