Off The Court
Tim Duncan has two older sisters, Cheryl and Tricia Like their younger brother, they were gifted athletes: Cheryl was a championship swimmer before she became a nurse, and Tricia swam for the U.S. Virgin Islands at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul.
Duncan married his wife Amy in 2001 and the couple had their first child, daughter Sydney, in the summer of 2005. They had a second child, a son, during the summer of 2007. Amy oversees the Tim Duncan Foundation, which has been established to serve the areas of health awareness/research, education, and youth sports/recreation in San Antonio, Winston-Salem, and the United States Virgin Islands. The foundation holds two major fundraisers each year: the annual Tim Duncan Bowling for Dollar$ Charity Bowl-A-Thon and the annual Slam Duncan Charity Golf Classic. Between 2001 and 2002, the foundation raised more than $350,000 to help fight breast and prostate cancer. In those two years, Duncan was named by Sporting News as one of the "Good Guys" in sports. The Spurs captain also supports the Children's Bereavement Center, the Children's Center of San Antonio and the Cancer Therapy and Research Center.
Duncan cites his late mother Ione as his main inspiration. Among other things, she taught him and his sisters the nursery rhyme "Good, Better, Best. Never let it rest / Until your Good is Better, and your Better is your Best," which he adopted as his personal motto. On and off the court, he believes that the three most important values are dedication, teamwork and camaraderie. The Spurs captain has also stated that he chose #21 for his jersey because that was his brother-in-law's college number, since he was Duncan's main basketball inspiration, and cites Hall-of-Fame Los Angeles Lakers point guard Magic Johnson as his childhood idol.
For his mixture of success and low-key personality, Duncan has been honored with the Virgin Islands Medal of Honor, the highest award bestowed by the Virgin Islands territorial government, and has been celebrated in several "Tim Duncan Day" ceremonies. In 2000, Legislature of the Virgin Islands President Vargrave Richards of St. Croix said: "He is a quiet giant. His laid-back attitude is the embodiment of the people of St. Croix, doing things without fanfare and hoopla."
Regarding his own personality, Duncan compares himself to Will Hunting of the movie Good Will Hunting, which centers around the genial and antagonistic character of Will Hunting, portrayed by Matt Damon. He stated: "I'm just a taller, slightly less hyperactive version of the Damon character in the movie. I really enjoyed how he probed people and found out their weaknesses just by asking questions and stating outlandish remarks." He also admitted shunning the limelight because " is not me." Off the court, he has stated that his best friend is former Spurs colleague Antonio Daniels, who describes Duncan as a cheerful, funny person off the hardwood.
Duncan loves Renaissance fairs and the fantasy role playing game Dungeons & Dragons. An avid video game player, he acknowledges a certain joy of playing "himself" on basketball video games. Duncan states if he had the chance, he would challenge NBA legends Wilt Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to a one-on-one game.
The satirical newspaper The Onion has repeatedly poked fun of Duncan's low key and cerebral reputation and its contradiction with the stereotype of outlandish celebrity athlete behavior with headlines such as "Tim Duncan Hams It Up For Crowd By Arching Left Eyebrow Slightly," "Tim Duncan Offers To Do Taxes For Entire Spurs Team," "Tim Duncan Autobiography Reveals He Is Friends With 10,000 Women" (a parody of Wilt Chamberlain's famous claim) and "Tim Duncan Announces Shoe Deal With Florsheim."
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“To take revenge halfheartedly is to court disaster: Either condemn or crown your hatred.”
—Pierre Corneille (1606–1684)