If you're tweeting - and this is what I tell the young athletes who come to me about these situations, because I've been through them and I've seen both sides of it - if you're tweeting just because everyone else is tweeting and you're not uncomfortable, if it doesn't feel like a sacrifice - like when I wore that T-shirt it was a sacrifice.
Andrew HawkinsI think people are wrong to do it, to compare him to your way of wanting to do it. If you're passionate about it, do it and do it your way. It's not always going to be in front of the cameras after a football game - that was the way I did it. Somebody else has a different way, and that's [James] LeBron, and I know who he is. And I can't get into specifics, but it did upset me that people were calling him out for that because they were just wrong.
Andrew HawkinsI would never say anything about [James] LeBron because I know how much he means to the community; I know how much he does in the community, which is honestly 100 times more than your average athlete.
Andrew HawkinsAs you get older and as your situation changes, it becomes different. Yes, I have to provide for my family, so if there's a chance that I'm not going to be able to provide for my family, who is always number one, my kids are always number one, then yeah, maybe it's not the same. But like I said, everybody's boiling point is different and you get to that point differently and you're at peace with it.
Andrew HawkinsHow you educate the people around you, what steps you take toward making it better, what sacrifices you make. The equation of life is simple: There's no gain without pain. For whatever reason, that's the way this world was designed in every facet. It's the same thing, there has to be a sacrifice.
Andrew HawkinsI understood that there would be some backlash, and that scared me, honestly. But deep down, I felt like it was the right thing to do. And if I was to run away from what I felt in my soul was the right thing to do, that would make me a coward. I canโt live with that. God wouldnโt be able to put me where I am today, and as far as Iโve come in life, if I was a coward.
Andrew Hawkins