Heroes
Muhammad Ali
He was a fighter, whether in or out of the ring. In the ring, he was as much businessman as athlete. Most young people today know Muhammad Ali only as the hunched old man whose...
Bruce Lee
Bruce created a jambalaya of martial arts, adding and discarding moves that were less effective. No wasted movements I took it to heart, I dedicated myself to preparation by maintaining complete focus during basketball practice...
Coach John Wooden
Some lives are so extraordinary and touch so many people that their story must be told to generations to come so those values aren't diminished or lost altogether. From the first day of my freshman...
Jackie Robinson
When I was just a boy, my mom and I used to listen to baseball on the radio. My favorite team was the Brooklyn Dodgers, and my favorite player was Jackie Robinson, whose presence on...
“Wild Bill”
Most people think of Hickok as a steely-eyed gunfighter – or the guy shot in the back of the head while playing poker (his hand, a pair of aces and a pair of eights, is...
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
I met Dr. King in the summer of 1964 when I was seventeen years old. He had come to speak to participants of the HARYOU ACT, a mentoring program in Harlem that I was a...
Thelonious Monk
A self-taught musician, Monk is credited with founding bebop, a type of jazz that focuses on fast tempos and improvisation. What I admire most about Monk is that he was a man of integrity both...
