Unless you are an avid NBA or college hoops fan, chances are you've never heard of Lance Allred.
After all, the former East High, University of Utah and Weber State athlete took a long time to make an NBA roster and only stayed with the Cleveland Cavaliers for about half a season in 2008.
Yet many will find the 28-year-old's book Longshot: The Adventures of a Deaf Fundamentalist Mormon Kid and His Journey to the NBA a fascinating read.
In the book, Allred recounts his complicated life. He's the grandson of murdered polygamist leader Rulon Allred, was born into a polygamist community in Montana. While learning to play at basketball's highest level, Allred had to overcome a 75 percent hearing loss and obsessive compulsive disorder. He took speech therapy classes for 15 years and was the first player to publicly talk about legendary Utah coach Rick Majerus' abuse of players.
"Lance's life continues to have these twists and turns that are rather remarkable," said Tribune sports columnist Gordon Monson, who plays a key role in the book. "I have interviewed four or five thousand subjects in my career and he is one of the more compelling. His story is worth hearing."
These days, the 6-foot-11 Allred is a self-aware young man who chronicles his remarkable spiritual and athletic journey in the aptly named Longshot . "I wouldn't say I am a Mormon," said Allred in a recent interview, explaining what happened to his family after his parents left their fundamentalist faith. "But I am very much LDS and I believe in The Book of Mormon as a Christian and as a historian. It's all about grace."
While aware of recent legal troubles of polygamist communities in Texas, Utah and Arizona, Allred admits to not following the news stories too closely. "I've been there and done that," he said. "Tell me something I don't know ... I don't watch [the HBO polygamy series]"Big Love" because it is almost an insult to our intelligence because it romanticizes the polygamy lifestyle."
From a historic standpoint, polygamy worked in the 19th-century when there were 3,000 women and 900 men in the Mormon church, Allred believes. "It made sense in the 19th-century to have dozens of kids to work on a farm," he said. "But it doesn't work in the 20th-century because it creates poverty. You have all of these kids that you can't maintain with no health insurance, bad clothing and bad teeth."
A key section of the book comes when Allred recounts his dealings with Majerus. In one incident, the coach dressed down Allred, in front of the entire Ute team: "You see your hearing as an excuse to weasel your way through life. You're a disgrace to cripples, and if I were in a wheelchair and saw you play basketball, I'd shoot you."
Monson had asked Majerus to interview Allred for a Tribune story, and was turned down. Then the coach used that as a way to further ridicule the player, to the point where Allred transferred to Weber State after his sophomore year. After that, Monson finally got his interview.
"I walked into the interview and [Allred] turned to me and said, 'Gordon Monson, the man who ruined by basketball career.' That took me totally by surprise." recalled the sports columnist. "All of a sudden he unloaded about Majerus. He went on to tell me not only his own story but the story as it pertained to Rick Majerus. He was one of the first players to tell the truth about Majuerus' dealing with players. It was a pretty big story."
Ten days after Monson's feature on Allred appeared on the front page of The Tribune in early 2004, the successful Ute coach resigned for health reasons. "I don't blame him for anything," Allred said of Majerus, "but at the same time I don't give him any credit for my basketball world. I have climbed up through the professional ranks by doing stuff he would have never allowed me to do in his program."
Cleveland, now playing in the NBA playoffs, let Allred go in October 2008, so he spent the season playing with Idaho in the D League. Still, he is rooting for his old teammates. "Playing with LaBron James would be like taking an art class and thinking you were getting pretty good at painting and then realize you are sitting next to Van Gogh," Allred said. "It takes me hours to be able to do something. Someone like him makes it look so easy. You just shrug and say 'God bless.'"
