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

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.

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.

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.

Looking back at his career, Mr. Rustin, a Quaker, once wrote: ‘The principal factors which influenced my life are 1) nonviolent tactics; 2) constitutional means; 3) democratic procedures; 4) respect for human personality; 5) a belief that all people are one.’

Kill time and you will kill your career.

It’s perhaps not the future I would choose. I still think it’s possible to make a success of both marriage and career even though I didn’t. But it’s not a bad future. And I’m not afraid of it.

Money talks. It starts rumors about careers and complicity and speaks of the tragedies and triumphs of our social lives.

Jadakiss is not no walk in no park. Nas is not no walk in no park. These are dudes that could have ended my career.

I know at the beginning of our careers, my wife and I were gut wrenchingly competitive.

I’ve never really had a TV career. I’ve been a soldier and a climber.

In the day-to-day, farm work is stress relief for me. At the end of the day, I love having this other career – my anti-job – that keeps me in shape and gives me control over a vegetal domain.