Charles Barkley says that Michael Jordan once gave him financial advice during a round of golf centered around taking stock options from Nike instead of cash, and says he followed his advice and it ended up making him $50,000,000 “So I wore 32 one year, but I called Michael and I said, ‘Hey, send me a pair of shoes. I just want to tell you how much I appreciate everything you did for me, giving me that advice on that Nike stock that made me $30 million.’” “Because at the time I was making about $3 million a year, and we were playing golf, and he said, ‘Chuck, I was talking to somebody. So I want you to quit taking $3 million. Take a million and take the other $2 million in stock options.’” “So I called my people and said, ‘Hey, Michael told me to do this,’ because Mike’s always been a brilliant businessman. And they’re like, ‘This is risky. You think he’s going to be that great?’” “I said, ‘Man, I ain’t never seen nobody like that dude,’ because I had met him at the Olympic trials. I said, ‘He’s going to be amazing.’” “And we did it. And like I said, I ended up probably making, seriously, another $50 million, to be honest with you.”

Shannon Sharpe says he gave his first super bowl ring to his brother after a neck injury took his career early, and says he did it because he was only there because of his brother, and the player everyone saw was because of how much he learned from his brother Sterling “It did, man. I remember when he called me and said, ‘Man, I don’t know. I don’t think I’m going to be able to play again.’ I said, ‘Is that what the doctor says?’ He says, ‘Well, I’m going to meet the doctor, and I’ll let you know.’” “But I remember his girlfriend at the time, who’s now his wife, she called me. She said, ‘Sterling’s not going to play again.’ I’m like, man. You got to realize now, he’s in his prime. He’s seven years in. I mean, he had just had 108, 112, 94. His last year, 94 catches, 18 touchdowns, over a thousand yards, and never played another down. And I just remember going to do an interview, and I told him, I said, ‘When I win, I’m going to give my brother the ring.’ He didn’t know. He didn’t know I would do that.” “This is the way I’m going to say thank you. This is the way I’m going to say, ‘Bro, everything that you’ve ever done for me.’ I had a single-minded focus. I was looking straight ahead. I was thinking about all the people in Glennville. My grandmother’s watching. A thousand-square-foot, cement floor, cinder blocks. My brother.” “So I’m going to go get this ring for him. I’m going to go get this ring. I said, ‘We about to get this.’ I said in the interview, like, three days earlier. This was the only time Mike Shanahan, the head coach, he said, ‘Shannon, we’re going to kick their ass, but let’s make them think that they’re going to win. So don’t say anything crazy.’” “Like, man, you know I got to talk this thing up. I’m like, okay. I said, ‘Yeah, oh man, it’s going to be a great game. They’re defending champs. They got the MVP.’ We’re going to tear y’all up. Y’all don’t even know. We felt that way. What do you want to do? You want to play man coverage? Do you really want to put your safeties on me, or do you want to drop them in the box and stop T.D.?” “I just remember going up to his house, telling him, ‘Thank you. I’m here because of you. What you see, the player that I am, is because of you.’ And because you couldn’t get one, the only thing that I can do, this is the only thing I can give you, bro. Besides a kidney, you don’t need that. But the next thing, the best thing I can give you is this.”

Edgerrin James says that he used his first NFL signing bonus to buy two rundown buildings in a drug-affected neighborhood in his hometown and turn them into a recreational center for local kids “I mean, it’s appropriate. You know, them things you’re supposed to do. That’s your way of really giving back and helping and showing. You can help a lot of people by making one move. One move can change the structure of so many other kids. Like right now, from Immokalee, we got four guys that’s in the NFL right now, and those same four guys used to come to that same building that we opened up and that we had around. And it was actually pretty cool to actually see that, you know, they were a part of it.” “Exactly. And that’s what it’s about. You’re showing them that it’s possible, and that’s part of my whole MO, man. Like, look, I’m going to come across as normal, and I’m going to do all the same things y’all do. So I’m showing you that it’s possible. Right now, you got to dig into it a little bit more to say, ‘Okay, what separated me from them?’ And that’s when that discipline and that hard work and really knowing what it’s going to take, or doing what it’s going to take, to get there.” “Yeah, you got D.J. Swearinger, you got Mackensie Alexander, you got D’Ernest Johnson that played for the Cleveland Browns, and then you got the Pro Bowler, J.C., that played for the New England Patriots. You know, all four of those kids, they used to be around. They’re all out of Immokalee, and that’s what it’s about. To have kids that’s in the community that actually see you do what you do, and they follow in those footsteps.” “I got a million names from them. They actually make you feel old. Like, they really the ones that make you feel old. And then you go back, you go through some of the pictures, and you see the kids out there doing what they were doing. Like, dang, I’ve really been around a long time. And to see J.C. go to the Pro Bowl, you’re like, man, I watched this kid from birth. But it’s a good feeling to know that you got people coming from your area that you inspired.”

Marcellus Wiley says Jamal Crawford challenged Michael Jordan to a shooting contest that started with a $1,000 bet and eventually escalated to wagering their cars “Jamal Crawford challenged Michael Jordan to a three-point shootout for $1,000. Yep, I know what y'all thinking. That's it? I was thinking the same thing. I was like, well, maybe Jamal doesn't bet because I know Michael Jordan gambles. So maybe Jamal's not a betting type like me. So he's just like, ‘All right, put a little skin in the game. Let's go.’” “Okay, so Jordan won. And then he was like, ‘Dog, $1,000 is for babies,’ and upped the amount to five G's. Now, you know Jamal. He's not a gambling man, maybe, but he ain't no punk either, right? And the boy can shoot. Oh, he can shoot!” “And this time, Jamal won. Michael Jordan then asked Jamal, ‘What car did you drive up here with? What kind of car did you drive here with?’ Jamal replied, ‘A Mercedes.’ You know, probably back then, what was it? A Benz 190 2.5? Nah, he probably had a 560 SEC with the Alpine kit, whatever the hell that was. That big Transformer-looking Mercedes. But he said, ‘I got a Mercedes. I got a Benz outside.’” “Jordan said, ‘I came with a Ferrari.’ That Modena or something, right? Whoa! I love it, love it, love it. I love your Ferrari, damn it! Let's bet our cars... So now, you know Jamal ain't no punk. You're like, ‘All right, let's do it.’” “Jordan went five for five. Remove Crawford's personalized license plate. Get that off of it! What do you think his license plate said? J-Craw Five or something? Took it off and left with his Benz. Took that dude's Benz off of a three-point shooting contest they had. Crazy, man!”

Tim Thomas says that when California wildfires forced his family out of their home, Kobe Bryant quietly arranged to cover his living expenses throughout Los Angeles for nearly two weeks, and says when he tried to pay for a $700 dinner bill the waitress let him know Kobe already had it covered “Man, it’s crazy. When I got in the league, I bought a house in Bryn Mawr, right? Which is five minutes from Villanova. So Lower Merion is right there. I used to see his moms and stuff at the grocery store. Obviously, we played AAU basketball together. We had our fun times with that. Got a chance to compete against each other in the league, in playoff series, all of that.” “Obviously, I lived in Calabasas. The accident happened right there. So I just felt like our connection has always been there. You know what I mean? ’96 class, all of that. But in California, they get those fires all the time. So it was one of those real bad ones. We go down to Newport Beach with the family to get out of the house. Might lose the house, whatever.” “So we pull up the first night. We’re thinking about our house, the whole shebang. We go to a restaurant to get some dinner. Kobe knows the owner. He calls, ‘Take care of my guy.’ Bill’s probably $600, $700. I’m getting ready to pull a card out. Oh, it was taken care of Who took care of it? ‘Oh, Mr. Bryant.’” “I’m like, ‘Mr. Bryant? That man don’t know I’m here. How he know I’m here?’ He was somewhere doing something. And then the rest of the time we had to be there, which was probably two weeks or so, everywhere I went in the city, I had to pay for nothing.” “Really, he took care of everything. It was so crazy. To the point where he’s got a bunch of homes down there, so he was like, ‘Yo, just go stay at the house.’ But my wife wanted to stay at the beach. We had a beachfront, so she’s like, ‘Let’s just stay here.’ But he was like, ‘You just go to the house.’”

Charles Barkley says Michael Jordan once called to check on him at 3AM after a devastating playoff loss, and says when he told him he was sulking because his season was over Jordan picked him up on his private jet 4 hours later to go play golf and raise his spirits “You know, Michael was my best friend for a long time, and I said, ‘Michael, I love Michael like a brother.’ I remember the show very, very well. So I’m sitting there, and we were talking about the job he was doing. I said, ‘I love Michael like a brother, but he’s never going to be successful as a general manager as long as he’s hiring only his friends.’” “When you’re famous, the number one thing you’ve got to do is surround yourself with people who hold you accountable. But when you’re Michael Jordan or Charles Barkley or any famous person, most of the people on your payroll, they’re flying around in your private jet, you’re buying all the drinks, you’re buying all the dinners, so nobody’s ever going to tell you no. Ever. So you have to surround yourself with people like, ‘No, man, maybe you shouldn’t do that. Maybe you’ve had too much to drink.’” “So I lost one time, and I’m playing for the Rockets, and Michael calls me about three or four in the morning. He says, ‘What are you doing?’ I said, ‘Nothing, sitting here sulking. We lost last night.’ He said, ‘I’ll pick you up in four hours.’ I said, ‘What?’ He says, ‘I’m coming to get you. We’re going to go play some golf. The season’s over. You need to get away.’” “And in four hours, he picked me up at the private airport right by my house on his private jet. And I get on there, and Darrell Walker’s on there, and he said something I’ll never forget. He says, ‘We can’t mess this up.’”

Dwyane Wade says that just 16 games into Shaquille O’Neal’s first season with the Miami Heat Shaq called a players only meeting because Miami had the same record as Kobe Bryant’s Lakers “Yeah, because I didn’t really know about the beef, right? The internal beef that people talk about. I still don’t know. Shaq and I didn’t talk a lot about that. That wasn’t our relationship. But he wanted to be first, though. It was no secret. Kobe can’t get a ring before me. It was no secret in Miami. We all knew.” “I remember we were 16 games into the first season, right? Miami Heat, 10–6. Los Angeles Lakers, maybe either 10–6 or 9–7. Fact-check me. We had a meeting led by Shaq. He went the fuck off because we had the same record as the Lakers at that time.” “You know what we did? We went on a 12-game winning streak. We lost one or two, then went on a 10-game winning streak. We ended up having the best record in the league for a long time. But he didn’t want to be at the same pace as the Lakers. He didn’t come here to be average. He demanded something out of us that pushed us and helped us win that championship.” Shannon Sharpe: “How excited was he to get that ring before Kobe?” Dwyane Wade: “You heard his diss track.”

Mark Brunell says the older he gets the less the championships and records matter, and the more he asks himself one question: Was the world better because I was here? “The older you get in life, you’re able to accomplish a lot of things. I was able to accomplish a lot on the football field, and I’m very proud of that — the relationships that I have made through this sport, the places we’ve lived, a Super Bowl championship, a national championship, a Rose Bowl championship, all these things. They’re great and they’re wonderful.” “But really, when it’s all said and done, you want to know that your life made an impact, because all that other stuff fades. It does. It’s wonderful, and I’m not taking away from it because I’m grateful for all of it. Such blessings. But as you look back, you want your life to have meant something.” “You know it has with your children. You know it has with your wife and your close friends and your family, your brothers and your parents. But then out of the blue, you hear that your life, based on a 20-minute conversation, your testimony made an impact on somebody and you didn’t even know it. And it was lasting, and it was impactful, and it was life-changing.” “You get surprised because just because you said a couple sentences that changed somebody’s life — it’s of far greater worth than anything I’ve ever done on the field. It’s lasting. It’s eternal. It means a ton.” “That’s the cool stuff. That’s the stuff that has meaning. And really, honestly, the older you get, that’s like, man, you just want to know that when you leave this place, whenever that is, did I make an impact? Is this world a better place because I was here?”