과거 미 프로농구(NBA) 무대에서 활약하며 ‘코트 위의 악동’으로 이름을 날린 데니스 로드맨이 26일 북한을 방문했다.

AP통신 보도에 따르면 로드맨 (52)은 묘기 농구단인 할렘 글로브트로터스의 선수 세 명과 국제문화를 다루는 매거진을 발행하는 회사인 VICE의 관계자들과 함께 평양에 도착했다고 한다.

 

이들의 방문은 미국의 유료채널 HBO의 TV 프로그램으로 제작돼 4월초 방영될 예정이다.

이로서 얼마 전 있었던 구글 에릭 슈미트 회장의 방북에 이어 올해에만 두 번째로 미국의 유명인사가 북한을 방문하게 되었다. 이번 방문은 북한이 국제사회의 경고를 무시하고 제3차 핵실험을 강행한지 불과 2주만에 이뤄진 것이라 더욱 눈길을 끌고 있다.

VICE 측에 따르면 방문단은 아이들을 위한 농구캠프를 주최하고, 현지농구 선수들과의 친선경기를 통해 “농구 외교”를 할 것이라고 한다.

이번 방문을 주최한 VICE의 설립자 셰인 스미스는 “농구 코트 위에서 공통점을 찾는 것은 아름다운 것”이라면서 “전통적인 것과는 거리가 멀지만 이러한 문화적 소통을 위한 창구를 열어두는 것이 매우 중요하다”라고 말했다.

한편 미국 대중문화에 대한 통제가 극심한 북한에서도 ‘농구황제’ 마이클 조던의 인기는 상당한 것으로 알려졌다. 북한의 김정은 국방위원회 제1위원장 역시 광적인 농구팬으로 알려져 있으며, AP 보도에 따르면 북한의 예술 작품들을 전시해놓는 만수대 미술관에는 조던의 사인과 NBA로고가 담긴 조던의 초상화가 걸려 있다고 한다.

로드맨은 1995~96시즌에서 1997~98시즌까지 세 시즌동안 시카고 불스에서 조던, 스코티 피펜 등과 함께 뛰며 3번의 우승을 합작한 바 있다.

그러나 로드맨은 조던만큼의 인기는 누리지 못하고 있는 것으로 알려졌다.

그가 평양에 입국할 당시 일부 북한 주민들은 문신과 피어싱에 뒤덮인 그의 모습을 보고 흠칫하며 “마치 괴물 같다”라고 말했다고 한다.

기행과 코트 위에서의 거친 매너로 “벌레(worm)”이라는 별명을 얻었던 로드맨은 1986년, 농구로는 무명에 가까운 사우스이스턴 오클라호마 주립대학을 졸업해, 그해 있었던 NBA 드래프트에서 2라운드 총 27번째로 디트로이트 피스톤즈에 지명되었다.

NBA 기준으로는 득점능력이 거의 전무한 로드맨은 누구에게도 뒤지지 않는 끈질긴 근성과 탁월한 운동능력을 기반으로 해 거친 수비로 유명한 ‘배드보이즈’ 피스톤즈의 핵심 멤버로 자리잡았다.

결국 그는 1989년, 1990년 전성기를 누리며 2년 연속 ‘올해의 수비수’ 상을 수상하는가 하면, 1992년부터 1998년까지 7년 연속 리바운드왕을 차지하기도 했다.



이를 바탕으로 피스톤즈와 불스에서 각각 두 번, 세 번씩 챔피언 반지를 끼는 기쁨을 누렸다.

그러나 그는 탁월한 농구실력만큼이나 기행으로 사람들의 눈길을 끌었는데, 그는 자신의 자서전 “내가 원하는 만큼 나쁜 놈이 될 수 있다(Bad as I Wanna Be)”의 홍보를 하는 자리에 여장을 하고 웨딩드레스를 입고 등장하는가 하면, 심판을 머리로 들이받고 카메라맨의 주요부위를 가격하는 등 폭력적인 모습을 보이기도 했다.

그가 기행을 일삼게 된 시점은 1993년에 피스톤즈에서 샌안토니오 스퍼스로 이적하면서 부터였는데, 일각에서는 당시 피스톤즈 감독 척 데일리의 사임, 리더 아이재아 토마스의 은퇴 등 정든 팀원들이 떠나가고 이혼 등 가정사에 시달린 로드맨이 스트레스로 인해 변하기 시작했다는 분석을 하고 있다.

그러나 이러한 기행에도 불구하고 누구보다 뛰어난 팀플레이어였던 로드맨은 NBA를 떠난지 11년만인 2011년, 농구 명예의 전당에 헌액되면서 선수생활의 화룡정점을 찍었다. (코리아헤럴드)


<관련 영문 기사>

Dennis Rodman worms his way into North Korea


Flamboyant former NBA star Dennis Rodman is heading to North Korea with the VICE media company _ tattoos, piercings, bad-boy reputation and all.

The American known as “The Worm” is set to arrive Tuesday in Pyongyang, becoming an unlikely ambassador for sports diplomacy at a time of heightened tensions between the U.S. and North Korea.

Rodman, three members of the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team, a VICE correspondent and a production crew from the company are visiting North Korea to shoot footage for a new TV show set to air on HBO in early April, VICE told the Associated Press in an exclusive interview before the group's departure from Beijing.

It's the second high-profile American visit this year to North Korea, a country that remains in a state of war with the U.S. It also comes two weeks after North Korea conducted an underground nuclear test in defiance of U.N. bans against atomic and missile activity.

Google's executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, made a surprise four-day trip to Pyongyang, where he met with officials and toured computer labs in January, just weeks after North Korea launched a satellite into space on the back of a long-range rocket.

Washington, Tokyo, Seoul and others consider both the rocket launch and the nuclear test provocative acts that threaten regional security.

North Korea characterizes the satellite launch as a peaceful bid to explore space, but says the nuclear test was meant as a deliberate warning to Washington. Pyongyang says it needs to build nuclear weapons to defend itself against the U.S., and is believed to be trying to build an atomic bomb small enough to mount on a missile capable of reaching the mainland U.S.

VICE said the Americans hope to engage in a little “basketball diplomacy” in North Korea by running a basketball camp for children and playing pickup games with locals _ and by competing alongside North Korea's top athletes for a game Rodman said he hopes leader Kim Jong Un will attend.

“Is sending the Harlem Globetrotters and Dennis Rodman to the DPRK strange? In a word, yes,” said Shane Smith, the VICE founder who is host of the upcoming series. “But finding common ground on the basketball court is a beautiful thing.

“These channels of cultural communication might appear untraditional, and perhaps they are, but we think it's important just to keep the lines open,” he said. “And if Washington isn't going to send their Generals then we'll send our Globetrotters.”

The Washington Generals were the Globetrotters' regular, long-suffering opponents in a long-running series of comic exhibition games. DPRK is an acronym of North Korea's formal name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

VICE, known for its sometimes irreverent journalism, has made two previous visits to North Korea, coming out with the “VICE Guide to North Korea.” The HBO series, which will air weekly starting April 5, features documentary-style news reports from around the world.

The Americans also will visit North Korea's national monuments, the SEK animation studio and a new skate park in Pyongyang.

The U.S. State Department hasn't been contacted about travel to North Korea by this group, a senior administration official said, requesting anonymity to comment before any trip had been made public. The official said the department does not vet U.S. citizens' private travel to North Korea and urges US citizens contemplating travel there to review a travel warning on its website.

In a now-defunct U.S.-North Korean agreement in which Washington had planned last year to give food aid to Pyongyang in exchange for nuclear concessions, Washington had said it was prepared to increase people-to-people exchanges with the North, including in the areas of culture, education and sports.

Promoting technology and sports are two major policy priorities of Kim Jong Un, who took power in December 2011 following the death of his father, Kim Jong Il.

But the often over-the-top Rodman, with his maze of tattoos, nose studs and neon-bleached hair, seems like an unlikely diplomat to a country where male fashion rarely ventures beyond military khaki and growing facial hair is forbidden.

During his heyday in the 1990s, Rodman was a poster boy for excess. He called his 1996 autobiography “Bad as I Wanna Be” _ and showed up wearing a wedding dress to promote it.

Shown a photo of a snarling Rodman, piercings dangling from his lower lip and two massive tattoos emblazoned on his chest, one North Korean in Pyongyang recoiled and said: “He looks like a monster!”

But Rodman is also a Hall of Fame basketball player and one of the best defenders and rebounders to ever play the game. During a storied, often controversial career, he won five NBA championships _ a feat that quickly overshadowed his antics for at least one small North Korean group of basketball fans.

Along with soccer, basketball is enormously popular in North Korea, where it's not uncommon to see basketball hoops set up in hotel parking lots or in schoolyards. It's a game that doesn't require much equipment or upkeep.

The U.S. remains Enemy No. 1 in North Korea, and North Koreans have limited exposure to American pop culture. But they know Michael Jordan, a former teammate of Rodman's when they both played for the Chicago Bulls in the 1990s.

During a historic visit to North Korea in 2000, then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright presented Kim Jong Il, famously an NBA fan, with a basketball signed by Jordan that later went on display in the huge cave at Mount Myohyang that holds gifts to the leaders.

North Korea even had its own Jordan wannabe: Ri Myong Hun, a 7-foot-9 star player who is said to have renamed himself “Michael” after his favorite player and moved to Canada for a few years in the 1990s in hopes of making it into the NBA.

Even today, Jordan remains well-loved here. At the Mansudae Art Studio, which produces the country's top art, a portrait of Jordan spotted last week, complete with a replica of his signature and “NBA” painted in one corner, seemed an odd inclusion among the propaganda posters and celadon vases on display.

An informal poll of North Koreans revealed that “The Worm” isn't quite as much a household name in Pyongyang.

But Kim Jong Un, also said to be a basketball fanatic, would have been an adolescent when Rodman, now 51, was with the Bulls, and when the Harlem Globetrotters, an exhibition basketball team, kept up a frenetic travel schedule worldwide.

In a memoir about his decade serving as Kim Jong Il's personal sushi chef, a man who goes by the pen name Kenji Fujimoto recalled that basketball was the young Kim Jong Un's biggest passion, and that the Chicago Bulls were his favorite.

The notoriously unpredictable and irrepressible Rodman said he has no special antics up his sleeve for making his mark on one of the world's most regimented and militarized societies, a place where order and conformity are enforced with Stalinist fervor.

But he said he isn't leaving any of his piercings behind. (AP)