In America you're conditioned to regard everything as a contest. You have to make the Ten Best Dressed List, win this, win that. It drives me nuts sometimes. Who cares, for Christ's sake?

Seven out of 10 black faces you see on television are athletes. The black athlete carries the image of the black community. He carries the cross, in a way, until blacks make inroads in other dimensions.

Having grown up in a segregated environment in the south I know what it's like to be stepped on, I know what it's like also to see some black hero do well in the face of adversity.

If you're paid before you walk on the court, what's the point in playing as if your life depended on it?

Life is like a tennis game. You can't win without serving.

I have tried to keep on with my striving because this is the only hope I have of ever achieving anything worthwhile and lasting.

From what we get, we can make a living; what we give, however, makes a life.