Eddie Griffin Research Paper

On August 17, 2007 at 1:30 in the morning in Houston Texas a Nissan SUV was found inflamed and total. It was slammed by a Union Pacific Freight Train heading south bound. Investigators couldn’t identify the body because it was so badly burned in the horrific accident. A few hours later they were able to match dental records to the deceased. The body they matched it to was Eddie Jamaal Griffin. Griffin was an American professional basketball player. He was born and originally from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. An article on Philly.com posted August 26th, 2007 reads that “There were no visible skid marks, old or new, by the tracks.” In the autopsy shown there was 0.26 BAC in his blood. I choose Griffin because he was diagnosed with depression and alcoholism.

In January 2004, Eddie signed with the New Jersey Nets but was not able to play the entire 2003-2004 season because he had entered an alcohol rehabilitation center. “Griffin had a tangled, long history of depression and alcohol and drug abuse.” (Jensen). After finishing rehab, the desperate Timberwolves re-signed Griffin in the 2004-2005 season. After that year Griffin had a choice to play for them the next three years for a 8.1 million dollar contract. Not to long after the previous year Eddie had got into trouble with the law again. He had purposely run his car into another parked car. “This came shortly after a stop-off at a nearby convenience store where a security video tape caught Griffin professing his intoxication”. These acts that Eddie Griffin did participate in clearly shows that he has an alcohol abuse problem. Where the depression hits are where his 34-year-old half brother and father figure suddenly died from a heart attack right before he was drafted to the National Basketball