Unguarded Analysis

Unguarded is a ESPN documentary about the career of former Denver Nuggets and Boston Celtics basketball player, Chris Herren. Chris Herren is from Fall River, Massachusetts, a city on the southern coast of the state, near Providence Rhode Island. Fall River is a city in which you are constantly surrounded by poverty and struggle. As Chris Herren grew up, he had the talent to be a basketball star, if not a professional. He attended Durfee High School, where he amassed 2,073 points. He went to Boston College, expecting to have an amazing career there. In his first game, he broke his wrist, ruling him out for the rest of the season. During this time, boredom crept in. After returning to his dorm room one night, he was greeted by his roommate and two girls. The three of them were
snorting cocaine as Herren walked in. Due to his lack of playing time, he was looking for something to do, so he consented to their pleas for him to snort a line. In the end, he would fail a drug test for marijuana and cocaine use, and eventually fail two more for the same reason. This got him kicked off of the B.C. basketball team and the entire school as a whole.
After this he transferred to Fresno State in California. He started playing basketball in sophomore year. Three years after breaking his wrist, he failed another drug test, and after rehabilitation, rejoined the team and graduated. He went on to play professionally for the Celtics and Nuggets, although his problems continued. While playing in the NBA, he turned to using painkillers such as OxyContin and vicodin. His dependency on drug use ruined his career, as he developed health problems and the drugs affected his play. After playing overseas, he was arrested again for heroin possession and use in a Dunkin Donuts in Portsmouth Rhode Island, and eventually turned to crystal meth. After finishing his career, he decided to truly turn his life around. His promising basketball career which should have ended with him as a respected star of the sport, instead was marred by seven felonies all drug related. Instead of winning NBA championships, he had to play for lower level European, Chinese, and Iranian teams. He threw away his life with an expensive, life endangering habit which nearly killed him on multiple occasions and almost tore apart his
family. This case, and many more with problems just like it, plague modern day America, and it is our job to fight against it.