Oct
11
Cherokee Parks, who turns 35 years old today, played parts of nine seasons in the NBA. Parks never played a full 82-game season during his NBA career and is more known for his collegiate career at Duke University, where he was a member of a national championship team as a freshman in 1992 and a national runner-up squad as a junior in 1994.
So what was Parks’ defining moment in the NBA? Probably when he broke the stigma of typical Mike Krzyzewski disciples and started getting tattoos all over his arm at the beginning of this decade.
While Dennis Rodman had made getting exorbitant amounts of tattoos a “cool” statement in the mid-nineties, it was Parks who made it apparent just how nutz the tattoo craze had gotten in the game. Both of Parks shoulders and arms were littered with colorful tattoos that he described as art (remember that beauty is in the eye of the beholder). For many older fans, the plethora of tattoos on Parks and many other players, in combination with the declining quality of play in the league, symbolized how difficult it was to watch the NBA in the post-Jordan era.
by Chris Maynard, chris@hoops4thesoul.com
Cherokee Parks, who turns 35 years old today, played parts of nine seasons in the NBA. Parks never played a full 82-game season during his NBA career and is more known for his collegiate career at Duke University, where he was a member of a national championship team as a freshman in 1992 and a national runner-up squad as a junior in 1994.