In a lot of areas of my life, particularly in my teenage years, I began to think about the world, and to think about the universe as being a part of my conscious everyday life.
When I get a chance to power jump off both legs, I can lean, twist, change directions and decide whether to dunk the ball or pass it to an open man. In other words, I may be committed to the air, but I still have some control over it.
My role models in the business were the older guys on my team when I first got there: Gray Scott, Adrian Smith, Roland Taylor. These were the guys who took me under their wing, and really schooled me in terms of what the business was about.
There's the typical books, Moby Dick and, I guess in my adult life I began to read biographies more than fiction. I started to want to relate to other people's lives, things that had really happened.
You know, we always tried to rationalize by saying you take the good, you take the upside, you got to deal with the downside, you've to take the downside.
One of the things in the back of my mind is that, after my sports experience, I never want to be, totally consumed by any one endeavor, other than my family life.
That was just my own personal program: I didn't want to get too high over the good moments because I didn't want to be saddened and depressed when things didn't go as I had planned.
I liked the game, I enjoyed the game, and the game fed me enough, and gave me enough rewards to reinforce that this is something that I should spend time doing, and that I could possibly make a priority in my life, versus other sports.
And from the first time I picked up a basketball at age eight - I had a lot of difficulty when I first picked up a basketball, because I was a scrub - there were things that I liked about it.
I grabbed 19 rebounds in my first professional game, and somehow found a way to score 20 points. I felt real good about it. I felt that this was the beginning of something good.
