Dennis Rodman’s quiet, undefeated coaching career

With Chicago Bulls and MJ doc releasing each Sunday, this week will focus largely on Dennis Rodman. After his playing career, he had a short-lived coaching career.

Dennis Rodman has a history as vibrant as the colors he once painted his hair while playing as a professional basketball player in the NBA.

He’s accomplished so much and done so many notable things that it’s easy for some anecdotes from his life to go completely overlooked.

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Like the fact that he supposedly has 46 siblings. Or the fact that he was once charged with stealing thousands of dollars worth of items from a yoga studio’s lobby. Or his newfound social media presence on TikTok where he sends knuckle sandwiches to “the CEO of racism.”

But how about the fact that Dennis Rodman is 2-0 all-time as a coach?

Yes, often forgotten, overlooked, or straight up ignored is the fact that Rodman once curiously accepted a job offer to be a guest coach for a minor league amateur basketball team a small town in the southern tier of New York State.

Maybe it was forgotten because it was nestled in the perfect pocket of time where Rodman wasn’t newsworthy. Too far after his career and too far before he would be back in the news because of his friendship with Kim Jong Un, there was a very small period of time in which Rodman wasn’t really in the spotlight.

Similarly, Elmira, NY, is too far from one big city and not close enough to another. Nestled in the perfect pocket geographically, in the bottom of a valley, for the world to mostly forget about its existence, maybe the perfect place for a guy like Rodman to make his coaching debut.

Speaking to the Corning Leader, Rodman mentioned he was looking forward to his debut and happy to get involved with the small community that he had no affiliation with previously.

"“You guys want me to do some real cool stuff, right? To me, I get very emotional at basketball,” he said. “For the kids, I will get involved in all that stuff – autographs and pictures and stuff like that. I will get animated, just like everything in my life. That’s what you can expect.”"

A working-class town where the poverty rate is 31 percent, sports were, at one point, a saving grace for the city. Hockey of the minor league variety had taken off and took up residence in the small arena that sat in the downtown area.

Basketball was slow to take off. Playing at the local community college, then the YMCA, then the local high school, attendance was sparse for the Elmira Bulldogs, founded in 2008, and the team struggled to draw revenue.

Games were actually rather exciting, but they were extremely rugged.

Makeshift SLAM magazine advertisements sat atop the YMCA bleachers. The team ordered pizza from a local restaurant and resold it by the slice to the side of a section of seating. Games, especially in the rare instances where they were well attended, got extremely warm, and there was no climate control. The solution was to open as many doors as possible and let the winter air flow in.

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The Bulldogs had a raw feel to them, one game ending minutes early due to a brawl between the Bulldogs and their opponent. This is customary for sports in Elmira. Just last year, the local hockey team’s owner was fined $25,000 for shoving an official during a game, and the game was canceled. Police were called to the game and met with complaints from fans about poor officiating.

Later that season, the age-55 owner suited up for the team to play because they didn’t have enough players to field a team.

Such is life for a small town’s sports history. Owners fighting referees, cops being called for poor officiating, 55-year-old owner-athletes suiting up, and Dennis Rodman coaching.

Faced with minimal cash flow in 2009, the Bulldogs needed to do something big. Bringing in Rodman would hopefully stimulate attendance for a weekend and show the community basketball in Elmira could be fun, bringing in an increase in ticket sales for the foreseeable future, too, even after Rodman left.

Rodman was paid a lump sum of $40,000 to coach two games, and the Bulldogs — who were playing at the local high school gym for most of their home games that season — booked the arena for two nights in anticipation that Rodman would help draw the community in and give them a chance to show how much fun local basketball could be.

600 people showed between the two games. An utter embarrassment for the franchise who had just mortgaged its future on the success of these nights.

It was the nail in the coffin for a local franchise, but Rodman came to do a job, to be of service, and that he did.

"“It ain’t about the coaching, it’s about making these kids right here happy and keeping them out of trouble and always giving them something to look forward to.”"

Would any other NBA player from Rodman’s era even consider an opportunity such as this? Would a five-time NBA champion ever think to themselves that they’d like to be the marketing ploy for a struggling amateur basketball team, only for less than 300 people per night to show up?

Wouldn’t that be humbling, in the worst way?

Of all the NBA players from that era, it had to be Rodman to pull something like this off. Rodman’s playstyle was rugged, it was messy, and it was anything but luxurious.

He priced himself on his physicality, his willingness to make the effort plays, to put his body on the line each and every night.

So, Dennis Rodman makes his coaching debut with a minor league amateur team that isn’t even acknowledged by its own blue-collar community.

You know what? That sounds about right.

Dennis Rodman, who never lost as an organized basketball coach. Put that on his list of accomplishments as well.