I took a trip in 2004, a year after the war started in Iraq. I played music on the streets of Baghdad for Iraqi civilians. I'd also play for U.S. soldiers at night when they were off duty in the bars. Then I would talk to people, and I would film them and ask them about their life and the conflict.

I don't know if it's so grand that I can change the entire world, but I know that I can help one person. So that's the goal.

I went to Iraq because I wanted to see what one year of occupation had done to Iraqi society, and I went to the West Bank and Gaza Strip because I wanted to see what three generations of occupation had done to Palestinian society. I found a lot more hopelessness and despair in Palestine.

My greatest sense of accomplishment has come from having two amazing sons, but it's also a paradox in that the times when I felt like the biggest failure have been times when I felt like, as a parent, I wasn't making the right decisions or succeeding in the way that I should.

I grew up in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, with my parents and sisters, but my family would drive every weekend to Hammonton, where both my grandparents lived and where my parents were raised.

I have always been a mother. When I was kid, I mothered my younger brother. I mothered my parents and even my boyfriends.

Now I'm the father of three children; I'm not able to go live on a bus and do semesters around the country like I did when I was young.

A career in sport is almost impossible to manage without the support, and guidance, and reassurance of family and friends. During tough times, and there always are, this is whom we go to.