Bob Love grew up in poverty as one of fourteen children and lived in a 2 bedroom home in rural Louisiana. As a child and throughout his early life he was unable to do what most of us take for granted, speak properly. Love dreamed of one day making it to the NBA as a means to escape poverty. His story is one of rags to riches and an eduring faith in the Lord. This is Bob Love. This is his Purpose...

Deborah Martinez: I know that there's a lot that you have done for your communities and everybody; what are a few of them?
Bob Love: I'm a part of many groups out there. I'm on the board of directors of the brain and the Boys and Girls Club and I have spoken to over 250,000 kids all across the state. My main message to these young kids is education first and sports second. I always give them a couple of examples and tell them that the average NBA players going to play three years in the NBA; the average NFL player plays for two years and in any sport once you reach the age of 30 or considered an old man in the world of sports. I do a lot of positive things as I speak to kids I give them a model speech that I call food for thought. I always say there are three things in life that they'll never ever be able to change. Number one is the spoken word. When you say something mean about the person everyone may laugh and they think that's funny and you hurt this person and that person is can it be really sad. And he tell that person hey I'm sorry on science of that but it doesn't matter the word is spoken. Number two is the speed of a bullet. As we look at the news every day we see these young kids in high schools and junior high schools shooting each other, bringing guns. I always tell them once the trigger in a gun is pulled you will not be over reach out there and change the direction of that bullet. That bullet is gone forever. And the last one, number three, is missed opportunities. The only way that our young people are going to be ready for opportunities is to get that education because once they get it till number have to go around saying they won't let me do this and they won't let me do that. In real life no one is ever to let you do anything you have to take it. The only way that our young kids are debilitated is by getting as much education as they can get and then the skies limit.
I've been speaking to kids for about 12 years at the Boys and Girls Club and that basketball clinics. I always encourage kids get their education. Education is the key to life and it's the most important thing in life.

DM: Many people look up to you as a role model. Did you have a role model growing up?
BL: Yes my grandmother, my mother, my coaches and teachers in my high school, were my role models. All of them always stressed education first and sports second.

DM: What did you think was the hardest part about being a professional athlete?
BL: It wasn't a hard part; it was just a lot of fun. You get to travel across the country and meet many people. But if I would say there is a hard part, it was the training(physical). You had to run all day and when you got tired, you couldn't quit. You look at a lot of these people that run for recreation; they can run a mile and then they can quit and put their hands in the hip and say, “I’m tired.” However if you're a professional athlete you really have to keep going you cannot stop. If you stop you're not going to make it.

DM: Do you think it's different now for professional athletes than it was when you were playing?
BL: There are more people pulling them in different directions and these guys get more money than we did when I came into the NBA in 1965. My contract was for $8,000 per year and they gave me a $200 bonus. Now these guys walk around with $8,000 in their pocket. But when we played we actually played for the love of the game. We loved the game and we really respected each other. A lot of players really don't respect each other they tried to show up guys run an up and down the court, stick out their tongues and the play to the crowds. But it's a new day.

DM: Do you remember when you first fell in love with basketball?
BL: Well I don't know if I fell in love with basketball or not. It was a way out of the ghetto for me. I grew up in a small town in Louisiana where we had a two-bedroom house with 14 kids and only three beds and when nighttime came we had people sleeping up and down and across the bed.

DM: So when you were making your makeshift basketball hoops outside your house, were you thinking about it as a way out or just for fun?
BL: I wanted to win a scholarship to college because my grandparents were poor. I knew that if I didn't go to college I would spend the rest of my life in the mill in the cotton fields picking cotton, bailing hay, or picking strawberries and I really didn't want that life, so I just started playing sports. Football baseball and basketball. We didn't have any money to buy a real basketball or basketball goals. You had to have an imagination. I would go to my brothers’ closet and I would get this coat hanger and stretch it and make it round like a basketball goal. My first basketball was made out of my grandfathers smelly socks. It had a big hole in the toe. I got some grass, stuck in and then tied it up in made it round like a basketball. And you had to have a great imagination, plus back in those days we had no TVs, only radios. I would always imagine that I was playing against all the great players and I would beat them every time I played them.

DM: Do you have a most memorable moment as an athlete?
BL: The most memorable moment was for me was with the Chicago Bulls when I scored my 10,000th point. That was a moment that I would never thought I would reach. It seemed like a lot of points. That was a lot of lay-ups and jump shots. I ended up scoring over 12,000 points for the Chicago Bulls. I could've played longer but I injured my back when I went up for a lay-up and a guy ran under my leg and I fell on my back. This was the end of my career. I Always tell the young people, “you should get your education because the next play could be the last play, you never know.” In football those guys get hurt every game.

DM: Do you think that if athletes now were more involved in the community, their churches and family instead of going out and partying it would quell some of the negative stereotypes and there and would be less negativity surrounding athletes?
BL: Absolutely. I let the young people know that you can have all the money in the world and have all the fame and the world, but all of that can be taken away and one whisk, but one thing that cannot be taken away is your faith. Any hard situation that comes along you can handle it. No matter how much money you have. One of these days you can have a situation in life where money can't bail you out. You have to get on your knees and pray. If you notice all the young men that get in trouble, the Pac Man Jones and all those guys, none of them will get down on their knees and pray. They never go to church and always think, “hey I have all this money that can buy me out of trouble.” Money is not everything and I believe that if these young men were made to go to church at an early stage or age of their life they would have different values. They seem like they just don't have a values and it's all about money.

DM: Lastly if you could tell all the first-year pros one thing what would that one thing be?
BL: That one thing would be, always be a nice person because on your way up your going to pass a lot of people and once you reach the top there is always a time in life when you're going to have to retire. Once you retire, those same people that you pass on your way up that you may not have spoken to, you are going to have to pass those same people on the way back down and nobody is going to remember how many home runs you hit, how many touchdowns you scored or slam dunks made. However, people always remember whether or not you're a good person. If you're a good person you will have a wonderful, wonderful life! Each and every night before they go to bed urge them and encourage them to get on their knees and pray and thank the Lord, because without the Lord they wouldn’t have the talent and they wouldn't have the luck. You cannot say, “hey I did this on my own.” There had to be somebody watching over you in those crucial times.

DM: Thank you so much Mr. Love.
(At this point in the interview, Mr. Love stopped and stared at the table for one moment. Bob Love then looked up at Deborah Martinez and said, "Would you mind if I said one more thing?" You could really see that something very important was about to be spoken.)

BL: As I said, I go about the country and I speak to over 250,000 kids and I want to give them this one last thought. In their lifetime they will earn an average salary of their four closest friends. That means: if you want to be famous, you've got to hang out with famous people. If you want to be successful, you have to hang out with successful people. If you want to be smart, you hang out with smart people. And I always give them one example about a great football player that played for the Atlanta Falcons by the name of Michael Vick. He had a contract worth a $150 million. He had enough money to take care of all of his inheritors for the rest of their lives. But he had four friends who had dropped out of school and they didn't want to make that next step to be successful in their lives. They tried to hang on him and they got involved in something illegal, dog fighting. They got caught and the four friends told on Michael Vick, and now the four friends are in jail and they are earning zero. Michael Vick, with $150 million contract, is now in jail and he too, is earning zero. So in their lifetime they will earn the average salary of their four closest friends. So, when your parents say hey don't hang out with that person or that group the parents know exactly what they're talking about.

That is very important; birds of a feather to flock together.

SEASONS WITH BULLS:
11 (1968-1977)
JERSEY RETIRED:
01/14/94 at Chicago Stadium BULLS CAREER HIGHLIGHTS:
NBA All-Star 1971, 1972, 1973 … All-NBA Second Team 1970-71, 1971-72 … NBA All-Defensive Second Team 1971-72, 1973-74, 1974-75 … Led the Bulls in scoring for seven straight seasons … ranks third among Bulls all-time scorers (12,623 points) … currently serves as the Bulls Director of Community Affairs, making over 300 visits annually to schools, social service agencies and charity organizations.

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