Mentoring Youth Quotes

The best part of my career has been the relationships with the fans and the kids.

When I have basketball camps and I tell kids my story, they're like, 'You played in Maine? In Israel? You did this and that?' I experienced a lot, and I feel like it made me not only the person I am today, but the basketball player I am.

I would love to mentor youngsters.

The teacher left her wisdom, in the minds of lots of children, and did her best to give them all a better start.

Our children, our grandchildren, our students, our young athletes. We need to be pouring leadership principles into them constantly, and teaching, and instructing them how to become good leaders in the future.

I talk about role models a lot and wanting to be a role model for kids around me because I didn't have that growing up.

It's always been a passion of mine to come out and share some of my knowledge about basketball and the experiences I've had with the younger generation.

Teaching is a calling too. And I've always thought that teachers in their way are holy - angels leading their flocks out of the darkness.

Fortunately, I never had to do the waiter thing. When I got out of college, I immediately started to teach acting. One of the first jobs I had was in a federally-funded program where I taught drama to young people.

You've got to be a role model to the younger generation who look up to you, but it's always good to have fun. That's what the goal celebrations are about, really.

It's not about what you achieve, it's actually what you do for your industry and that's what I think is important. And when people look at me and they see my achievements with the restaurants do you know what I think? I think I did more than that. What I achieved was teaching young men and young women when they were young and inspiring them.

I've felt some great feelings on the baseball field... in front of 50,000 people and millions on TV... but the feeling you get when you give a kid a chance, that is a hundred times greater than that feeling.

After I got out of law school and worked in a big law firm, I thought, there are so many kids like me, in my neighborhood, that could be here if they had more support from their families, better financial aid. But the gap is so wide once you miss that opportunity. So I was always interested in figuring out, How do you bridge that? I felt, as a lawyer, when I was mentoring and working with kids, that I gained a level of groundedness that I just couldn't get sitting on the forty-seventh floor of a fancy firm.

When I picture myself after football, it's down home, coaching high school football, just a relaxing, normal life.