This story was originally on here in June, 2018.

I haven’t followed Dennis R. closely, but have been fascinated by his antics throughout the years. Somewhere between being a very good basketball player, to a weirdo, to the guy that went traipsing over to visit Kim Jong-Un in North Korea, his life has been very colorful.

I knew he was connected to a once big excavating company headquartered in the DFW area, but had operations in Austin and San Antonio before going bankrupt almost a decade ago.

As I was driving along this morning, a Sunday morning, which isn’t my favorite time to listen to the radio, I was switching around and stumbled across an interview that had taken place earlier in the week between Mr. Rodman and Howard Stern. Now I’m not a huge Stern fan, but I decided to see what lunacy might come out of either of their mouths. To my surprise it was an informative and excellent interview.

I listened to it for quite awhile. There was a topic about how Dennis, while in college, befriended a 13 year old boy at a basketball camp. The young boy, Byrne Rich from a small town in Oklahoma had been involved in a horrific situation where he had accidentally shot his best friend during a hunting accident, with that victim dying shortly thereafter. After the accident the Rich boy couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat and was very troubled.

Upon meeting Rodman at the basketball camp, their friendship was instantaneous. Rodman, being a troubled sole himself was able to understand what this young boy was suffering.

He went home with the Rich family, with there being a 9 years age difference, they were certainly not the usual fast friends one usually thinks of. A lot more of an odd couple.

I think it is said the young boy was able to sleep the whole night, for the first time with Rodman sleeping on the floor next to his bed. He got better and better over time and their friendship grew.

For the next 3 years Dennis spent most of his time away from college with the Rich Family.

After I got back home it occurred to me that the family name, Rich, was the same as one of the partners in the once giant excavation company, that carried the Rodman name.

Doing a bit of research, there wasn’t anything that I found that tells the full story, but I found an obituary of the Rich boys dad from a few years ago. There, besides Bryne being listed as a son, it also listed Barry Rich as another son.

Barry, along with his Oklahoma friend, Rod Vilhauer started the company in 1990 with the financial help of Dennis Rodman.

I posted a story about Dennis Rodman a few weeks ago. The link to that post is below.

A reader on our group mentioned about a Cigarette Boat belonging to Dennis Rodman being involved in a horrible accident with another boat. A young gal’s face was almost half sliced off by the propeller of the Rodman boat. I googled the incident and sure enough there are several accounts of it happening and the Rodman boat was never seen again. Some reports claimed that it was buried on a construction project done by the Rodman Companies, (the now defunct business that Dennis help get started) There was no way to know if Dennis was in the boat. He had a bunch of hanger-onners, so who knows.

Okay this is where things get weird. While having lunch yesterday with a John a good friend and one time employee of mine, the subject of the Rodman Co. & Dennis came up. He said “you remember the story I told you about the boat accident, don’t you”? I actually didn’t until he started to retell it. Then it all came back to me.

This is how it goes;
John was between marriages, about a decade or so ago. He had left my company and was working for the Rodman Companies in Austin. Figuring it was about time to find a new mate, he subscribed to Match.Com. Before long he found the right girl. They eventually had a date, then another without getting into each other’s personal lives very much. They got along very well.

Finally it was time to explore each other’s past. When he said he worked for Rodman, the lady almost freaked out. That’s when she told him the story of her being the one hit in the face by the prop. She related the complete ordeal and years of medical procedures and the legal obstacles she endured.

John told me it is remarkable how great her surgeries had repaired her looks. But it didn’t fix her emotionally. A few days after discovering each other’s history, she called and told him she couldn’t continue to see him. I guess just a Bad Karma Deal. He told her he understood.

John got back on Match.com and met a lady, real Beauty Queen, from Tennessee. She is a great gal. They have been married for several years and are very happy.

End of Story, at least for now. But with John, you never know what’s next.

Below is a 1995 article about the Rodman Company.

BAD BOYS – MORE DIRT ON RODMAN

By Dan Michalski | July 1, 1995|

It was 1990 when Barry Rich and Rod Vilhauer were looking to start an excavation company, the type that primes land for construction, in soon-to-be booming Frisco. Short on cash, the two farmboys asked their old friend Dennis Rodman, then a Detroit Piston, for help. Rodman, the Dallas native whose mood changes more frequently than his hair color, lived with the Rich family in Bokchito, Oklahoma (pop. 607), while attending college. Virtually everyone urged the rogue re-bounder not to waste his money, including coach Chuck Daly and teammate Isiah Thomas.

Not known for taking advice from others, Rodman ignored them and invested $20,000, half of the necessary start-up costs. Now Rodman Excavation, which started with two employees and four pieces of equipment, has grown into one of the largest dirt movers in the Metroplex. Last year the company grossed $14 million in sales, earning its namesake about a 200 percent return on his initial investment.