Former WNBA Player Admits to Smoking Weed While in the League

Last month, former Atlanta Dream center Chantelle Anderson announced through her blog that she was retiring from basketball at age 28. She was released by the Atlanta Dream in May and was unable to find another gig within the league. So what is she going to do with all that spare time? Write an autobiography, of course. Anderson is an avid blogger and recently let her readers look at an excerpt from her forthcoming yet-to-be-titled book.

In the excerpt, she admits to smoking weed, not once, but twice while on the rosters for the Sacramento Monarchs and the San Antonio Silver Stars. This excerpt takes place after Anderson was traded to San Antonio while nursing a torn Achilles:

The last time I had smoked was at a party in Sac almost three years before. Shortly afterwards, on our next road trip to Phoenix, the league had surprised us with a drug test as soon as we got to the gym for practice. I immediately began to visualize the meeting with my coach telling me I was off the team for violating the league's anti-drug policy, and the subsequent phone call to my Dad as I informed him I no longer had a job. I had been so scared I was going to fail that I offered up a prayer in which I traded a clean test for a promise to God that I would never smoke again. Well, I passed, and I hadn't[sic] smoked since. In my current situation, however, I figured God would understand."

She continues the story about heading to a friend's apartment in San Antonio to have a smoke session. During the session, she is handed a gun and fiddles with it, even putting it up to her head:

Holding it made me feel strong. For that moment I had control over something again. Even if I chose not to exercise that control, I still had the power to do so. In looking back, I realize that the real strength was my ability to put down the gun, unused, and face my life, ruins and all. Still, it's amazing how seductive control can be, especially considering the disarray of my world at the time; the gun didn't leave my hand until I went home.

Anderson has yet to announce a release date for the book but hopes to have it on shelves by next year. Read the rest of the excerpt on her blog.

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