MIAMI—
While Dwyane Wade’s basketball priority this offseason is his rehab from July arthroscopic knee surgery, the Miami Heat guard stresses that his overriding concern remains his life as a single father.
That had Wade on YouTube on Thursday, posting a video in advance of the Sept. 4 release of his memoir, ” A Father First: How my life became bigger than basketball.”
After a contentious divorce, Wade not only has primary custody of his two sons, but also is raising a nephew.
He often has spoken of such priorities and does so again in the video above.
“One of the most important things that’s going to happen to me this summer is my first memoir being released. It’s titled, ‘Father First: How my life became bigger than basketball,’ ” he said.
“My inspiration for writing this memoir would be to share my experiences of what I dealt with in life, most importantly, kind of how I dealt with being a father.”
In the video, Wade offers a taste of what will follow in print.
“Open communication with your kids, I think is very key, very important to make them feel comfortable to be able to come to you first, to understand that each kid that you have, if you have more than one, that they’re all different,” he said.
“It’s keeping a promise. It’s something I feel is very important, because our kids lean on everything we say.”
Wade said he felt a special calling to write the book.
“I know how important it is when you bring a child in this world, for them to have their parents in their life, especially a father figure, a male figure,” he said.
“I ran into so many men, I ran into so many families, so many parents that have dealt with many different things, that I felt that this is the opportunity that I can share my experiences with them.
“It might bring some families closer, when they start looking at what I dealt with. It can be something that they can look at and say, ‘You know what, I never thought about this that way.’ So it’s a lot of different things that I just hope that my book can just do.”
Wade had his sons and nephew at the Heat’s NBA championship celebration and said there are similar lessons he brings into his home.
“Me and my boys, I like to look at it as team,” he said. “You can’t win a championship, you can’t be successful if you don’t have teamwork.”
