Derrick Rose took the stage yesterday on Chicago’s South Side to say a few words for the unveiling of his new Adidas apparel line. He hadn’t even begun talking, and he was already in tears.

A superstar athlete crying on stage at a press event isn’t something we’re used to, but this isn’t a normal superstar athlete, and these aren’t normal circumstances.

We know that Rose has cried before; he cried after the extremely painful surgery to reconstruct his torn ACL. We also know he has a good reason to cry; the video he was shown can be seen here in its entirety, and it’s a moving piece of advertising in its own right. But when the subject of said advertising is you, shredding the ligaments in your knees and being forced to rebuild your body, it’s enough to, well… make you cry on a stage in front of a bunch of people you don’t know.

Rose is one of our most enigmatic and guarded athletes, a guy who struggles to make eye contact and suffers from intense bouts of social anxiety. He’s also been put in a vulnerable place: wobbling around on a surgically repaired knee has a tendency to do that to you, particularly when you’re used to being one of the top five most agile human beings on the planet. Then, there’s the added pressure of having all of that money tied up in that knee, and having pretty much every person you know relying on your full recovery.

So, yes, Derrick Rose has more than one reason to cry. How he uses the emotions that caused him to — the anger, the sadness, the frustration — will determine whether or not he’s able to follow through on the hashtagged mantra of his Adidas marketing campaign.

Here’s to hoping he’ll rise.

via Sports Gird