All the courage and competitiveness of Jackie Robinson affects me to this day. If I patterned my life after anyone it was him, not because he was the first black baseball player in the majors but because he was a hero.

In January of 1969, after a meeting to discuss the leadership of UCLA's new Afro-American Program, [Alprentice "Bunchy" Carter and John Huggins, Jr.] were murdered on campus by a rival black nationalist group, the United Slaves Organization. This shook up all the students, black and white, and made us all realize that what we were doing wasn't just an academic exercise, but had repercussions in the real world.

My mother had to send me to the movies with my birth certificate, so that I wouldn't have to pay the extra fifty cents that the adults had to pay.

The transition was difficult. It's hard to stop something that you've enjoyed and that has been very rewarding.

The extra pass and the extra effort on defense always get the job done.

If not for the success that medicine has made, I might be part of a much different story right now.

I think that the good and the great are only separated by the willingness to sacrifice.