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?”

Carmelo Anthony says LeBron James saved his life when he jumped into the ocean to rescue him after a powerful current began pulling him away from their boat during a vacation in the Bahamas “It’s truth, man. We was in the little grotto in the Bahamas, you know, you can swim underneath. I can swim, but I’m going to tell you some real shit. I can survive. That’s what you need. So we in there, and we trying to get back. Everybody swimming back to the boat, but I’m snorkeling too.” “We snorkeling on the way back, and my head is in the water, and I’m snorkeling. And I look up, and every time I look up out the water, the boat is further and further away, and I’m getting pushed by the current, by the undertow and current. I’m like, ‘Yo, yo!’ Motherfuckers looking at me like I’m joking. I’m like, ‘Yo, I need help!’ I’m swimming, I’m trying to hold on to a rock.” “I was exhausted. I’m like, ‘I ain’t going to fight that current like that.’ So one guy was like, ‘Just don’t fight it. Let it just go with it, go with the flow.’ And I see Bron jump in the water. He just, you know, Aquaman. Aquaman jump in the water.” “Because D-Wade was right in front of me. He got on right before me, so I’m thinking D going to come back. But I know D ain’t rocking with the water like that. D there like, ‘Yo, yo, go get him! Go get him!’ And I just see Bron coming like, ‘I got you, champ. I got you.’ Grab me. We went back. We went back to the boat.” “Man, all-purpose. LeBron is all-purpose, all kinds of shit. But it’s crazy because he can really, he’s very good at a lot of shit. Like, I don’t give a fuck what it is, he’s going to be successful at that. He’s going to figure it out. He one of them people. He’s just one of them natural freaks, man. I call him a lab baby, man. He was built in the lab.”

Nick Saban says that 10 minutes before announcing his retirement he still hadn't decided whether he was actually going to retire, and says he had two speeches prepared for his players, one announcing he was staying for another season and the other telling them he was retiring “I think, for me, I never wanted to ride the program down. I never wanted to coach where my age and my inability to have a positive impact was going to start to see the program go down. And I felt like, at 72 years old, that last season was really, really hard.” “We lost early on, and the team really improved, and we got in the playoffs, and they did a fantastic job. But it was very challenging, and I just didn’t know what I was going to do.” “I think this is in the documentary. I’m sitting there, I’ve got a 4:00 team meeting. I’ve got two speeches. I’ve got one that says I’m staying, and this is what we’ve got to do. We had a young team, so we’d have been good the next year. This is what we have to do. And then over here, I’m going to tell the players I’m going to retire.” “And that was 10 minutes till four, and I didn’t know which one I was going to do.” “I called Miss Terry, and she said, ‘You know, if you’re that stressed out about it and there’s that much turmoil, you have to do this at some point in time, whether it’s this year, next year, or the next year. So if you feel that much anxiety about making the decision, maybe now’s the time to do it while you still have your health and quality of life is good enough that we can do other things. So that’s basically what brought us to that decision.”