Newsmakers

  • ‘Splash’ Star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s Career After Basketball: ‘For Me, It Was Necessary’

    By Abbie Boudreau, Mary-Rose Abraham and Alexis Shaw | Newsmakers – Thu, Apr 4, 2013

    Basketball legend and ABC "Splash" star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is not one to blend into the background. The 7 foot 1 and a half foot star continues to make headlines through each incarnation of his professional and personal career, years after he dominated the basketball court as a UCLA Bruin, Milwaukee Buck and Los Angeles Laker.

    But his impressive resume includes successes beyond basketball. How many other professional athletes can also claim to be published authors, filmmakers, movie stars, cultural ambassadors and public speakers?

    "It's great to have success in more than one area, for me it was necessary," Abdul-Jabbar said in a "Newsmakers" interview for ABC News/Yahoo! News. "When my basketball career was over, what was I going to do with my life?"

    In his latest career move, Abdul-Jabbar is trying his hand at diving, challenging himself at a sport in which his height is considered a disadvantage.

    "It's like at this age, I want to see what I can do," he said. "So I'm giving everyone

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  • Baseball Hall-of-Famer Cal Ripken, Jr. was blessed with the talent and good fortune to spend the better part of his adult life playing what some would call a child’s game. It is perhaps no surprise, then, that Ripken should devote so much of his post-playing career to developing young players, to helping young people grow up in the game.

    Ripken helped construct a ballpark in his hometown of Aberdeen, Md., founded the Ripken Youth Baseball Academy, and recently penned “Wild Pitch,” his third novel for young audiences (with Baltimore Sun sports columnist Kevin Cowherd).

    “Wild Pitch,” like Ripken’s other books, tells the story of a talented child trying to find his way in the game of baseball. It is a subject with which Ripken is intimately acquainted; his roots in the game run deep, for in a sense, baseball was his third parent. Ripken’s father, Calvin, Sr., was a player and coach, and this was something of a mixed blessing. Cal, Jr. remembers, “It was kind of exciting to be

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