I'm a black Catholic raised in Decatur, Georgia, which was very gang-infested. Then, I went to an all-white private high school and excelled in sports and wrote poetry, then played football at the University of Georgia, minoring in drama.
If you're going to play high school football, you do it in Texas or Florida or Georgia for the simple fact it's such a big deal.
I moved to L.A. when I was, like, 6 months old. I was born in Georgia 'cause my dad was going to college at the University of Georgia for music. Then we moved to the Valley, and my dad was a songwriter out here.
Really, you just play football; that's all I can do... I don't change. I'm going to always play tough, hard - that's the way I was brought up at Nebraska, where I really learned football from the Pelinis and that staff and continue to play hard, play blue-collar football.
I attended Florida State University on an academic and leadership scholarship, changed my major from biology to broadcasting, and transferred to the University of South Carolina for my last two years.
So here we are today with a new conversation. When University of Georgia plays Georgia Tech, it's uniform color versus skin color. We have - we've overcome that level of racial fear.
I want to play football, I love to play football so if that opportunity is not going to be given there [Manchester City] then I'm going to have to look elsewhere and may have to make somewhere else my home.
I grew up in Douglasville, Georgia. My father played football for the Atlanta Falcons. We lived a bunch of places when I was younger. I was born in California. We lived in Chicago for a little bit and finally we ended up in Georgia. I grew up playing softball and at the age of nine I decided I was going to be an Olympian.
If I'm at the University of Georgia and I can't inspire this room full of students, OK, fine. I'm not going to take it personally. Maybe a little bit, but I'll be all right.
It's football. You play football. You just play injured. That's how it is. A lot of it comes from my dad. He played for Hayden Fry University in the '80s. He used to tell me about the injuries he played with. One time he tore his ACL in Week 6 and then played in the Rose Bowl in Week 12. So, if he could do that, I can do anything.
I attended the University of Louisville my freshman year, transferred to what was then Western Kentucky State Teachers College for my sophomore and junior years, and then graduated from the University of Louisville in the summer of 1961.
I think my reputation speaks for itself. But everybody is entitled to their own opinion, and I'm going to continue to play football - play physical football.
I'm going out there, and I'm going to play football how I know to play football.
All religions, they play football - even nowadays all girls and women have the right to play football in cultures like the Arabic countries in the Muslim they play football.
I always wanted to play in the NFL. I decided to go to Florida State University as my college to play football because the coach there - Bobby Bowden - had a pedigree and acumen for putting players into the league.
In Texas, it's football. In Georgia, football. There's an appreciation from the average person about football more than anywhere else. And we have that for basketball in New York. And we'll always have that in New York.