Former Heat Guard Derek Anderson Talks About Battles with Mental Health
Derek Anderson played in the NBA for 11 years and was a member of the 2006 championship team.
But before he was in the NBA, Anderson had to overcome a rough childhood.
Anderson, who averaged 2.6 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 5.8 points with the Heat, was abandoned by his parents when he was only 10. He then became a father at 15, raising a child on his own as a teenager.
Anderson was homeless for brief periods until moving in with his aunt and uncle. Growing up in poverty motivated him to play basketball.
Enduring so much at a young age took a toll on Anderson as a professional basketball player and he said that the NBA did not acknowledge mental health.
“I was going through stuff,” Anderson said in a Washington Post interview. “They were like, ‘You’ve got to toughen up. You’re not serious about basketball.’ No one felt you could speak your truth back then. You could lose a family member and it’ll really hurt you, but they want you back at work in a few days. It was rough back then. I would suppress it, keep it to myself. Sit at home. Then I would be stressed out the day before the game. Not perform my best, because I was thinking about stuff, family life.”'
That led Anderson to become an advocate for mental health off the court. He founded the Stamina Foundation, an organization that provides educational programming and events to youth and young adults.
Anderson has used his life experiences to help others through troubling times.
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Jayden Armant is a contributor to Inside The Heat. He is a student at Howard University. He can be reached at jayden.armant@bison.howard.edu or follow him on Twitter @jaydenarmant.
