卡尔·马龙/Karl Malone
As a young boy, I grew up with my eight siblings in a tin-roofed shack in Summerfield, Louisiana. I didn't see my circumstance as an obstacle, even though we didn't even have a real toilet in the house. I saw my life more as a card that had been dealt to me and I tried to make the most of it.
I was the youngest of five boys and also had four sisters who had to pull together and take care of each other. Dad wasn't around, so I never knew him well. He committed suicide when I was three years old, leaving Mom with the job of raising and providing for nine kids. She worked at a sawmill running a forklift for fifty dollars a week and had another job at a poultry plant. She was a very hard worker, and in order to make ends meet, she hardly ever rested.
My mom believed in doing all she could do to take care of her responsibilities, so no matter what, she never asked for a handout. You can imagine; we kids didn't get what we wanted, but we always got the things we needed. With my mom as my example, I learned that hard work is the best way to get what you want.
While growing up, I was surrounded with temptations to do negative things like drugs, alcohol and all that. I chose not to go there, even as a little boy, I knew I was going to be successful. Some people take that to be cocky or conceited, but I wasn't going to let anybody tell me that I couldn't do whatever I set out to do.
Of course, I dreamed about what I wanted to be when I grew up. At first, I wanted be a state trooper, then I wanted to be in the Special Forces. After a while, I decided that I wanted to drive eighteen-wheelers. There was even a period of time that I wanted to be in construction. I wanted to play football in high school; in fact, I still do. But regardless of what I chose, I wanted to make my brothers, sisters and mom proud of me—not only by being successful in what I chose to do, but also as a person who could be looked up to for the right reasons.