For the second month in a row, the Greater Owensboro Chamber of Commerce’s Rooster Booster featured a Kentucky hoops legend.
On Thursday, Rex Chapman spoke with Chamber marketing manager Jacyln Graves Cecil via Zoom and discussed Owensboro, Lexington, mental health, social issues, facing Michael Jordan and even the Dust Bowl.
Even though Chapman has played basketball all over the country, he said he wouldn’t have gotten where he did without Owensboro.
Chapman paid homage to three local legends in David Hogg, Marcus Robinson and Avery Taylor.
He said the trio was every bit as good as he was.
“Those guys prepared me to go play outside the state,” he said. “I wasn’t going to go play in Philadelphia or New York and play against anybody any better than those three guys in my hometown.”
Chapman said he was able to be successful at the University of Kentucky because he already knew how to play in big games.
“By the time I left Owensboro, I felt like I had played in so many pressure-packed situations in front of thousands of fans, and I had,” he said. “It’s something I always cherished.”
Chapman started on the same court as Owensboro legends, but he went on to play on the same court with one of the greatest players ever in Michael Jordan.
Cecil asked Chapman about “The Last Dance” docuseries. Chapman said he knew Jordan was different but he was never afraid to take the court with him.
He said it was the work that he put in from a young age that gave him that mindset.
“It’s like you asking me if I was intimidated playing against Michael Jordan, no,” he said. “Now if I hadn’t worked my whole life to be there and I just woke up one morning and had to go out and play against him, dang right I’d probably be pretty intimidated. I had worked my whole life for it and I knew I didn’t skip any steps coming up in Owensboro, Kentucky. I started playing ball every day from the time I was eight or nine. I was committed to it. Nobody coast to coast was going to work harder than I did that day.”
Chapman also talked about his dark days and how he was able to push through them.
“Life is weird and life, it’s really hard,” he said. “I’ve had it good and I’ve had it not so good. This life can get you down and sometimes when you’re down, just like right now, people are scared. I’m scared. We don’t know what’s going on. You hope you’re going to have a job next week.”
Cecil asked Chapman about how he valued the good times but learned more from the bad.
“I think we learn more and we grow more from the valleys than we actually do the mountains,” she said.
Chapman said good people are key.
“Having allies, having friends, a good group of friends or family that you can talk to about things that are bothering you,” he said. “I’ve seen a therapist for 15-20 years now and that’s really good for me. It’s good for me to kind of air some of the things that go on in this crazy head of mine from time to time.”
Chapman also addressed the mental health stigma.
“I always struggle with my head,” he said. “I quit our high school basketball team. I was the best player in the state, going to Kentucky and I quit our basketball team, just emotional. I would lose my mind.”
He said it got to the point when he was at UK that he was only playing basketball, practicing or sleeping.
“We’ve got to talk about mental health, we must,” he said. “It’s got to be more open. What it took for me to talk about it is crashing and burning.”
In closing, Cecil brought up social equality and how it pertains to Owensboro. Chapman said his hometown has been a leader in that.
“I’ve always been very proud of Owensboro and how it’s done racially,” he said. “I still think the biggest bringing of people together in Owensboro every year, I don’t know if it’s the barbecue fest, it used to be, when I was young, the Dust Bowl. Everybody, white, black, everybody congregates on Fifth Street and you watch basketball for a whole week there. There’s no color, there’s no anything.”
Chapman said he’ll never forget where he came from.
“Owensboro’s in me,” he said. “The ‘Boro. I love it.”
