JaRon Rush may be the best basketball player to ever come out of Kansas City, but for all of his God-given talents, Rush never made it in the NBA.
Tonight at 7 p.m., the aptly titled Effortless: The JaRon Rush Story premieres on Metro Sports and looks back at Rush's controversial high school years and catches up with a humbled Rush today.
Chris Gough co-produced the doc with Shawn Beldin, and he's been creating some of the most fascinating pics about Kansas City's forgotten sports history, such as K.C. On The Mat: The History of Professional Wrestling in Kansas City from earlier this year.
Effortless finds Rush admitting he's had issues with alcohol dating back to high school and
regretting how his career ended.
Gough recalled growing up in Kansas City around the same time as Rush, and the media frenzy surrounding him.
"It was amazing," Gough said. "There was this big myth around JaRon
Rush because he was at this little Missouri 2A school and there were
articles on him daily. He was named the No. 1 eighth grader in the
nation in ... '93. I've wanted to do this for a long time because I've
never really had anything that I've seen long-form on JaRon."
Gough tracked down Rush's number, called him and told him he'd
like to do a documentary about his life. Gough made sure that Rush
knew that while the doc would feature Rush's dominant glory days at
Pembroke Hill, it'd also touch on the AAU scandal that effectively
ended his college career at UCLA and ended up with Missouri's high
school athletic association stripping Pembroke Hill of the school's
three state titles.
"He was more than willing to talk," Gough said.
For Gough, he found himself dispelling some of his own preconceived notions about one of the men involved in Rush's life. Gough said a lot of people believed that Tom Grant, who took JaRon and his brother Kareem into his home and helped get them into Pembroke Hill, was steering JaRon Rush to the Jayhawks.
"That's totally not the case," Gough said. "The guy's helped JaRon before and ever since in many ways."
Gough
found Grant's love for the Rush family, especially JaRon, genuine and surprised at how
tormented Grant was over how Rush's basketball career flamed out.
The documentary also goes behind one of the major storylines of Rush's high school years, talking with ex-Kansas City Star reporter Howard Richman who broke the story about Rush rethinking his commitment to the University of Kansas and coach Roy Williams.
During Rush's senior season, Richman asked Rush if his KU commitment was solid.
"I don't know," Rush replied. "I don't really like Roy's substituting patterns."
That
didn't sit well with Williams, who wasn't accustomed to being called by
his first name. Williams cut ties to Rush, who ended up at UCLA.
Interviews with Richman and former Pembroke Hill coach Rich Allison fill out the back story of what was really happening in the locker room.
The most surprising moment in the documentary is Rush opening up about his battles with alcoholism. Rush's problems started in high school when he was 15 or 16 years old, continued at UCLA where he claimed that he was hungover every game and still dropping 20 points, and he still
battles the demons every day.
"He comes across
to me as a very strong person who know what his
problems are and he's trying to overcome them," Gough said.
The documentary is also full of high school highlights of Rush and his
brother Kareem annihilating weaker competition, including Rush's memorable backboard shattering slam.
player of all time because he had so much so easily so early that he
didn't have to work on it as much as others because it just came so
naturally to him," Gough said. "Eventually you're going to run into
people who are just as good as you."
Catch up with Rush tonight at 7.
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