Cooper was my road roommate, and also happened to be the first African American player drafted by a National Basketball Association team.

Do your best when no one is looking. If you do that, then you can be successful at anything you put your mind to

We lived in Yorkville, which is located on the East End of Manhattan. It's further east than Hell's Kitchen, and back then it was the kind of place where the roaches and cockroaches were big enough to carry away small children.

But as a coach I wanted to keep things from being too complicated.

Do your best when no one is looking.

But in fairness also to the idea of continuing success, you also have to exploit opportunities.

You have to remember that coaching wasn't sophisticated back then - you didn't have the camps, clinics and all the technical advances that are available today - so from that standpoint, playing with a cast on my arm was a fortunate event in my life.