Getting to St. Mary's College was a big deal for me because that essentially led to me getting to go to NYU.

I had read some books on the Baha'i Faith. I had read - I was looking into Buddhism and trying to understand sort of the agnostic approach, so there was just a bunch of stuff I was just looking at.

Gay, straight - whatever - adolescents in high school and coming out of junior high, that's such a difficult, awkward period and kids can be so cruel and mean.

Anyone who grew up in the crack era - you know, I grew up in that era - knew that there were also people out - and there are still guys to this day that are out there, you know, obviously drug dealing - but those were the guys who had access and had money. And some of those guys felt responsible to create opportunity for other people and were also aware of the dangers of their work and often aren't really the ones that are encouraging kids to get into drug dealing.

Hold tight to the mentality of being a student, meaning hold on to curiosity and approach life as a student.

[Crack epidemic] definitely has impacted folks in my family, most definitely. I think that's true for most, if not all people, regardless of color, that grew up in and around areas that were closer to the nucleus of the crack epidemic.If you look at Baltimore or D.C., Detroit, Chicago, Oakland, like, Los Angeles.

In my time at St. Mary's College, drifting out of sports because it was something that began to feel really finite. And I could see that I didn't have the passion to sustain a career in sports.