Tim Hardaway on Fatherhood, Failure, and Forgiveness

DAVID GREENE, HOST: In the 1997 divisional round of the NBA playoffs, two bitter rivals in the Eastern Conference, the Miami Heat and the New York Knicks, had battled to a 3-3 tie. On the way to the decisive Game 7, All-Star Heat guard Tim Hardaway had this fascinating conversation with his son, Tim Jr., who had just turned five.

[MUSIC]

TIM HARDAWAY: We was in my car, and I like to have my music up and listen to nice music, House music that we call it from Chicago. And I was listening to some House music, and he was like, “Dad, dad, dad, I know you in your groove, you don’t like nobody to mess with you or nothing while you listen to your music. You’re getting ready for the game.” And he just said, “Can I turn it down? I want to ask you a question.” I said, “Sure, son.” He said, “Man, everybody keeps talking about the crossover. I don’t know what the crossover is. I’d never seen a crossover. Can you show it to me?”

DG: Tim Sr. was pretty sure he’d get a chance to show his son his signature move in this pivotal game, but he wanted to make sure Tim Jr. would be paying attention.

TH: I said, you know what son, I say this, “You can’t go on the back, you got to stay in your seat with your mom, you cant go to the bathroom, so go to bathroom before the game start, I don’t know when it’s going to happen, I don’t know when its going to happen.” He said, “Okay, I’m going to be right there. I’ll make sure I’m gonna be right there.” I said, “Okay.” I said, “Alright.”

[CHEERING]

BROADCASTER: Grip controlled by Chris Childs of the Knicks, being played by Tim Hardaway, and we are underway in this decisive seventh game.

TH: So the second play, the second player of the game, I get a deflection, I get to steal, and I come down, and the only thing I’m thinking about, I hope he’s in his seat because this is about to happen right now.

BROADCASTER: Hardaway with a shot clock running down, Tim Hardaway. Childs unable to contain Tim Hardway in the open floor.

TH: And sure enough, I did crossover, laid it up, I pointed to him, and I saw out my, you know, out my peripheral that he was up there jumping up and down.

[MUSIC]

DG: Tim Hardaway was electric. A point guard who played like every possession was personal. The Hall of Famer was a five-time All-Star and Olympic gold medalist. He brought grit from Chicago’s playgrounds to Golden State’s Run TMC Trio. And then he steered the Miami Heat through their fiercest battles of the ’90s. Tim retired with over 15,000 points and 7,000 assists. But what was maybe most memorable about his game was the swagger. He just refused to back down from anyone. His signature killer crossover broke ankles and turned hundreds of hapless defenders into highlight reels. Tim says he applied that idea of crisp decisiveness across his life.

TH: It’s all about being tough, all about being strong. It’s not about being a killer, you know? That’s a strong word. That’s a strong word to use outside of basketball. You could be a killer on the court. You could a killer you know, on the field. You know, like playing the game or playing a sport. But outside of it, I’m very confident. I’m confident about myself. I’m strong, strong-minded. Educated. Understand what needs to be done and how it needs to done for my family, and that’s going to be always there for my family

[THEME MUSIC]

DG: From WHYY and PRX, this is Sports in America. I’m David Green, and today we’re talking to NBA Hall of Famer Tim Hardaway about failure, forgiveness, and above all, fatherhood. We’ll hear about how he honed his craft in Chicago where he grew up, his journey to the pros, and why his relationship with his own father was so important to how he showed up for his son, current NBA player Tim Hardway Jr. We’ll learn all about his new memoir aptly named Killer Crossover, where he describes how toughness on the court translated directly to his accountability off of it. And why one of the greatest accomplishments of his decorated career was the time he admitted he was wrong.

Tim, thanks for doing this.

TH: No problem, thank you for having me.

DG: How’s the…

TH: I see you got your Terrible Towel.

DG: I got my Terrible Towel. Whose your football team?

TH: Chicago Bears.

DG: You still love the Bears from growing up?

TH: Of course, of course, you know, Bears fan, always a Bears fan. I’m from Chicago.

DG: I mean, Chicago is where you grew up. I mean, you write about having a basketball in your hands, like when you were an infant basically.

TH: Yeah, you know, my dad was a playground legend in Chicago, and I used to go watch him play across the city of Chicago, didn’t know what I was doing, didn’t know where I was at. A friend of mine, my cousin, he told me, “Hey, you was sitting on the ball, and you know how hard it is for you to sit on the ball and your feet not touching the ground. You’re just sitting on there, just rocking back and forth.” He said, “We knew you especially because you had great balance then, and you didn’t fall off that ball.” I was like, “Wow. Okay.”

DG: (Laughs) I love that, that’s some early talent that was predicting.

TH: Early talent, yes.

DG: If you know anything about Tim Hardaway, it’s probably his legendary crossover.

[MUSIC]

DG: With the ball on a string, his shoulders and hips would indicate he was going in one direction, and then when the defender committed to stop him, he would go the other way and send his opponent into next week.

For people who don’t know you and didn’t watch your years playing in the NBA, okay, how do you describe the killer crossover?

TH: Deadly, but effective. You know, a lot of people, they think that they could just come out and do it. It takes a lot of practice. First of all, you know, you gotta be under control. You gotta be in a box. You can’t sway out the box. In a box, I mean, you in a little bitty box where you, like a sidewalk box, where you can’t, and if you go outside that box, you out of bounds. And that’s the way that I was taught to play.

DG: That’s just you against one other player. I mean, figuring out how to get past that one other. I mean, faking someone out is a little bit of the foundation of the move, right?

TH: Well you know what when you when you say fake someone out it’s not faking anybody out it is like if if you can’t stop me going left why should i stop going left you know so if i go left and you stop me go on left then i got a counter move for you stopping me from going left that’s all the crossover dribble was it’s always something I practice

DG: Tim developed the killer crossover on the playgrounds of Chicago, where he grew up. Sharing this part of himself with his son was so important as a way to have a different kind of relationship than he had with his own father.

You know, Tim, one of the things I loved about your book is it’s not just a basketball book. I mean, there’s a lot more happening, and fatherhood is a real theme that I think remains throughout the book. Tell me about your relationship with your dad when you were young because I know it wasn’t easy.

TH: No, it was not easy. My dad was an alcoholic, and he used to abuse my mom. And he used come home and terrified the family, me and my mom, but my brother, he was too young for him to terrify. But he comes in and we like on pins and needles, we like, “Oh, he’s home.” But you know when he’s coming home because you heard the car, you heard that door opening up, you knew what time it was when he was coming home after work. He was a truck driver. So anywhere between six and eight o’clock, he was coming home, and you didn’t know what his temperature was. You didn’t know if he was been drinking, you know, just didn’t know what its temperature was and sometimes, you know, most of the time it was, it was tough. It was tough, very tough.

[MUSIC]

TH: Yeah, I had to deal with that. You know I had deal with it as a son, I had to watch him be that way. And I had, you know, I couldn’t help my mom. You know, that’s one thing as a man or a little kid that you can’t help your mom through the tough times that you see her going through with her husband. And you know, it was just tough. You know, I think about it, you know quite frequently, you now still now, and it was tough, man. And when she finally got divorced and left and everything, you knew I had to become a man. Sixth grade, seventh grade, I had become a man, I was a man.

DG: So young.

TH: Yeah, I mean, but, you know, but back in those days, that’s the way it was, you know, before me, that was the way was. But I understood that, you know, I’m all about family, whatever family needs, but I still did what I need to do. I still went out, and I still got my basketball in. I took my brother with me to different parks, to different places in the city. And I knew where he was at, and I played basketball. We came home and at the times we need to come home and was all right. But you know, I still understood what a big brother need to do and how to take care of my brother.

DG: That is so much responsibility to carry as a sixth grader. I mean, like having looked out for your mom and tried to want to protect her from your dad when he was abusive, and looking out for a little brother. I mean, how did you carry all of that?

TH: Basketball. Basketball. Basketball.

DG: That was your release.

TH: That was my release, going out there, playing the game. Now, you know what? And I didn’t play it angrily. When I say angrily, you know, I wasn’t out there trying to get back at my dad. I wasn’t out there trying to get back at nobody. It was a lot of people saying, “Oh, that got better than you, that get better.” It was about more about going out there showing people that was better than them. And I could prove to them, I was better than whoever you say that was better than me. That’s what that was. But it was a release for me to go out there and to get that other stuff and clear my head from that other step too. Because you know, my mom still had to go to work. She still had it take care of us, and it was still tough times where you know we was, you know a lot of people, we was talking about this the other day. You know, a lot us shouldn’t feel ashamed, shoot we used to eat pork and beans and hot dogs for seven straight days. You know? Mayonnaise bread, you know. I mean, that’s the way it was, and you just had to survive.

DG: Tim played his college ball at the University of Texas, El Paso, and left the program as its all-time leader in assists. He was a highly rated prospect for the NBA. And so Tim liked his chances as NBA Draft Night approached, his mom was excited to seeing this as a potential inflection point in her own life.

There’s a moment that you talk about when you were first drafted in the NBA and your mom sort of told a joke about, like, “Well, I’m never going to work again.” Can you take me, take me to that conversation?

TH: (Laughs) So we’re in New York and they invited us to New York like a week before we were supposed to go, I mean, before the draft, I didn’t know that we was going to go to New York. They was like, “Hey, they want to invite you to New York.” I was like “Oh, for real? All right, cool. Mom, we’re going to New York.” “All week?” “All right. Cool.” So we go to New York. And I think she had this plan in her mind already.

BROADCASTER: With the 14th pick in the 1989 NBA Draft, the Golden State Warriors select Tim Hardaway from Texas El Paso.

TH: She said, after I got drafted, we get back to the hotel. And she said, “Well, we’ll get back home. I’m going straight to the post office and give them my letter of resignation.” And we started laughing. We was like, “Mom,” she said, “Look, boy, I’m not working no more. I’m done working.” I said, “Okay.” And that was the end of that conversation.

DG: What did that mean to you?

TH: Wwell that meant. To me, I’m different, and I knew what she was saying. She’s like “Look I done took care of you for a long long time and I done guided you, not to play basketball, but not to be this sports figure, but to be the man you are today.” And she was like “I want you to take care of me because first of all, I need a rest.” And she needed a rest, for you know, it was like 18 years that she took care of me and my brother, and she needed a rest. And she wanted to sit down and not go to work for a week, not do nothing for a month. Just relax her mind, reset, and get her bearings back. And I understood that because of what she went through.

[MUSIC]

TH: And a lot of women, if you need to reset, if you need to sit down, you know, mental, back then, you know, we talking about mental state. We talking about mental anguish. We didn’t know that we had mental anguish, we didn’t we had a mental illness back then. We just had to deal with it, and we had to go forward, and we have to make sure that we can talk to. You wanna talk to a therapist? Are you serious? You know, you can’t even talk to your teacher about what went on at the house. You can’t talk to you neighbor what went on at the house, because that was nobody’s business. It was all sacred. But now you can, and you’re able to. Back then, if you did it, you might get choked by your parents. You know? And that’s the way it was. And that wasn’t even abuse. That was just a whooping. I, so yeah. So, so back then, you know, we probably had mental anguish. We had, you know, we was mentally ill. We kind of deal with it in a way by playing sports. Some people got into a game. You know, some people did this, some did that. You knew how to regulate it and move on. And that’s what I did. I moved on, and basketball was my way out and my way to keep my mind together. And when my mom said that, you know, “That was it,” I was like, “Okay, mom, I got you.” Because that’s how family is.

DG: With his place in the league secured, Tim was ready to go to work. Coming up on Sports in America, we’ll hear how he combined with two of his teammates to form one of the most exciting trios in basketball.

[MIDROLL]

DG: Welcome back to Sports in America, I’m your host David Greene.

When Tim Hardaway got to the NBA, he made an impact on his team immediately, forming a particular bond with teammates Chris Mullen and Mitch Richmond. Because of their fast trigger-happy style, they earned themselves a nickname based on legendary hip hop group Run DMC. Only they were Run TMC. Tim, Mitch, and Chris.

[MUSIC]

BROADCASTER: Here’s the killer crossover by Hardaway. Welcome to the game. Nice spin move by Mitch Richmond. He goes left. Here’s Mullen off the Hardaway steal. Hardaway, second in the league in steals.

DG: So you get to Golden State and you play with Run-TMC. I mean, it’s you and Chris Mullin and Mitch Richmond. What was special about that relationship on the court and off the court?

TH: Comradery, camaraderie, friendship, we friends today, our families, our wives, our children, friends today. When we was all back there for All-Star, this past All-Star in San Francisco, it was like we was at home. When we out there on that court, it was a trio of guys that knew how to win and knew how to play together and knew how to play amongst their teammates to make everybody better. And when we went out there, you saw the camaraderie, you saw that teamwork, you saw us looking at each other, giving head, eye gestures. There wasn’t no pointing. We was always encouraging one another to do better. Chris Mullin was always out doing us in a workout room or doing workouts, working out an hour before the game, working out sometimes an hour after the game.

DG: I hate those guys. (Laughs)

TH: I mean, his mental state was insane and working out. And that’s why, you know, he was so good and a lot of people couldn’t stick him. And he just outsmarted people. He out-thumped people.

DG: But how much does friendship off the court translate onto success on the court? How important is that?

TH: I think that, you know, in building something, I think, that’s big. In building something, you have to trust one another off the court. You have to understand each other off the court because on the court, it comes quick, comes fast. You talk about it in practice. That’s where you get together and you talk about stuff in practice, with this guy, we know they like to do that, but if they do this, then you spend, and I’ll be looking for you this way, or you come around this pick, he always shoot the gap, go back door, bam, I shoot a lob to you, whatever, however it is, but you always talking in practice, always communicating in practice. Then in the game, it just comes easy. See, a lot of people, you know, that’s why we like people to practice, because we want them to go out there and understand what they need to do by themselves. It is not the coach, you know? It’s not the coach telling them what to do. It’s them figuring out, so it makes it easy for them to know when you’re out there on the court. This is how we’re gonna do it. This is, they’re gonna play us. You know this how we gonna play this team on defense. We’re gonna funnel this guy this way, and if when he when he likes to turn, I’ll be right there to steal it because this guard is right here. It’s all about practice. It’s about preparation, and that’s why you know, that’s what I liked about Chris and Mitch, we’re always prepared. We were already ready and we knew what to expect out there in the court

DG: You know, the band had to be broken up at some point. You and Mitch, and Chris, you went your separate ways. I mean, you ended up playing for Miami and having like a whole second phase of your career. But what is it, I don’t know, how hard is that to be a professional athlete? You develop such bonds with teammates, but you’re sort of living, waiting for the moment when there could be a trade or something that just takes it all away.

TH: So, we had two, I was in, I think, two significant trades that kind of hurt us. One was in Golden State with Mitch Richmond. Didn’t see why. I still I mean, still don’t know to this day why he traded them, but he traded him. He said we need to get bigger, which was some BS. And then he said that you just don’t break up a band like that. You, got these pieces right there, and you add on to the pieces. And with the cornerstones of those pieces, you just add to the piece that need to be added. Just think, we could’ve done something. We could’ve contended for a championship if we stuck around.

DG: Run TMC could light up the scoreboard with the best of them, but buckets alone do not win titles, and the Warriors decided they needed more defense. So the band broke up. Mitch shipped to Sacramento, Tim later to Miami, where the great second act of his career began. The stakes were immediately high as Tim became a key player in one of the NBA’s fiercest rivalries at the time, Miami and New York. New York fans, fell jilted by legendary player, coach, and executive Pat Riley, who had left the Knicks to coach the Heat the year before. As Tim would discover quickly, they took that bitterness out on the Heat players.

[BOOING]

BROADCASTER: Here comes Pat Riley, who last appeared at this Madison Square Garden court May 21st of last season.

DG: Why did the Knicks and Heat hate each other so much?

TH: Well, the Knicks hated Miami Heat because of Pat Riley.

DG: Okay. (Laughs) Simple answer, yeah, he left New York.

TH: He left New York, and they tried to take it out on us, but it was essentially a Pat Riley thing. I guarantee you if Pat Riley never went to the Miami Heat or never went anywhere else. The New York Knicks would have never hated, or the New York City would have never hated Miami like they hated us now. I mean like, they hated us then. But Micky Arison knew what he had in Pat, knew what Pat could bring to the table, and look what he’s done. He won three championships there, and New York is still trying to get another. (Laughs)

DG: (Laughs) Don’t rub it in or anything.

TH: And that’s what Pat was trying to tell them. This is what I can do if you trust me. But, they didn’t trust him, so that’s why he left.

DG: These tensions reached a fever pitch in that Game 7 against New York in 1997, the one where Tim first showed his son the killer crossover. Tim was clearly ready to meet the moment, tormenting any Knick defender that got in his way.

[MUSIC]

DG: He would blow past them with his speed, or if they gave him too much space, he would just start raining threes. He willed the Heat to the conference finals that night in one of the defining performances of his career.

BROADCASTER 1: Hardaway for three! Childs unable to contain Tim Hardaway in the open field.
BROADCASTER 2: Hardaway with a shot clock running down. Tim Hardaway, he can take over a ballgame.
BROADCASTER 3: Fires again! It has been a Jordan-esque performance. Playoff career high 38 for Hardaway.

DG: Tim, one of, if not your best games, I mean, 38 points in a Game 7 to basically seal a series win for the Heat. I mean that was, what do you remember about that game? You were in a zone.

TH: I was in the zone. Well, you know what happened? I’ll tell you this. So Zo gets into foul trouble, middle of the third quarter,

DG: Alonzo Mourning,

TH: Alonso Mourning gets in the foul trouble middle of third quarter. We call the timeout or it was a timeout. Pat Riley in the time out has not said nothing. First time he’s been speechless. Didn’t say nothing. Didn’t say, you know, well, this is what we’re gonna do, or we gotta buckle down on defense, or we got to do this, we got do that…

DG: Your coach is just silent. Pat Riley is saying no words.

TH: He was on one knee and silent for the whole time out. And I’m looking around, I’m looking at my teammates, I’m like, okay, I’ve been in this predicament before. You know this is I do, this what I’m made of. I’d been doing this since grammar school, high school, college. You know, let me go ahead and take over this game. This is my time to just take over the game and normally, a coach will say something but I’m just gonna do what I need to do because I feel that he’s in trouble I feel he needs to you know, somebody not to bail him out, but just somebody just take over, and I took over at that particular point of the game.

DG: You sure did. Do you think that having that moment with Tim Jr. In the second play motivated you somehow, and led to you just tearing it up?

TH: Probably so. You know what, I don’t know. Every game is different. I think that particular game was for me to come on out and do what I need to do and play the way I need it to play at that particular time and take over the game the way I took over the game at that particular time. Every game was different; you don’t know what’s going to happen. It could have motivated me, it would have got me inspired just by him being there and him seeing the crossover. Him listening to me saying, “Look, you can’t go nowhere. You got to be right there, and you got to be in the game.” You know, it could have, but you know, I just think that we needed that game. And I wanted to go home and play the Bulls in the Eastern Conference Finals. I wanted to go home in front of my home, my home people, my family to play against the Bulls. That’s what I wanted to do. So I had a chance to do it, but you got a guy named Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen and those guys that was…it was tough. It was tough.

DG: Yeah, Tim and the Heat advanced to the conference finals only to get trounced by Michael Jordan’s Bulls. It was these highs and lows and the passion for the game that they produced that Tim wanted to pass along to his son, Tim Jr. But over time, Tim Sr. would have to learn that his son needed to develop his love for the team organically, in his own way, if at all. It wasn’t always easy to hold back.

[MUSIC]

DG: I wanna ask you about your relationship with Tim Jr., your son. It sounds like basketball meant very different things to you as a young person. You said it was an escape, and to him as a person, when he was getting into basketball. What has basketball meant to your son?

TH: Basketball, you know, I think it means a great deal to him. I don’t think it doesn’t mean a great deal to him I think he I know he loves the game, if he didn’t love the game, he wouldn’t put all his preparation into the game from high school all the way up till now. But I think It was me that laid onto him. I was on him too tough. I wanted him to play like I played. I wanted to have the mentality that I had when I was out there on the court. But then I had to realize, look, I grew up this way. He grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth. He grew up with nice things. But I had to be quiet and let him learn on his own, and let him do it on his own. And once I did that. I think he fell back in love with the game. I know that he fell in love back with me because I was like, he didn’t even want to be around me. He didn’t even wanna be with me. But it was a thing that I had to do to help him see what he needed to do to go forward. I think I was hampering him because he was like, he didn’t want me to come to the games, he didn’t want me be around him. And when I think about it, rightfully so, why he didn’t that to happen because I was doing too much, I was saying too much, and I need to shut up. Once I shut up, he propelled to be a really good basketball player.

DG: I feel like there are a lot of lessons in here for fathers. What was on your mind when you were putting all of that pressure on him in the beginning and pushing too hard?

TH: I wanted him to make it so bad. I wanted to feel, you know, I wanted him to go out there and just play as hard and do everything hard and really play like I played when I was growing up. You know, just be tenacious and be this person and this and that. But, and then I had, when my wife talked to me, she was like, “He’s not like you. His mind is not like that, and you can’t force that upon him like you are forcing it upon him now.” And she made me understand to relax and just chill out. And that’s what I did.

DG: It must’ve been really hard. I mean, when your son doesn’t even want to be around you, doesn’t want you to come to his games. What did that feel like?

TH: It was tough, it was tough. And I say, “I’m gonna come to your game. You’re not gonna bar me from the game. I’m going to come to the games, but I’m not gonna say nothing. I’m not gonna say nothing.” He was like, “Yeah, yeah. Right, right, right.” So I know I’m a shit up way up anyway. And I sat up there, and I just shut up. Didn’t say a word, didn’t yell at the referees, just didn’t say a word. After the game, I said, “Good game. I’m proud of you.” And I just kept saying the same thing. I said, “Just learn from your mistakes. Learn from, you know, learn from the game, that’s all.” And we got in the car and we just left. And he was like, “I know he gonna say something sometime. I know you gonna say something sometime.” And it’s been like that ever since then, ever since high school. I haven’t, I call, you now, I don’t call him. I just say, “Hey, if you wanna talk, I’m up.” And that’s it and our relationship is great.

DG: Do you remember the turning point?

TH: Our relationship is great. I guarantee you if I would have kept it up, he would not have been playing basketball. We would not had had this relationship that we have. It would have been a bad relationship and he would have, and he would have blamed a lot of things on me. But me, by me being quiet, and letting him learn on his own has been a God saver for me and him.

DG: Tim Sr.’s measured approach paid off. His son has had his own successful career in the NBA for over 10 years, and more importantly, he and Tim Jr. are close to this day. But this humility and willingness to change was profoundly challenged after a controversial interview Tim Sr. gave in 2007, prompted a long and searching look in the mirror. Retired NBA center John Amici had just made news by being the first former NBA player to publicly come out as gay. Tim was asked for his reaction.

[MUSIC]

DAN LE BATARD: Tim Hardaway, last question before we let you go, how do you deal with a gay teammate?

TIM HARDAWAY, INTERVIEW: Ooh. First of all, I wouldn’t want him on my team, and second of all you know if he was on my team I would you know really distance myself from him because I don’t think that’s right and you know I don’t think that he should be in a locker room while we’re in a lock room.

DAN LE BATARD: You know that what you’re saying there, though, Timmy, is flatly homophobic, right? It’s just, it’s bigotry.

TIM HARDAWAY, INTERVIEW: Well, you know, I hate gay people, so I let it be known. I don’t like gay people.

DG: These comments sparked immediate outrage, a career-defining backlash that pushed Tim out of the basketball world almost overnight. The league distanced itself, fans turned, and Tim Hardaway was left to reckon with the damage. In time, he owned it. He apologized, and he did the work to try and make things right, a long, quiet climb from one moment that nearly erased everything he had built.

Coming up, we talked to Tim about how his family got him to see the harm his comments had caused and why he wanted to wait before offering a formal apology.

[MIDROLL]

DG: Welcome back to Sports in America.

In 2007, Tim Hardaway made hateful comments in an interview that turned his life upside down. For someone who had been so comfortable asserting himself on the basketball court, it was now time to say less and to listen more.

Tim, I’m struck by you saying that, you know, you wanted your son to learn from his mistakes. And you, in this book, bring up what you describe as the biggest mistake that you made in your entire life. And I just wanna say how powerful it is that you decided to take this on so honestly and really dig into what sort of this journey has been like. I think not a lot of people do that. So as a journalist, as an interviewer, I don’t take it lightly that you have been so open and transparent about this, but just to remind the people listening, this was Valentine’s Day, 2007, and you did an interview with the sports journalist, Dan Le Batard, and he asked you about a former NBA player, John Amici, who had come out and said that he was gay and that he afraid to be in the locker room during his career. Let me let you, how do you like to tell people about what happened in that interview?

TH: Yeah, I said some dumb [EXPLETIVE]. I said some dumb, awful stuff. Not only to hurt Amici, but to hurt the LGBTQ community. When I said those things. I had to talk to my family, like the transgender or the gay people in my family. And I had to go talk to them, and I had to tell them I was sorry. You know, and I looked them in the eye, and I have several gay members in my family that I grew up with. Like grew up and helped me grow up as a person.

[MUSIC]

TH: So, you know, it was tears in my eyes, and I know I hurt them. And I saw tears in their eyes because I hurt him and I let them down. I let them down. And when I saw that, I wanted to do something. I really wanted to do some. I had to make amends of it. I had make it right. Had to go and make people understand. You know, we can’t ridicule them. We can’t outcast them. As parents, you can’t put them out in the street because you don’t like what they’re becoming. You gotta love them, you gotta make them understand that you love them, and we gonna do everything we can do to make your life as great as we have, as our lives are.

DG: Did you know when you said that, like in that interview, like immediately, like that?

TH: No.

DG: I’ve just said something that…

TH: No, I did not, I did not, it took me, it took me 24 hours to really understand what I did. It took me 24 hours. It really did. And that 24 hours was hard. That 24 hours is hard. And I said, “Damn, I made a big, big, big mistake,” and all I can do was like, try to, first of all, let it calm down. And then let me rectify it from there.

DG: Mm-hmm. I mean, you’ve been…

TH: That’s all you can do. That’s I mean. That’s all you could do. You know, people wanted me to do interviews. Oprah wanted me to do an interview. I was like, “Why am I going to do an interview with you, Oprah?“ You want me to come on with you so you can ridicule me and put me down and ask me questions that I don’t have the answers for right now. 24 or 36 hours later. You understand what I’m saying? And I wasn’t ready for that interview. And she wanted to say something like, you know, “Oh, you know, he’s not ready for the interview.” No, I’m not ready for that interview because you know why? Because I wasn’t ready. Cause if I would have been on that, then I would have done some, I would say something else stupider. So no, I wasn’t ready for that. So, she can say it how she want to say it, but no, I wasn’t coming on because I didn’t want to hurt people again. That’s why I didn’t go on, but yeah. Yeah, it took me a minute to understand what I need to do and how I need to do it, and come up with a game plan to rectify it. But I wasn’t going to hide. I wasn’t going to be in a closet or somewhere and be like, “Is it safe to come out so people won’t beat me up or won’t run me over?” “There go Tim Hardaway. He said that, he said that.” No! I still went out to eat I still went out in the public and I faced my fears and I faced people, and I told him, “Look yeah, that was dumb, but I’m gonna rectify it and it’s gonna take me time.” It’s not gonna be like tomorrow. It’s now gonna be overnight. It is not gonna be like, you know, three months from now it’s gonna take a minute to rectify, and I want people to understand. I’m true to it

DG: After the fallout, Tim reached out to do real work, not just photo ops. He met with LGBTQ advocacy groups like the Yes Institute in Miami. He took part in workshops on inclusion and anti-bullying, and he spoke publicly about his own process of unlearning prejudice.

You talked about that, like, apologies can seem empty sometimes to people. You talked about that a lot of the work that you have done to support the LGBTQ community and fight for marriage rights and you know, you were very open and said I understand if people see this as PR stunts, but that it it really is coming from a place of wanting to as you said rectify this like what do you tell people who are skeptical”

TH: Well, skeptical about me?

DG: Yeah, about what all the work that you’ve done, being, you know, genuine and an authentic desire to evolve, as you said.

TH: I tell you this, if I cared about what people thought about me, I wouldn’t have never made it in basketball. I would have never make it to be in the Hall of Fame. I never would have been that type of guy that had everybody wanting to do his crossover. I never been that guy for parents to want to talk to their kids or go speaking at a speaking engagement and stuff like that. So you got it like you got go through trials and tribulations and everybody’s not gonna like you but I tell you what I’m not gonna shy about, you know, how I want to go about doing stuff. If you confront me with it I’m gonna talk to you and tell you look I made a mistake and I understand I made the mistake and I rectify it and I wasn’t scared to rectify it Some people are scared to rectify it. I’m not.

DG: Do you understand if there are some people who haven’t forgiven you, even though it’s been almost two decades?

TH: Yeah, I do understand. I do understand, and that’s the way it’s going to be, and that the way it’s gonna always be.

DG: What lesson should we all take about forgiveness, do you think? Because I think, especially in this world today, it feels like in our so-called cancel culture, it’s like people just decide something about someone, and that’s the end. There’s no room for, there’s no space for forgiveness, redemption.

TH: You know what? I- You know, it- I- I- You got to have faith and you got to have, you
got to make sure that you can’t have this burden of stuff in you. Like, I still love my dad. I still have a relationship with my dad, and I’m going to always have a relationship with my dad. And my dad needs me to take care of him. I take care him. But what you did was terrible. And I understand that you, it was a disease with the alcohol and everything. But I’m still going to be right there by your side, no matter what. I forgive you in some senses, but it’s some things that you have to understand that it’s hard, it’s still hard, but you’re still my dad, I still love you, but I still forgive you for some things and for some thing you need, and I tell them these are things that I don’t forgive you, but you still my dad and I still love you and I’m still gonna take care of you, and that’s that. Some people just outcast their dad and don’t wanna have a conversation with him, don’t want to be with him, won’t be that way. I only got one dad, you know. I’m gonna be there for him no matter what because that’s family, and I believe in family, and family is what I love, man. Without family, you don’t have nothing.

DG: It’s really, it’s really meaningful because I do think there are a lot of people who think that if they can’t forgive like a family member or loved one, that that means they can’t spend time with them because they’re somehow like caving in. It’s like you can, you can still not forgive for everything, and you can still have, you know, complicated emotions and still spend time with someone.

TH: And still have a relationship with them. You know, it takes time, but you still gotta have dialog. You still gotta talk. You know you still got to talk about the things that’s troubling you. You know what I mean? I mean, that’s cool too. You know? You still got have communication about that. That’s cool, too. And that’s what me and my pops have. We have communication about a bunch of stuff. And then we, but we never get mad about it. It’s never getting mad, it’s never raising our voice, never getting upset. We just have a conversation about it, and we leave it at that.

[MUSIC]

DG: When Tim was finally inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2022, it felt like a full-circle moment, not just a celebration of his game but of growth. Fifteen years after words that nearly cost him everything, Tim Hardaway stood on that stage having done the work, made amends, and earned back respect. The game was welcoming him home, changed man and all. The best part, his dad was there to see it.

TIM HARDAWAY SPEECH: I want to thank you, Dad and Mom. I love you to death. Without you all, this wouldn’t be a night that’s happening for us.

[CLAPPING]

DG: He was, he was at the ceremony when you were inducted into the Hall of Fame.

TH:Yes!

DG: What, what did that moment mean to you?

TH: For my parents to be there meant a lot. My mom and dad it meant a whole hell of a lot. They still are alive. They still, they see me going into the hall of fame. That’s all I want. For them to see me go into the Hall of Fame. God willing, He had them there, and they had fun. They enjoyed themselves. They put their jacket on me, you know, and they was right there when I was saying my speech. So hey, yeah, it meant the world to me, and it meant a world to them. So yeah, that, man, things I can’t describe, can’t tell you how I feel, but it meant the world to mean.

DG: And what did it mean in terms of, I mean, I know you were worried that you might never get there because of that interview in 2007. What message do you take from the fact that you are there in the Hall of Fame?

TH: Patience. Patience. Patience is a virtue. Patience. I mean, they say, you know, you just gotta be patient. I was just patient. I’m gonna do what I gotta do. You know, like I said, I was so scared to answer the phone. I didn’t even wanna pick up the phone, that’s how scared I was.

DG: Thinking that they were saying you were still not making it in.

TH: Right? You never know. I mean, I couldn’t take one more rejection from there, but you know, I wouldn’t have done anything dramatic. I would have just said, you know, “Hey, let’s keep moving on. Let’s keep moving on. Let’s keep living, let’s keep enjoy life.” That’s all you can do.

[MUSIC]

DG: My last question, Tim, I guess it’s, I think about your life and I think about your book and your story, and there’s so many ways to kind of capture you. I mean, star, NBA player, Hall of Famer, father who learned lots of lessons about parenting, kid from Chicago who made it and basketball was your escape, an individual who made comments you regret and you’ve been on, you know, a path to find redemption and growth. Like, how do you want to be seen and remembered in your own words?

TH: Seen and remembered? You know, I want to be seen and remembered mostly from my family, my kids, my relatives, and know that they know I was always genuine, I always was fair, spoke my mind when I needed to speak my mind, shut up when I need to shut up, but always authentic and genuine. That’s what I want to be remembered as. And a hell of a basketball player that when I stepped out onto the court, yeah, they, my cousins and my aunties and my nieces and nephews and everybody would be like, yeah. You couldn’t [EXPLICIT] with him because he was going to bring it every night. On the court that’s what I want them to say, but off the court, I want them to say he was genuine and authentic, and he was gonna give it to you the way he was gonna give it to you, and he was very authentic.

DG: Tim, I really appreciate you talking to me.

TH: Thank you for having me on. I appreciate it. I had fun. I enjoyed this.

DG: That was Tim Hardaway. His new book is called Killer Crossover.

Next time on Sports in America.

[MUSIC]

Violating the law is a losing proposition and you can bet on that.

DG: With the proliferation of betting opportunities in the news, we’re gonna dig into the ancient roots of our fascination with chance. The risk factors that fuel gambling addiction, and how the post 2018 boom has reshaped not just sports but human behavior itself.

JONATHAN COHEN: The phrase please play responsibly is like “Please sir will you please play responsibly!” You know, it’s a joke.

DG: That’s next time, on Sports in America.

[THEME MUSIC]

DG: This is Sports in America. I’m your host, David Greene.

Our executive producers are Joan Isabella and Tom Grahsler.

Our senior producer is Michael Olcott. Our producer is Michaela Windberg, and our associate producer is Bibiana Correa.

Our engineer is Mike Villers. Our tile artwork was created by Bea Walling.

Sports in America is a production of WHYY in Philadelphia and is distributed by PRX. Some of our interviews were originally created by Religion of Sports, with special thanks to Adam Schlossman. You can find Sports in America on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon music, the iHeart radio app, you know, wherever you get your podcasts.

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Executive Producer: Tom Grahsler
Senior Producer: Michael Olcott
Producer: Michaela Winberg
Associate Producer: Bibiana Correa
Engineer: Mike Villers
Tile Art: Bea Walling

Sports in America is a production of WHYY, distributed by PRX, and part of the NPR podcast network.

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