Celebrity Corner
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There was always a game going. Whatever the season was, that’s what we played. It’s how we stayed out of trouble-although to be honest, I still managed to get into a little bit of trouble. For a while I ran with a group of kids my own age and we’d go pool hopping all around the community or running over the tops of cars. We were a little wild.
Not James (my older brother) though. He kept me mostly in line. He’s the reason I’m where I am today. My parents were working, so they didn’t have the time to look after us. James took it on himself. He looked after both of us. My father held two or three jobs at a time. He was a security guard. My mother cleaned offices and hotels. They worked hard and there was always food on the table, but James and I pretty much had to take care of ourselves. James was the responsible one. James was the parent.
Johnny Damon
Professional Baseball Player
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He’s (John Singleton) the other pivotal person in my career, just like he was a pivotal person in my brother’s (Cuba Gooding Jr.) career. He gave me a call one day-I’d just finished this three-year run on Smart Guy- and he said he had a script for me, a movie called Baby Boy. Once I read it, it was just mind-boggling to me. I’m like, “How did he see me in that role? Playing a tough guy, a gangster, just out of prison?” All he’d seen me in was a sitcom, doing cheesy stuff, but this guy is really good as seeing talent inside a person and bringing it out.
Omar Gooding
Actor
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Coach Fennoy also taught me about myself. He used to tell us to keep a journal, and in the beginning I thought this was just his way of being nosy, but he was really trying to get us to concentrate on our sentence structure, our communication skills and our writing. He was preparing us for where he thought we would be one day in life. When you’re younger, you don’t appreciate a lot of the things that people give you, because you think they’re supposed to be there. But this man was volunteering his time. This man was out there because he loved working with kids, and he put it in my head to be the best that I could be.
Jackie Joyner-Kersee
Olympic Track Star
