Lady General Documentary Chamique Holdsclaw

[Music] [Applause] winning those games and win those championships man it was like the best feeling like on earth you're out there winning one year after the next after the next i mean i felt like a rock star i'm not gonna lie i was like on top of the world it was 1999 shamiq holdsclaw called the female michael jordan was about to turn pro people were counting on her to make women's basketball as big as the men's game but part of what made holdsclaw a champion would come to threaten her life i've been in control of my body you know i'm an athlete but it was like my mind was always in a sense detached athletes are taught to never be weak i'll give you something to cry about no pain no gain for them to say i need help that's a very very tough thing for them to do [Music] [Applause] [Music] a little bit not yet hey ladies let's try to bend our legs while we're dribbling the basketball we don't dribble the basketball like this we try to get low okay good job good job good job turn around turn it out there you go there you go there you go it's days i wake up and like i can't move i'm just my mood is down you know i have no energy each day it can be a challenge so the ball comes back to the top i'm all over the ball all over the ball all over the ball there we go get back your back get back good good i had the same size feet as a 12 year old my feet haven't grown so imagine these feet i've been playing since i was 11 to 12. why'd you stop i tore my achilles i was young i didn't realize that people go through things now that i look back i wish i would have just handled things differently instead of just trying to run what made you realize i wanted to be a basketball player i love the creative part of it you know how you like go and some people want to shoot good some people want to play defense but for me it was like the movements it was like art when i first left shamika in the sawyer projects she was tall very talented but i didn't know that she was that good in basketball until i played with her we played in the boys league and shamika was the starting center i came off the bench behind shamika and when you play against shamika just because she's a girl you couldn't take it easy i remember one time i was 12 she was i think 13 or 14. i bumped her and i went up for the layup and she said uh you're trying to play big now huh that's what she told me and uh i wanted to talk trash back but at that time she was just so good i think sometimes the game was too easy for her by 1994 chamequo host claw was sort of the talk of new york city she's a talk of high school basketball she was playing with the guys beating the guys i mean by the time she was a senior at christ the king the legend had been set i guess i'm always looking for mold breakers players who are going to change the way things are played and in women's basketball we've been looking for that for a long time and so i went to see the great shamiqua host claw play what was supposed to be a great test i remember it was snowing and it was there were millions of reasons not to go but i figured you know as a journalist sometimes the worse things are the better the story is going to be we were not as highly ranked as altoona and we had to play them up there and it was our first game of the year with samika's senior year [Music] here she was highly recruited the best player in the country and they weren't coming to see this kid play [Music] she was just so head and shoulders above everybody else just the way she moved the coordination she demoralized that team it was pretty sensational she made her first 12 shots the 12 shot she hit was on a fast break she took off from the foul line double pumped in the air and put the ball in the basket even the altoona fans went crazy on that shot she scored 23 points in the first half so by halftime they were basically done i interviewed her after that game speaking to her for the first time said wow this this girl is really focused um and she's got that sort of take no prisoners kind of attitude that great athletes tend to have like no mercy nice person you know but really take no prisoners and she was driven at that time i didn't really realize the source of that drive [Music] just a pretty little nice little girl a little shy little girl um with the jerry curls she was a tomboy growing up she used to be like in charge she always was in charge of everything when shamika was with me when i was drinking and everything shamika was mostly like the mom you know she took care of everything she took care of the house she took care of her brother she took care of me she took care of her father you know and she was just little she was a little girl doing grown-up things i was around 10 11 years old and i just remembered a day you know just like it was yesterday me and my brother went down to my neighbor's house because my mom didn't come home the night before my dad came home from work and just like any kids we were like so excited we ran upstairs and we started talking to my dad he's like okay i'm gonna cook some dinner i'm gonna cook some pepper steak some collard greens and you guys go back and play well when me and my brother came back we hear this noise coming from around the corner and when it got closer we realized it was the police and next thing you know they opened that door the food was on the stove almost burning the music was blasting and my dad was passed out drunk going live with my grandmother was a big adjustment you know i was going from a middle class area going to the inner city and moving to the projects this is a story of projects um this is where i'm from i always tell everybody down from the hood and nobody believes me oh this is the building where my grandmother lives my grandmother like she stressed academics in her household when i got home from school it was change your clothes do your homework and then you can go outside this is a course where i started playing i was playing here since i was 11 you know basketball became like my coping mechanism i had all this anger and frustration inside she pushed me out of her life completely we never had a relationship during high school when i would go to my mom's house she wouldn't come out the room because i didn't trust her i was always embarrassed by her i wanted that support like that's my mother and you know her disease just basically took over her and it was very very hard i just didn't care that's what's my attitude my grandmother she used to get on me all the time she's like you should care shamika you should care i really think you're depressed she told me hey you go out there you take out your frustrations and anger on the basketball court go out there and you can just be aggressive and intense and that's exactly what i did basketball was like my therapist you know i would sit there a lot of times just by myself with no one on the court to shooting you know just trying to forget about everything that was going in my life and it took me to another place it just was a release for me [Music] and what happened was i got better and better and better the next thing you know i'm like this stud when i saw shamiqua play for the first time i thought whoever signed shamiqua ho's claw will win championships because she's the best player in the game [Music] i remember when coach summitt came into my home this was a woman who had led this rally of girl power you know this woman who was synonymous with the game of women's basketball and there she was in my house in a story of projects i'm feeling like a hot shot i sat down and i looked at her and i said so how many minutes am i gonna play a game and she looked at me and she said well uh i can't promise you anything but i can promise you that if you come to tennessee you will graduate because we have 100 um graduation rate and after that it was like i was x out the conversation once she said that 100 graduation rate my grandmother was sold i was going to the university of tennessee get up in line and let's go push it when i first got to the university of tennessee when i stepped on that basketball court immediately it's like i wanted to go back home you know coach summit cut me no slack i need to slow down and read your defense i remember many many days chemical would come home from practice exhausted expressing that in a nutshell this woman is crazy i mean i can never do anything right she's constantly riding me yelling at me i'm transferring i'm leaving i'm going to connecticut almost every player that has played for coach pat's summit has wanted to quit because she pushes you to the brink she is tough she makes things look easy she doesn't have that that intensity and that all-out commitment in practice at first i struggled a little bit with it and how much to push her and i certainly didn't want to run her off but i wanted her to get better pat wants the complete package so for her not to have that work ethic all the time pat was going to pull it out of you your kid's killing us on the boards when i came to that school she had already been coaching 20-something years so you know she's used to kids she knows which ones are going to crack which ones aren't and you know she knew that she had to make me tougher shamiqua wanted discipline she wanted structure and pat knew how good she could be shamiko would fight a little bit as to how good she could be but she did need to mature and some of the maturity was realizing i've got a role to play because with greatness comes all of these other obligations the 18-year-old freshman bought into summit's coaching style by mid-season and began making her mark by season's end she was a star 16 points and a crushing 14 rebounds in her sophomore year holtzclaw became the lady vol's go-to player she really transformed basketball to an art you were really coming to see a show and you were coming to see shamika holtzclaw just picked your pocket she had the biggest talent we'd ever signed here she just stood out she played like a guy but not a guy that's that was rough athletic chameque played like a guy that would pull up and jump over people i hated playing against shamiqua in college she wanted the ball every time you know and i can like see it in her face like the eye contact the emotions it's like give me the ball give me the ball you know what i mean and she get that ball it's over she unstoppable i couldn't stand it at all because i knew i was in for a tough night playing against her defending her like you're tired you don't want to do anything on offense after that at 19 chemical led tennessee to a second straight championship by her junior year holdsclaw was everyone's pick for the top women's college player in the nation it was overwhelming for us i mean the fans looking outside out of the locker room and getting ready to walk from literally the arena to the bus you couldn't see the bus and so eventually the wear and tear of the emotional issue is going to win and it's going to come down hard you're going to crash i saw the way she took the losses at tennessee and we didn't have a lot of them so now when it starts to become a daily process that can wear and tear on a champion i had one level of excellence i was shooting for and i felt for a long time like the coaches and the organization i didn't feel like they were planning properly and that they gave us everything to be successful so i was kind of bitter and upset she had the expectations that she was going to take this team and this league to new heights and that didn't happen and they never quite achieved that kind of on the court success throughout her time in washington it was days i always go home and it's just like this pain and just frustration and after a while you start to say i'm having a drink to kind of like help this go away to take that edge off and then one drink turns into two what i remember some days you know she come in the house all joyous you know everything was fine and then other days she walk in and seem like an attitude sometimes i feel like it's an on and off switch when she felt like being on she turned shawn when she felt like being off she turns you off maybe it was the losing basketball team on top of grandma's june's death i needed to face the fact that she was [Music] gone it was like my grandmother's birthday and i was headed out to go meet some friends and i just had like a breakdown i just broke down and i just started crying because i missed her and it was just pain inside of me um i felt like i had no one i remember going into practice one day and i was like i can't i can't do this anymore i just lost control of everything at that point i was getting paranoid i felt like everyone knew what was going on with me i went from that practice into my apartment from there i lost track of three days i was in this pit my thoughts were just spinning i just didn't want to live anymore a worried friend got her to a therapist chemical was diagnosed with clinical depression but she struggled with it in silence she more than likely would have been willing to tell the team what was wrong tell her teammates what was wrong tell the public perhaps what was wrong but she was burdened by the stigma of mental illness and didn't want anybody to know what was troubling her it is so rare when athletes admit vulnerability mental health and athletics uh at the highest level almost entity because what what mental health is about is seeking help being vulnerable talking openly about your issues what gamesmanship and success is in competitive sports is not showing any weakness not showing vulnerability not asking for help so now if it kind of gets around that you're crazy you know she's nuts she had to see a shrink all these things are taken as signs of weakness holds started seeing a therapist daily and taking medication she also sat out the last month of the season rumors swirled and during the off-season she finally agreed to sit down with reporters still even though i stepped up i talked about my mental health issues i was still protective of myself and i didn't like tell everything you know it was like a touch and go situation wasn't like i was just here like an open book you know i was still trying to protect shamiqua a new season was approaching and after six years with the mystics shamiqua had a decision to make i was just like i can't go back to dc this chapter needs to be ended i can't like i'm embarrassed like i don't want these people to think that i'm fragile soft this relationship has run its course i need a new beginning i need new life new energy and i felt like by me leaving that would happen holdsclaw requested a trade and in 2005 found herself in one of america's basketball capitals los angeles but from the start she wondered if she'd made a mistake i had extreme highs and lows it was that those times when i was like the life of the party i wanted to socialize but then it was the days i was walking in i would just want to isolate myself would go through a whole practice on a basketball team without talking to anyone like who does that but that was just what i was juggling the imbalance that i had holdsclaw confided in team officials who connected her with a therapist i go meet this woman she is unbelievable got me on the perfect medication at the time and her concern about this issue not about just yourself it's like sometimes we just are so bottled up you know we think no one else is going through this when all actuality when you look at it and you open your mind it's a lot of people dealing with the same things that you're dealing with athletes have a tough time admitting they have this problem and that means they have a tough time getting treatment for it professional teams the leagues they have great rehab programs to get you back on that field or their court from an injury but do they have strong enough programs for what is happening mentally with athletes well we both know the answer no no not at all every team has a sports psychiatrist but is the player really going to go no shamiq participated in a salon and it was dealing with mental health issues and black athletes and she was quite eloquent in talking about why it's so difficult particularly for black athletes to embrace and be embraced by the mental health community first of all in african-american communities when minorities in general mental health is just not accepted it's not accepted a lot of times it's not accepted because we don't necessarily have the resources i was told so many things pray it away you know how how can you be sad you have so many blessings like everywhere getting people to feel comfortable talking about the burden of mental illness that's more difficult among african-americans who feel that we already struggling people are not looking for another burden i got blown up in afghanistan and i was on wall for nine months i sit for a week with a glock 40 cab in my room but i do know it's improving because when people who are in the spotlight are willing to share their burden i think it does lighten the burden of other people hit me up on facebook or whatever we'll we'll talk brother take care everybody in my hood my wife my family my kids i definitely want to thank my doctor dr sandy my psychiatrist when i first came out publicly from the 40 million people and told everybody i want to thank my psychiatrist people called me crazy people called me crazy for helping myself i just moved on with my day because there's nothing to be embarrassed about when you're trying to really really help yourself i didn't even know that shamika was having you know mental health issues it was just a coincidence that he was in the same place at the same time life has its ups and downs and you're going to have some bumps on the way but just stay focused and stay persistent we dreamed of making it but we never knew that we would be on a panel giving back to the community that was pretty cool and what she's doing now is probably you know more impactful than this fun little circle what's that what you got three three two shamiq decided that she wanted to make another go of it and she called me to help her get ready to return to the wnba serious man it's the new meet new and improved working on my post gag with the athlete as special as shamiq i don't think the physical is ever really a major issue but the mental piece really was the biggest aspect was she ready to be back into that type of life and i decided to come back right now it took 10 years like 10 years until there's a crisis feelings of increased energy creativity and elevated mood often mask the disease once recognized bipolar disorder requires learning to see yourself your moods and your behaviors in a different light when i was out there making like gang winning shots you'd have this adrenaline that was a high well when i was out there speaking and encouraging and helping others i always would feel like this excitement like take over me i was basically in my bipolar state in a sense getting that hide and i would go back to my hotel room and come back down my psychologist wants me to see how much i can control my own mind and i think the reason she's taking me through this is so i can understand how my beliefs you know are causing me to stress and how i have to change the way that i think genetics and brain chemistry may be responsible for this lifelong disease but recognizing emotional factors can help manage it for me personally loss is definitely a trigger it can be losing an individual my family losing a job is just lost and i'm not able to deal with that what if i find myself in another situation unable to cope it really does scare me chameque's new diagnosis meant changing medications and doing her part by taking them my first meeting with the psychiatrist all right what are you giving me because i was on lithium before and i know how it made me feel i don't want to take that he's like okay all right you work out i work out i eat healthy and i kept asking is this going to make me just feel i want to feel life i want to i want to enjoy life he said this this is going to be okay for you we're going to start you on a low dose and we'll build and i can honestly say you know a couple months in i'm feeling i'm laughing it's just that when i do get that urge to kind of sometimes just go like the highs come in it kind of just doesn't go as high [Music] before the final hearing i got a message from jennifer she called my phone and i was like you're not supposed to communicate you know and she's just like listen like i am not pressing charges against you i hope that you're getting the help that you need and she goes it was very scary and and but i know that you're like a a good person and she's like i just i forgive you just to know that the person that hurt the most was healing and had in her heart forgiveness just opened my heart superior court of focus county atlanta judicial turkey is now in session [Music] [Music] aggravated assault guilty or not killed guilty aggravated assault count two guilty or not killed guilty criminal damage to property in the first degree guilty or not guilty you know at least try at least make an attempt right one there you go 13 14 15. you better not ever in your life tell me what you can't do ever again we decided to work out together when i found out that she had her own mental disorder i had never really encountered a black woman who had what i had and wasn't locked up somewhere like that double front bicep come on yeah come on

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Id: fE_IpXs8wIw

Length: 48min 24sec (2904 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 12 2020