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SPOR
EX CHAPMAN’S third and
inexplicably most popular phase
of public life began on January
10, when he saw a surfer receive
a perfect dropkick from a flying
dolphin.
“I saw this video of a school of dolphins
swimming into the shore. There was this
surfer going in the other direction. This
dolphin came up and hit him square in the
chest,” says Chapman. “Right away, I said to
myself: ‘That’s a fuckin’ charge.’”
Phase one of public life for Chapman
came from his time as a swaggy, retrospec-
tively underrated combo guard for the Suns,
Bullets and Hornets in the early ‘90s. He
was in a dunk contest. He once held the
record for threes in a playoff game. He was
from the future.
Then phase two came in retirement, when
he was caught stealing from an Apple Store
while on prescription painkillers.
Phase three is here and Rex is just as
shocked as everybody else. Three words,
and a handful of videos of people getting
mowed down by rogue animals and
household objects, have helped Rex
Chapman become a beacon of all that is
good on the internet.
Those three words: Block or charge?
“Some guy said the other day. Are you
sure you want to be known as the ‘block or
charge’ guy?” says Chapman. “I told him it’s
better than ‘felon or drug addict’ guy.”
Chapman posted “Block or charge?” as a
caption above the dolphin dropkick video. It
received 1,200 retweets and 5,000 likes. So
he kept at it.
Next was a video of a woman on a Vespa
clumsily cruising into a Hyundai in traffic.
(Clear block, the car was still moving.) Four
days later, it was a 2-year-old getting lit up
by a comically giant beach ball. (Definite
charge. He kept his position and the ball was
out of control.)
“It just sort of snowballed from there,”
Chapman says.
By April, it was hard to find one of thesethat wasn’t going viral. There’s the one
with the camel tossing a man by his head
around a tree (block on the camel, but clear
technical on the guy trying to wrangle him
around a palm tree) with almost 2,000
retweets. Or the escaped cow being chased
by police that tackled a random pedestrian
on the sidewalk who did not expect to
see a cow there (block; cow was in the
restricted area).
On Twitter, where the world is always on
fire, Rex Chapman’s timeline has become an
oasis. The world is, in fact, a nightmare filled
with escaped cows and too-large beach
balls concussing small children.
But at least we can award the concussed
kids possession, and maybe two free throws.
“I really wanted off social media. The
place became so toxic. I just wanted off. But
I have people who employ me who told me I
needed social media,” says Chapman.
“Thankfully, now I have this. What’s cool is
that it’s sort of a break for everyone now.”
Former NBA players and celebrities reply
to Rex with block or charge calls all the time
now. Chris Hayes, Michael Rapaport, Nick
Swardson, even the immortal Scot Pollard.
Sitting with his daughter the night before
this interview, he heard Neil Everett ask the
question on SportsCenter.
With the NFL being the NFL, and the NBA
gaining viewers in weird nooks all over the
world as people get better access to
streaming video, it’s a glaring example of
why the NBA might become the country’s
biggest sport in our lifetime.
“You’ve gotta know basketball a little bit.
‘Were they set? Where were their feet?’”
says Chapman. “My favorites are the ones
where people are willfully ignorant or drunk
and get hurt but not die.”
The world is chaos. “Block or charge”
provides an answer. Specifically, two
answers, and if a drunk guy is involved, it’s
almost always a charge.
“I find myself doing it now in public,
outside,” said Chapman. “Now everything’s a
block or a charge.”Some how, some way, retired NBA player Rex Chapman
stumbled into being the man behind the best video
series on all of social media.BLOCK OR
CHARGE?
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THE OUTLET
ALWAYS BY BEN COLLINS