“When nothing seems to help, I go look at a stonecutter
hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack
showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I
know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before.”
“That was a long time ago. Well, I guess I never really…
well let me just say it was a long time ago. It was back in the 90s and I was
reading something about immigration in New York way back when, that kind of
thing, and he was a reformer. He fought for better housing and better
conditions, working conditions, that type of thing, for immigrants of all
countries.
“He was relentless at it and that quote that we use is
obviously his quote, and I thought it embodied anyone’s effort in any endeavor,
really. It doesn’t have to be basketball. It can be a musical instrument or it
can be learning mathematics or going to law school or figuring out how to turn
the water off in your house because you’re an idiot. If you can’t figure that
out you just keep looking, keep trying, keep going.
“The way he said it was very eloquent, and I thought that it
fit. You get tired of all that other junk. ‘Winners never do this’ or ‘Losers
always quit.’ ‘There’s no I in team’ — all the typical, trite silly crap you
see in locker rooms at all levels. It’s always turned me off, so I thought that
this was maybe a little bit more, I don’t know, intelligent. A different way to
get to the guys and make them think about it.
“They’ve had that in their brains for a long time. They’re
probably totally tired of it, but it’s worked well for us… They’ve been
brainwashed pretty good by now… I’m leaving right after Ghadafi. They’re going
to get rid of me… I’ve been here too long.”
