“My only goal was to change a life of a kid”
When I was a kid, I was a real troubled youth. I lived in a community where everyone was church oriented and everyone was close knit and I like, was really bad. I would steal, I was stealing cars, all this stuff. I was. kind of, one of those kids that if your parents saw you hanging with that kid you would get in trouble, like “I better not catch you hanging with that kid.” And I was that kid. When I was about 12 years old my community changed. The religion totally got taken out of the community. Violence came in and drugs came in, killing came in, guns came in. Negativity basically took over everywhere. I was still negative, it was a plus to me. It’s crazy but by the time I got into high school all of my friends that I was being negative with were either dead or in jail or still selling drugs., I completely changed my life.
So it was kind of weird to become a professional basketball player. And then go back to my community and see all those parents that said “I better not catch you hanging with that kid, like damn, you should’ve been hanging with that kid.”
It’s really weird and different how that happened. I think about it all the time. I thank God for putting me in the position that he did, showing me the things that he showed me early and let me go through my trials and tribulations early so that he could show me that there’s a better way. All of my friends that started doing what I was doing at a young age, they started it later. They’re either died or in jail or went to jail and got back out, can’t get a job, they can’t vote.
It just taught me to want more, to do better, to never really judge people. I don’t really judge anyone. I talk to everyone, I’m really friendly. My only goal, I’m a professional basketball player, 6 years now, my only goal was to change a life of a kid. I started my own personal training company called Team Fit. As I said, my only goal was to change the life of 1 person and that trickled to 20, 30, 50. My own company, it is just crazy. It has Inspired me to give back to my community, To bring back God to my community. I felt, not that He went away but that my community pushed him out. We need God in our community.
I never had a stuffed animal in my life and the only reason why I didn’t, was because I alway had dogs and they would rip these things to shreds.