Early Life
Olajuwon was born to Salim and Abike Olajuwon, middle-class Yoruba owners of a cement business in Lagos, Nigeria. "Olajuwon" translates to "always being on top" in Yoruba. He was the third of six children. He credits his parents with instilling virtues of hard work and discipline into him and his siblings; "They taught us to be honest, work hard, respect our elders, and believe in ourselves". Olajuwon has expressed displeasure at his childhood in Nigeria being characterized as backwards. "Lagos is a very cosmopolitan city...There are many ethnic groups. I grew up in an environment at schools where there were all different types of people."
During his youth, Olajuwon was a soccer goalkeeper, which helped give him the footwork and agility to balance his size and strength in basketball, and also contributed to his shot-blocking ability. Olajuwon did not play basketball until the age of 15, when he entered a local tournament. However, he quickly became taken with the game: "Basketball is something that is so unique. That immediately I pick up the game and, you know, realize that this is the sport for me. All the other sports just become secondary."
Read more about this topic: Hakeem Olajuwon
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“Franklin said once in one of his inspired flights of malignity—
Early to bed and early to rise
Make a man healthy and wealth and wise.
As if it were any object to a boy to be healthy and wealthy and wise on such terms.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“Culture is the name for what people are interested in, their thoughts, their models, the books they read and the speeches they hear, their table-talk, gossip, controversies, historical sense and scientific training, the values they appreciate, the quality of life they admire. All communities have a culture. It is the climate of their civilization.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)