I was never ignorant, as far as being experienced in classrooms and learning about different subjects and actually soaking it up, so I checked into college for a little bit. I took classes at a community college in West L.A. I took psychology, English, and philosophy.

As I got older, my pops tried to keep me involved with the culture by telling me the stories of the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea, how he came to America, and about our family back home, because all that side of my family - my aunties, grandparents - is in Africa.

When you talk about black entrepreneurship, you're talking about addressing the foundation of what's going on with our people when we don't have any financial power. Our basic needs aren't being met in a lot of cases, so there's no way we're going to be able to tap into our potential until we address those bottom-level base needs.

Being self-made means never making an excuse as to why you can't take steps toward whatever your goal is.

I think every model has times when they get obnoxious and crazy. You all of a sudden realize you are young and beautiful and you have money, and you just kind of go nutty for awhile.

With the club now in administration and concern about where the money for land sale has gone, I know there are huge commercial difficulties to be resolved, but I hope that football will once again become the most important issue.

When you have your own kid, it suddenly makes you more aware of how your parents treated you and educated you. Your relationships with your partner, your uncles, your mother all change; you're more conscious of where you came from, of where your roots are. I find that very interesting.

There's no one right way to parent, and there's no magic combination of genders that produces the most well-adjusted child. We all do the best we can at loving our kids and building our families.