Dikembe Mutombo

There are people out there dying every day, so when you wake up, you just have to thank the Man Upstairs for another day on this planet. There's not much else we can ask for.

I come from a large family, but I was not raised with a fortune. Something more was left me, and that was family values.

After I made it to the NBA, I said that I didn't want to be the last player from Africa. After my rookie year, I went to the league and talked about this, and they embraced my idea and started conducting basketball clinics in Africa, and that's when I knew I wouldn't be the last African.

If I had not played basketball and made the millions of dollars that I had made, I would never have been able to build a hospital in Congo. It started in 1997, and 10 years later I was able to unveil the Biamba Marie Mutombo Hospital, named after my mother, in my hometown outside of Kinshasa. It was such a blessing.

I just love kids. As a kid, I grew up in a poor country with a poor family that had nothing. I loved anyone who could come into my life, in from the outside, and give me advice that could help me succeed. I believe that there are a lot of people who came into my life that made me Dikembe Mutombo.

After spending more than 17 years playing for the NBA, in the summertime, I always came back to community service and different basketball clinics.