![]() We know Jay Will to be one of the most electric guards I’ve ever seen. These younger people only see Jay Williams as the guy on TV. I was better than I thought I was.ĮC: People don’t know. I literally cried like, “I don’t want to go.” I just fell in love with it. That was the best thing that ever happened. I think the day before, they said I should do it. The coach came out, and the rest is history. My friend Armon Gates, whose brother Dennis Gates just became the head coach at Missouri, saw me play and said I needed to come play with his AAU team. She said, “Eddy doesn’t play basketball.” Eventually, my aunt found out, and she called my mom. I told her I was staying after school to do extra work. I was so embarrassed to play that I didn’t tell my mom I was on the team. One of the coaches pretty much made me play on the team in seventh grade. I really tried to stay away from basketball because I wasn’t skilled at all. ![]() In school, I was playing the trombone because I had long arms. You’re dreaming big.ĮC: I got into basketball around sixth or seventh grade. Not only play, but start, be in the playoffs and win a championship. I think it’s hard to tell a kid no to that.īy the time you’re in a position to be a possible lottery pick, you’re somewhere in your mind competitively thinking I could play on that level. I think we all grow up and say, “I want to buy my mom a house and do things so my mom doesn’t have to work again.” In the blink of an eye, you’re able to do that. I know that’s a lot of pressure on a kid, but that’s the reality of it. It seems like everything is hinging on you. You grow up in these neighborhoods, and it just seems like there’s no way out. I know what it was like for me and to be able to provide that type of relief for my family. It was such a new thing, and it was like the flood gates had opened, everyone was trying to do it, and trying to decipher who was going to get picked and who was going to lose their college eligibility and not get drafted, which would cause a horrible situation for a lot of young men. I don’t think they knew how to deal with it at the time. What I mean by that is the programming they have and the people they make accessible to you now. I think the league is a lot more equipped for it now. Unfortunately for me, we didn’t do that until my last year there.ĮC: Yeah. I felt like if we could somehow win, maybe we’d know how it feels. It was mostly because these people had already bought these tickets in advance. Going to the game, right away, you realized the effect MJ had on the organization because we were horrible, but it was always packed in the United Center. My whole high school, I hated Tyson, and I’m sure he hated me also. Everybody hyped this thing up between me, Tyson, and Kwame (Brown) because we were all trying to be professionals and go for the No. It was a different day and age than it is now. I hadn’t quite become friends with Tyson yet because in high school, we were enemies. Jamal was coming off an ACL repair, so he was at the hotel. I was living out of a hotel with a gate that separated the Berto Center. When I got to the Bulls, that was my guy. That was the first NBA player that talked to me and tried to befriend me. In regards to playing for the Bulls after Jordan, it hit me right away because growing up, I went to a few games, and even the year before that, I went to a game, and I first met Jamal Crawford. I hung out with my friends, went to the mall, and did kid stuff. I would literally go to practice and go right back to my mom’s house. I was 45 minutes to an hour from my mom’s house, where I grew up. The practice facility was way past downtown on the north end of Illinois. As a kid in Chicago, I never went past downtown. It was a lot of iHop and Bennigan’s at the time (laughs).ĮC: I went to New York for the draft, and I came right back home. It’s not like we could sneak into a club. At 18, everybody knows you and knows you’re not supposed to be there. I get to Chicago, and I can’t go to a club. That’s why I’m working so hard now to show her that she made the right decision, even 20 years later. I truly am happy that she gave me a chance. I used to joke that I was a cub, and she was a little older than me. That was a challenge, and she didn’t make it easy for me. I was used to dealing with high school girls. I was like, “Pete, can you talk to her for me and tell her that I like her? Ask her if we can go to dinner or a movie.” I didn’t even know where to take a woman. I’m probably a couple of years away from sending a note to a girl saying, “Hey, do you like me? Circle yes or no.” I was using all my resources to get her to know I liked her. I’m asking everybody, “Who’s that?” That’s how it started. ![]() At the time, BJ Armstrong was working there and Pete Myers. ![]() When I got drafted by Chicago, I’d see her every day. EC: Patrice was working at the Berto Center, which was the practice facility for the Bulls. ![]()
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