From my early days of playing 2:2 in basketball against my three older brothers to my years playing Division 1 college basketball and lacrosse, sports have played a big role in my leadership development.
I am mindful of the fact that I played women's college basketball, that I coached women's college basketball.
I think what I wanted mostly to experience in college is playing college basketball and learning.
Please don't misunderstand, I actually enjoyed the hecticness and the opportunity to cover women's college basketball. But the reality is as a young broadcaster the vast majority of my games came in men's college basketball and my viewership as a fan came in men's college basketball because that was what was available to me.
Instead, California is one of only 10 states that provides in-state college and university tuition to illegal immigrants. That's grossly unfair to a legal high school student who moves out of California for a year, then returns to attend college.
Everybody had to go to some college or other. A business college, a junior college, a state college, a secretarial college, an Ivy League college, a pig farmer's college. The book first, then the work.
I started playing music around 13 or 14, played jazz in high school, and played other stuff in college. After college, I tried to make it as a musician. I lived in a big squalid house full of dudes outside of Boston. We were all musicians. We built this studio in the basement and played there all hours of the day.
You can't have 23 million people struggling to get a job. You can't have an economy that over the last three years keeps slowing down its growth rate. You can't have kids coming out of college, half of them can't find a job today, or a job that's commensurate with their college degree. We have to get our economy going.
I wanted to become a college coach. I got game films of all the good college coaches - Pete Newell at California, Eddie Donovan with St. Bonaventure, Ken Loeffler at LaSalle.
Once you get out there and start playing basketball, whether the NBA or college or whatever arena you are playing in or who you are playing in front of, the juices start going, and you want to just go out there and play to the best of your abilities.
Practice habits were crucial to my development in basketball. I didn't play against the toughest competition in high school, but one reason I was able to do well in college was that I mastered the fundamentals. You've got to have them down before you can even think about playing.
I was No. 11 because my mom played basketball in college and was always No. 22. I just cut it in half, and I kept that. I've been No. 11 most of my life, and in college, I was No. 22.
You've got to understand, every kid in college basketball, if you ask them where they want to play a game, in the NBA or college, they will tell you Madison Square Garden, a huge percentage.
I started out as the president of a small college in Minnesota in 1947. And I had five years of experience at the college. Then we went to Los Angeles. And the press got to what we were doing. And I went to Boston, which is my next series of meetings. That was in 1950.
When I started women's college basketball coverage, it was exploding. I happened into a men's college basketball game because of a mistake, someone not showing up. So I've sort of been the beneficiary of good timing.
In my case, I played sports my whole life. I got out of college, and I didn't bother to get health care coverage because I just figured I didn't need it. But you know that if you blow out your knee on a basketball court or you get in a car accident, and you're uninsured, it can bankrupt you.