I think right now the way society's going, I think role models are important, and kids need direction. If I didn't have that direction growing up, who knows what I could be doing, because I've been lost many times in my life, and I've had to have someone guide me back on the right path.

I was a big Michael Jordan fan growing up. I don't feel my game resembles his though.

You have to be wired a certain way to be a professional basketball player, and the way my body grew, something happened genetically that allowed me to become a lot more explosive.

I try to focus on what I'm supposed to do, and to do my job the best I can. I kind of let everything happen the way it's supposed to happen, let everything fall into place the way it should.

Parents do bear some of the responsibility if they don't talk to their kids, are never around, even deny their kids the love that young girls often crave when they decide to have a baby.

I'm a 24-year-old, and I enjoy my life, and winning a football game is the most enjoyable thing I've ever experienced in my life.

I had some really dear friends who died from AIDS-one in particular. His family wasn't around and he didn't have many friends. I spent a lot of time with him in his later days.

An important aspect of the current situation is the strong social reaction against suggestions that the home language of African American children be used in the first steps of learning to read and write.