I can remember trying to coach, trying to figure out schemes, and it just wasn't coming to me.

I remember standing on a medal podium at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, imbued with a sense that if you won enough basketball games, there was no such thing as poor, backward, country, female, or inferior.

Competition got me off the farm and trained me to seek out challenges and to endure setbacks; and in combination with my faith, it sustains me now in my fight with Alzheimer's disease.

I think that a lot of people would perceive my style as being intimidating. And although I don't want to intimidate kids, I am very demanding.

I volunteered at Ayuda, in the office, on a regular basis, and I did everything from fingerprinting and interviewing persons of Hispanic origin who entered the country without inspection and who were seeking work-authorization permits.

I had a band with David Gates. There was just a lot of opportunity at that time. But I left for Los Angeles the week after I graduated high school, and I actually left to try to get into the advertising business. That was really why I went out to L.A. My music career was almost an accident.

My personal style at this point in my life is more audio; it's more driven on less visual and more musicality. But because of my upbringing, my fabulous mentors and teachers that I've had throughout my dance journey or career, I also possess a style that is of the past. It was just a matter of me reaching back.

When I lived in Boston, I had an office that I rented because I found it wonderful to go away from my house to work: It was so quiet, and I couldn't go to the refrigerator or do the laundry.