I was a total jock growing up. I went to super-dorky basketball clinics and was handpicked to play on a state team called the Texas Heat.
I built a baseball field in the lower part of our property and I'm always working on that. I got a wheelbarrow, a pick and a shovel, and I started to build a baseball field during writers' strike. We have boys and girls come over and we have clinics in the spring. It's called The Strike because it's named for the writers' strike.
While Planned Parenthood provides abortions at some of their clinics, it also provides healthcare services for poor women, including checkups, mammograms, cervical cancer screenings and contraceptives.
Everybody goes to clinics, to hospitals, to doctors, and so on. Some people go to Planned Parenthood. But you don't have to go to Planned Parenthood to get your cholesterol or your blood pressure checked. If you want an abortion, you go to Planned Parenthood, and that's well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does.
A majority, perhaps as many as 75 percent, of abortion clinics are in areas with high minority populations. Abortion apologists will say this is because they want to serve the poor. You don't serve the poor, however, by taking their money to terminate their children.
I was raised to volunteer: nursing homes, clinics, church nurseries, school, everywhere that could use help. It's such an intrinsic part of me, to use my life to help improve the quality of others.
After spending more than 17 years playing for the NBA, in the summertime, I always came back to community service and different basketball clinics.
I have enjoyed great satisfaction from my climb of Everest and my trips to the poles. But there's no doubt that my most worthwhile things have been the building of schools and medical clinics.
Don't just expect the scouts to find you. Go to camps, clinics and make sure you are seen.
After I made it to the NBA, I said that I didn't want to be the last player from Africa. After my rookie year, I went to the league and talked about this, and they embraced my idea and started conducting basketball clinics in Africa, and that's when I knew I wouldn't be the last African.