I had no experience with broadcasting basketball games, so I took a tape recorder and went to a playground where there was a summer league, and I stood up in the top of the stands and I called the game.

My mother worked in factories, worked as a domestic, worked in a restaurant, always had a second job.

As a child, I loved to read books. The library was a window to the world, a pathway to worlds and people far from my neighborhood in Philadelphia.

That's when I hit the ground. So in the instant that that round landed and blew me in the air, I had those separate and distinct thoughts. The guy who was standing right next to where I had been standing had a hole in his back I could put my fist into.

Be prepared, work hard, and hope for a little luck. Recognize that the harder you work and the better prepared you are, the more luck you might have.

There was no one around me who didn't work hard.

I think, in some ways, Michael Jackson is out of touch with reality, and I don't think he has people around him who can say, Michael, can't do this. Michael, you can't do that. Michael, you can't say this. You know, I think he has been so big for so long that he can do whatever he wants to do.