“Do your best when no one is looking.”

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.

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.

Most famous people get younger and younger. I sometimes ask myself that question: ‘How come I’m the only person who’s getting older?’

For one year, I want to do this thing where I guest-star on as many television shows as I possibly can. I love television. The fact that television ultimately made me famous was very gratifying for me.

In the future, everybody will be world famous for fifteen minutes.

People who want to be famous are really loners. Or they should be.

Now that I’m famous, guys don’t hit on me.

I’ve never wanted to be a star, I never wanted to be a famous person or anything like that, and I think my fans know that as well.

When I got famous, all of a sudden guys wouldn’t look at me. Period. So I felt a little sad, a little frustrated. Like, What’s going on here? I’ve never been prettier in my life and I’m so cool and successful.

You know I won’t be no stick-figure, silicone Barbie doll.