Rodney Rogers
Rodney Rogers, celebrating. (AP)
After three seasons with the Suns (1999-2002) Rogers spent half a season in Boston as part of the trade that brought Joe Johnson to Phoenix. In the offseason, the 6’7” power forward signed with New Jersey and spent two years as a Net, including hitting the game winning jumper with two ticks left on the clock in game three of the opening round series against Milwaukee in 2003.
After leaving the Nets, Rodgers would spend one more season in the league with the Hornets and Sixers in 2004-05. After retirement, the North Carolina native returned to Tobacco Road to work as a heavy equipment operator for the City of Durham. Settling into an uncharacteristically normal life post-NBA, Rodgers coached girls middle school basketball and helped start a youth football team in Durham.
An avid dirt bike rider, tragedy struck the 2000 NBA Sixth Man of the Year Award winner when he hit a ditch while riding through a trail in Raleigh, North Carolina in 2008 and was thrown from his bike. The accident left the Durham Bull paralyzed from the shoulder down, with doctors giving him only a 5% chance of ever walking again.
Rogers is no stranger to hardship, Rogers endured a tough childhood which included: his mother sustaining nearly fatal injuries in a car accident, his older brother going to jail for armed robbery, and his stepfather dying of lung cancer while Rodney was at Wake Forest.
Today, Rodgers lives in Timberlake, North Carolina, and runs the Rodney Rodgers Foundation, which raises funds for victims of spinal cord injuries. He also runs a tractor trailer and dump truck company with his wife that goes by the awesome name of Jazzie’s Turcking LLC. Last month, Fred Kerber of the New York Post caught up with Rogers in Houston during All-Star weekend.
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