Even though my mother had told me growing up that, 'If you win, nobody cares what color you are,' that wasn't necessarily true in the N.F.L.

That's the one regret I have in all the years that I've played professional sports, that I didn't win a championship in the N.F.L. And that's why you play on any level of team sports: you want to win a championship as part of a team.

Throughout my career, I was never able to relax; I always had to go on the field with another responsibility. I felt like I was playing, not just for my team, but for my race.

When I was coming up as a kid, there were programs that kept me out of trouble and on the straight and narrow in South Central Los Angeles, and I always felt that when I got to a stage where I could provide similar opportunities to kids then I would do that.

About a year after I retired from playing, I decided that I wanted to getback to college, where I had the greatest time of my life, and to get involved with college football.

I was in TNA for over a dozen years. I had a great run there - I had a great career - but obviously, WWE has always been the be-all, end-all of sports entertainment. Until you get there and experience it on a personal level, you just don't know.

It is fair to say that insofar as sport is taken seriously by those who play it, then to that extent their conduct in play - their ability to deal with loss or victory, their ability to meld strategic thinking and brute force - can be taken as a small-scale model of how they, or others like them, might behave in life.

Well, my last year was 04-05 with the Heat, and I relaxed for a few years, and I said, 'Well, what am I going to do?' I've got to do my passion, and my passion is basketball.