When we went up against teams that were better, I just hoped that we could steal the victories.

Today's youth are told to get rich or die trying and they really shouldn't take that attitude forward with them.

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.

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.

There's a ball. There's a hoop. You put the ball through the hoop. That's success.

When I was 17, I worked in a mentoring program in Harlem designed to improve the community. That's when I first gained an appreciation of the Harlem Renaissance, a time when African-Americans rose to prominence in American culture. For the first time, they were taken seriously as artists, musicians, writers, athletes, and as political thinkers.

I'm still my parent's child, I'm still me, but I made a choice. I evolved into Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. I think it has to do with evolution.