Dwyane Wade’s Legacy
Dwyane Wade is goes down in history as one of the best shooting guards in the history of basketball players.
Dwyane grew up in a small house the “hood” of Chicago suburbs with his sister Tragil and his mother Jolinda. They lived on the corner of their block, which was also known as a hot spot for drugs and other illegal acts. Jolinda Wade was a both a drug and alcohol user, as well as Dwyane’s father who struggled with alcohol addiction. Dwyane struggled with pain as he watched his mom slowly “kill herself” by living this lifestyle and also witnessed hardships between his mother and his father as they struggled getting along with one another.
As he continued to grow up, Dwyane experienced events that were life changing, and not changing for the good. He experienced the police raid his house multiple times a year, including one time in which he got caught on the wrong end of a police officers pistol, asking him to lead him to where his mother was. As shown in Dwyane’s documentary, he had admitted to how he felt “traumatized” from those experiences. Following these events, he began to live at his fathers house with two other brothers around the same age where he, “got beat up and played sports.” Still feeling consumed with the negative aspects of living in the hood, he went to live at Siohvaughn Funche’s (girlfriend at the time and current ex-wife), house with her and her mother.
Throughout his high school career, Wade scored over 24 points a game in received a scholarship to Marquette University under the arms of head coach Tom Crean. Upon his sophomore year, Siohvaughn became pregnant and Dwyane had his first child. Wade remembers saying, “My life is over,” until his head coach took him aside and said, “We are going to get through this.”
It was then that he took his college career to a whole new level. Between the years 2001 and 2003 that Dwyane played for Marquette and concluded his senior year with 29 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists in Marquette’s 83–69 win over Kentucky in the 2003 NCAA tournament. This achievement is the 8th triple-double performance in the NCAA tournament history.
Wade continued on to be a superstar, creating a legacy in NBA history. He began his career for the Miami heat in 1988. Since then, he is the total points leader for the Miami with 20,291 points, as well as first in total assists, total steals, and second in total blocks and points per game. These statistics are apart of his career as well as his three NBA championships in 2006, and back to back in 2012 and 2013. Wade helped guide Miami to four consecutive NBA Finals from 2011 to 2014, winning back-to-back championships in 2012 and 2013. After playing for the Chicago Bulls and the Cleveland Cavaliers, Wade finished his playing career with Miami in 2019. Ultimately, his statistics are just apart of his projected legacy as a member of the NBA hall of fame, yet his legacy lives on with his three sons and daughter today.
From one of the elements that we have learned about in class, one that I see happening right before my eyes is crowdsourcing. People say all kinds of things about Dwyane’s legacy on Twitter and Instagram. Some are haters, some are huge fans, but that doesn’t change the results in what he has proven on the basketball court. On Instagram, he posts pictures of himself, his children, and other friends and family and receives thousands of comments on those pictures. Fans say, “He is a legend,” in the comments, as well as, “He is so selfish.” It is really difficult to get a feel of how his viewers perceive him when there are so many diverse comments, both negative and positive. On Twitter, Dwyane has multiple subtweets from people who compare other players to himself. Dyane also gets a lot of press on both his Instagram and Twitter about one of his sons who is also an incredible basketball player, commenting on if he will live up to his fathers standards. Most of the press that is on Twitter and Instagram prides Dwyane of his legendary statistics and story throughout the years. Because Dwyane has made such a name for himself he receives a lot of attention on these social media, and this legend holds himself to a high standard no matter what kind of content is on his platforms.
