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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Basketball Scoring Champion
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: When I was at UCLA, all of my teammates were serious students -- well, not all of them, but most of them -- and that was because Coach Wooden expected that. He wanted us to graduate. He let us know in the recruiting process that he wanted us to go to class and do well. He was just like a parent, a strict parent. He wanted us to do well. He was not someone that was just there to exploit us as athletes, and I have a lot of respect and undying love for Coach Wooden for that reason. He was not just some cynical opportunist. He really tried to show the love and caring that he had for the people that played sports for him, that was very important.
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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Basketball Scoring Champion
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: I declined the invitation to go to the Olympics because I didn't feel that the Olympic situation was reality. Here we have this whole appearance of racial harmony on the American Olympic team when things weren't that harmonious here. In addition to that, I had a very good summer job that paid me a pretty good salary, and I needed that to tide me over for the school year, and I couldn't do both things. So I figured I had better go with what was going to benefit my life, as opposed to benefiting the Olympic movement, which I saw as very hypocritical.
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