Bowie on ESPN's 30 for 30

December 17, 2012, 2:46 pm

Sam Bowie former Portland Trail Blazer 1st round draft pick joins The Bald Faced Truth with John Canzano to talk about the upcoming ESPN’s 30 for 30 “Going Big” documentary about Bowie.

Bowie had spent his first year with the Blazers playing 76 of the 80 games and played them phenomenally. It wasn’t until his second year when he hurt his leg that his career was in jeopardy.  After the Blazers he bounced around to the New Jersey Nets and the Los Angeles Lakers. From there he retired after realizing that he didn’t have much else to give to the game of basketball.

“Physically and mentally I was kind of beat up and I just couldn’t block shots that I thought I used to be able to get to. I couldn’t run the floor like I used to.  I just thought that it was time for me to head back to Lexington”.

Bowie was opposed to having the documentary done in the first place but eventually warmed up to the idea. At first Bowie did not think that he was worthy of having one done about him. When they finished filming after about 7 months, Bowie was very happy to see that they did such an amazing job. He was grateful to be able to tell the public how he dealt with his injuries over the years.

“I’ve never been real big on self publicity or self exposure. I think the biggest hesitation that I had was I’m just not very comfortable with people thinking that I was special and there was a story to be told”.

One of the large issues that most people had with Bowie was that he had lied to the Blazer organization about an earlier injury while Bowie was at Kentucky. The fact of the matter is that Bowie did not have any problems with the leg and had no idea that it would have broken so easily.

“They did their part as an organization, all I was saying was when I went through my physical, when they took the mallet and hit my left tibia; my response was that there was no discomfort, no pain and I’m ready to go”.

Bowie has been grateful to the fans and staff of the Blazers for giving him as much support as they did and never wanted the illusion of him wanting to just take the money and run. He wanted this documentary to show that he was brought up the right way and would never have the guts to do that to a team that he cared about.

To listen to the full interview click below