Carroll’s journey hasn’t been an easy one
Family tragedy, health issues haven’t stopped newest Rap
BURNABY, B.C.— The bullet that nearly shattered his ankle and foot didn’t stop him, the liver disease he fights to this day couldn’t hold him back.
The same is true for the family tragedies and lost loved ones. As a fiveyear-old, he watched as his nineyear-old brother died of a brain tumour. His beloved grandmother is gone. His extended family is nonexistent.
It all has combined to instil in Raptors forward DeMarre Carroll a strength of will few possess, a fight he will never give up, a sense of purpose that goes far beyond the NBA.
“I want people to understand my story,” Carroll said after a training camp practice here this week, “understand what it took for me to get here.”
It really is quite something, this journey the 29-year-old has been on.
The shooting incident — never solved — came in the early morning of a July day in 2007. Carroll was picking up some University of Missouri teammates at a club in Colombia. The teammates, who had been having a few and wanted a ride home, got into an altercation with other club-goers. Carroll took a bullet to the ankle — he said the shot nearly severed his Achilles tendon — and that set him back a season as a collegiate player.
In the weeks before the NBA draft, as part of the exhaustive medical process leading up to it, doctors discovered alarmingly high enzyme levels. What Carroll and other physicians had long thought was an allergy problem was in fact a liver disease.
It sent up a red flag in the pre-draft process and, while Carroll is now treated with periodic drug treatments and may be decades away from needing a life-saving transplant, there were fears he would never play in the NBA.
“There’s a lot to my story, not even basketball but off the court,” he said. “From me getting shot, having a liver condition, my grandmother passing — I have no grandparents — I just want people to realize you go through a lot of things in life but somebody might have it worse.”
Carroll has been no stranger to tragedy and loss, though, he learned pain at a very young age. Nine-year- old DeLonte Carroll died of a brain tumour, a tumultuous tragedy for his five-year-old brother DeMarre.
The tattoo of his sibling’s face on Carroll’s left arm — with the R.I.P. DeLonte script — is a constant reminder, as his Carroll’s tradition of drawing a heart on the court in front of the scorer’s table and quickly kissing it before he enters an NBA game. It keeps his brother fresh in his mind.
“There’s a lot of life-and-death situations I have been through and that’s why I cherish every moment,” Carroll said. “It’s why when I come out here on the court, I cherish playing this game — because there’s a lot of people who can’t play this game.
“This is just my opportunity to come out here and show my story on the court and off the court.”
Carroll’s on-court life, while not nearly as important as the other things he has been through, has been chaotic as well.
He had unproductive stints in Memphis, Houston, the D-League, Denver and Utah before he finally caught on in Atlanta.
He parlayed good years with the Hawks into a four-year, $60-million (U.S.) deal with the Raptors last July.
He arrived prepared to share as much of himself as fans could want. He’s an aggressive user of social media as a means to get his story out, and he is open and willing to interact with anyone.
He said he has found a gracious, accepting audience that has made his first few months in a new country “amazing.”
“That’s the beauty of Toronto, that’s the beauty of this country,” Carroll said. “To be able to come here and people bring you in like their own? It’s amazing. It’s more rewarding for that than anything.
“That’s why I’m going to make sure I do my part in the community, make sure I do my part outside of basketball to let everybody in Canada know that I appreciate them for letting me come here and welcome me.”