Undoubtedly, Derrick Rose became a true hometown hero during his NBA career. He grew up in the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago, attended Simeon Academy, and played for his hometown Chicago Bulls.
His accolades include winning 2009 NBA Rookie of the Year and 2011 NBA MVP. Additionally, Rose helped reignite excitement over the Bulls in the post-Michael Jordan era. Those heroics, among others, were given due respect during their jersey retirement ceremonies at the United Center on January 24.
One of the historians of his career was Chicago-based basketball journalist and cultural critic Robert “Scoop” Jackson. He has come out with a new book titled Derrick Rose: The Poohprint, According to Bruce Goodwin II of Cassius Life, published by Assoline.
In the book, Jackson works with Rose to share candid stories through text and photographs that document her life.
Scoop Jackson immediately saw something in Derrick Rose
In an exclusive interview with ClutchPoints, Jackson said he spoke at the Nike Basketball Camp in Chicago. He was there with the late Temple coach John Cheney. At the time, Rose was at Simeon Academy.
Jackson had no idea that his words would have such a deep impact on Rose.
“I saw him in seventh grade,” Jackson said. So then I came to know about him. I didn’t know Derrick probably until his junior year at Simeon, and I talk about it a little bit in the book, I think it was on the author’s page or something, where Nike had John Chaney and I come to Chicago to talk to three or four high school basketball teams, and Simeon was one of those teams.
“So we talked to them, and that’s when I met Derrick face to face, and the rest of the team, you know, Dap’s game, you know, and all that and all that, and that’s the thing, I’d say I knew him. Probably four years before that, but I knew him.”
The scoop and derrick come full circle.
Jackson, who co-founded SLAM Magazine, was working for ESPN during Rose’s rookie year with Chicago in 2009. They reconnected for the first time since that initial meeting and picked up where they left off.
Jackson said, “So it happened years later, because he’s a rookie with the Bulls, ESPN, you know, he was assigned to do a story on Derrick Rose because he had a rookie season, and it was going into the playoffs.”
“The first thing he says to me is man, I was looking forward to it because I remember every word you said when you came, when you spoke, when you and Coach Cheney talked to us, when I was like a junior, when I was a senior, and I remember every word you said.”
“I was like, wow. I’ve had a lot of things said to me, but not like this, you know, so it brings it into the realm of where he’s a very smart, very curious person, young person who gets immersed in things, and not that everything catches on, but things catch on, and some things stick with him. You might not know what it is, he might not know what it is, but for some reason, some things stick with him.”
Derrick Rose wanted to get something out of the game
Without argument, Chicago knows how to draft ballers. Maurice Cheeks, Ben Wilson, Nick Anderson, Michael Jordan, Dwyane Wade, Candace Parker, you name it.
Rose is naturally suitable. Perhaps the literal “rose that grew from the concrete” about which Tupac Shakur later rhymed.
For Rose, coming out of Englewood amid hardship, he made basketball his ticket to explore the world.
“He’s a young man who has seen the world because of basketball,” Jackson said. “And not only has he seen it with his own eyes, but he’s also seen the world through other people who have seen the world.”
He explored various aspects of society through the lived experiences of the people he acted with. One of whom was Luol Deng, who is from Sudan in sub-Saharan Africa.
Although injuries later derailed him, it did not diminish Rose’s basketball pedigree. If anything, his success is moving forward on his own terms and excelling.
That wasn’t just a rose growing from concrete; It was a rose that was in full bloom.
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