“Every jock gets up and tells the world how lucky he is. But I feel that I may be the luckiest one of all in terms of timing and being at the right place at the right moment-even though, for the last 30 years, I was told I was born 20 years too soon, for obvious reasons.”

I grew up in the heart of the Depression.

Cooper was my road roommate, and also happened to be the first African American player drafted by a National Basketball Association team.

We had a strong relationship with Walter Brown, and felt that he was the best owner in the league.

I had endured six years of frustration so I think winning it all meant more to me than most of the others on the team.

There were riots in just about every game we played with Syracuse.

These days I smile benignly at the fights that I see in NBA games. There aren’t any broken noses or black eyes, which happened quite often when I played.

I won the city scoring championship as a senior.

French was my first language.

We lived in Yorkville, which is located on the East End of Manhattan. It’s further east than Hell’s Kitchen, and back then it was the kind of place where the roaches and cockroaches were big enough to carry away small children.

I once heard that Paul Seymour said as much as winning an NBA Championship, he’d like to see the Celtics lose a game after Auerbach brought out the cigar so he could go up to Arnold and stuff the cigar in his face.

The NBA wasn’t a big deal at that time, so it wasn’t really in my career plans.

Bob Brannum was my body guard on the court. He was 6′-6 and built like a bulldog.

It also didn’t take me long to decide that Tri-Cities wasn’t for me, and that I wasn’t going to go there to play basketball.

Do your best when no one is looking.

You always need a good friend to lift you up, tell you the truth and if you’re lucky, sing a song with!

If you have three people in your life that you can trust, you can consider yourself the luckiest person in the whole world.

Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.

To be honest like when you work at something for a long time and then coming to a family of people who support what you do hmm, you are very lucky!

I’m lucky to be part of a team who help to make me look good, and they deserve as much of the credit for my success as I do for the hard work we have all put in on the training ground.

Everyone has their own destiny. Not everyone makes the choice to follow it. And I’m lucky I did.

I’ve been lucky. Opportunities don’t often come along. So, when they do, you have to grab them.

If you’re lucky enough to be different, never change.