Rockets' Fred VanVleet Opens Up About Losing His Father At Age 5
Fred VanVleet has never shied away from where he came from, and a recent conversation made that clear all over again.
The Houston Rockets guard has been sidelined all season after tearing his ACL in September, watching from the sidelines as his team put together 52 wins and pushed into the 2026 playoffs against the Los Angeles Lakers.
While his recovery continues, VanVleet recently sat down on the "Out The Mud" podcast and opened up about something far more personal than basketball.
He lost his father at five years old. Fredderick Manning was killed, and VanVleet grew up in Rockford, Illinois, a city he's described as dangerous, where that kind of loss wasn't rare. Friends went the same way. Getting out required more than talent.
"I'm grown now, so I could look back on it, but at the time, you don't really know. Now, I got kids. So, it's like, they don't even really, wouldn't even know. I was five. My dad got killed, and I just remember my mom and them coming and telling me, and they like, 'Dad ain't coming home.' I'm like, 'all right, cool.' But it didn't hit me," VanVleet said.
Now that he's a father himself, he understands just how young five really is, and how little a child can process that kind of permanent loss.
Fred VanVleet reveals what fueled his rise beyond the court
His early years kept shifting around him. He grew up on one side of town with his mother Susan, then moved into a tougher neighborhood where missing a father wasn't something that stood out because so many kids around him were in the same situation.
Things changed when his mother married Joe Danforth, a police officer who brought more stability into the household. Financially and structurally, life looked different after that.
VanVleet has said that compared to what others around him went through, he still feels like he had a solid upbringing, even if the path to get there wasn't straightforward.
"You go to the tournaments and you see the kids with their dads and [expletive] like that. And it's like, '[expletive], I wish I had that. But I just felt like it just gave me a different hunger and it was just more so like I knew not to play too close to the streets," he said.
That hunger is a big part of how VanVleet got here. His mother, his stepfather and his siblings kept him grounded when nothing was guaranteed. He leaned on his own instincts and backed himself when most people wouldn't have.
That mindset carried him to the NBA, and it's the same one driving him now as he works his way back from injury and builds toward the future he's creating for his own family.
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This story was originally published April 19, 2026 at 7:17 PM.