Dwyane Wade: The G.O.A.T. of Parenting | I AM ATHLETE w/ Brandon Marshall, Ryan Clark & More

am i fresh though yeah dawg listen i appreciate you let me know you only wore those once or twice ain't no more bro i just took the damn cardboard out the toe that's a middle school first day outfit so is that the joint where you don't want to you know when you want to bend it when you walk on your heels that's that joint right there i wouldn't even weigh them in here and put these on right as you walk in like [ __ ] let me put my door i'm sitting there already just slid your feet in them got the shoes this morning yeah and then and the shirt and the hat oh my god i had to get over there man i had to put a hole in the other side hey hey channing when you was driving over to you was like i'm finna kill him today bro i told my wife sleep in the damn guest room i laid this out next to me that's why i keep airing it out like i just passed gas was it the folded joint or was it on a hanger because you know you got two different ones you got the ones you could get right here and those always have the line in the photo was gonna have the line it had a line in it right but when you had a line on both sides they forty dollars there was seventy dollars oh i was sitting on the rack beautiful and i looked at it and i you know what i heard when i saw it i said i heard it spoke to you he spoke to it what we gotta do to get him some way a ways bruh that's all we need that's all we need cause he been in them jordan fusion they've been tearing his ass up that's why he bought these yo what's up what size we rocking what size we wearing i'm a 12 i'm a 12. okay we got 12s we got 12. once you go over my size we ain't got them you you didn't go there they don't make it but after 14 and a half they like ah we got the material bro can because you were way i mean you was with converse i was i started with converse and then you went to jordan yeah i got you jordans okay i'm miami bro oh six i got down here oh five it was i got the george and then you went with ling nings man i don't want to get beat up in the house i like the fact that you said it right cause it's totally new people saying i don't want to get beat up like what was it money or what like bro i can't go to the hood with lena i'm just asking all right okay so i'm again let me give you the real let me get you the real so so growing up chicago kid right michael jordan is my favorite player always wanted to wear jordans i mean who who don't right so when i got to the nba i was they didn't think enough of me to give me a deal at the time so i signed with converse which is under the nike umbrella still and i signed uh i want to sign a seven-year deal with converse eventually and then at some point in that deal it was like yo converse was kind of going a different route i'm like cool well i'm going jordan and nike and he was like you know jordan reached out he wanted me to come to jordan so perfect i finally got to jordan i did three years of jordan but being there as a businessman i seen what jordan was doing and i was like well instead of making money for mj let me go make a little money for myself and so i started like thinking differently and then i had an opportunity at 30 years old i was already older i just already won a championship so i was already established um and lenin canning me with an opportunity to kind of build my own brand kind of like jordan has done with nike and i was like i can't pass up on this just for some cool retros you know what i mean like at this point like my jordans ain't selling really it's the retros because i'm dropping to jordan on the july first jordan dropping a retro on the seven ain't nobody buying the flyweight ain't nobody but i know fly away that's what i was that's what i got the fly away so i decided to go off and build my own and try to create my own legacy and so i was able to do that with leaning and trying to have my own way brand which my guy over here know a little bit about i love him and kind of build my own thing yeah so you can wear him in the hood we got i still got a like one hood strike bro first off you were fusions in the hood so that means you had the ones the twenties and the fourteens on at one time if you don't get beat up for that you know what's gonna get beat up for them shoes they killed me for the fusions man you can't wear the jordan with the air force one bottom i didn't know no but bro what he's doing right now it you know no everybody want him that's the problem i have with you is like why are you making it so hard for us to cop the new way of ways like seriously every time i see you depose some [ __ ] on his instagram yeah i'm like come on dawg i need those we can't get them you can't get them yeah where do we get them from china [Laughter] you want us to go to china bro i'll give you the connect hey hey hey finally after a couple years i was like bro come on now like i'll give you my credit card bro like he was sending it to me he made cleats for me my last year i did he made cleats for me even when i went to the saints i had black and gold cleats i had everything and they ain't touch the field give me my last couple it was metal that was in yeah they was there bro crispy i still got him he did that but then he got to a point i was like bro here's my credit card just tell me who i need so i got to connect i'll give it to you after the show so i need it but i'm i'm gonna change gears really quick um we talk about fans of the show right i'm athlete the authenticity the organic feel uh we keep it all the way 100 right so so for that no layups we we're going to call this episode no layups that's okay i like the dunk anyway yeah i like the body the body you mentioned your favorite player growing up chicago was michael jordan is your favorite teammate i mean that's that's a tough question right there that's why we're here because your favorite teammate is not normally the names that people know so it's not normally the star players right everybody want me to say lebron that's the easy thing to do but your favorite you want to say lebron no no i'm explaining what's your favorite teammate your favorite teammate is normally that guy when you come off the court you cursing to yourself because you're the miss five in a row and he didn't want to come over to be like hey bro right hey you good man you wanted the greatest and it was true this guy right the guy that when you come to huddle that don't really play that much but can go off on the whole team and you respect them so my favorite teammate over the years was never necessary to name players it was more so like the guys that can can can come in and have that respect and not even be playing on the court so like james jones was my favorite teammate you know uh and i played with some of my friends growing up quinton richardson he was one of my idols growing up and even though he was only a few years older than me i got a chance to play with him he was one of my favorite teammates darrell wright like you think the stars right udonis has my favorite teammate of all time right so ud's number one ud's number one and because i didn't have to worry about you guys came in together we came in together but whenever i was in the club whenever i was out anywhere in miami whenever i was on the court you did have my back and so we we started building a brotherhood you know what i'm saying dude obviously we got clothes we want championships together you know i mean we did all that but like off the court i ain't never had to worry about nothing in miami because it's like yo you d got me what is it about you d though like because we see it on instagram the family vacations all of that what makes ud special why is he the number one guy he's just real you know you guys know when y'all meet somebody who's real they're authentic you know what i'm saying ud is that he's real he's gonna he wears emotions on his sleeve he is who he is we built a relationship when we first came in we came to miami miami wasn't a basketball town it's a football town the dolphins and all that we built the relationship early as two kids that come from the inner city that have mothers that you know live the life that was you know in the drug gang right in the drug industry my mom was incarcerated my mom did drugs for so many years me and ud kind of met each other in that space like listen this is what we come from and this is what we're trying to accomplish and we both went on that journey for 16 years together trying to accomplish something greater than anybody in our family have ever done so it started there in the mutiny hotel in miami where we learned each other and then now it grew into like this is my brother we go to china together we go worldwide together you know what i mean whatever it is like we're learning about business together you know what i'm saying and so forth and so on so like outside anything that's my brother you know we built that y'all got y'all got i just quick uh shameless plug i think they called 800 degrees because i mean my family over there to that to the water park right there by your spot bro yeah well thank you appreciate the shame you know what i'm saying what you say again 800 degrees we want to talk about way of weights we want to talk about stan socks we want to talk about your wine we're going to talk about all of that okay shameless plug okay i am athlete hey man we're here won't y'all stop being so nice though right because one they're gonna hit me with the soft ones first i want to name lebron as is who's the goat as you see it and hold on you want to go right here right to the goal what was your what was your what was your clothes why did you wear those clothes rc well cause see i didn't know if d wade was gonna need a simple reminder about where he was from right right about about the reason everybody in his city hooped right about the reason i was outside and from my yard with the with the the backboard that was made out of wood jumping with this hand trying to switch to this hand in 1992 right sometimes you play the game a long time and you start to forget things so i said maybe i need to remind them of the color oh wait i could do one better i could wear the first shoes them the ones ain't it so i'ma see them the ones if if he needed this or was he smart enough to come with the right answer i'ma drink his wine while i do it i just want to know where you get the jacket from did you get that custom-made did you had it hanging up in the closet like where you get that from jack who's name in it it's hard i wore this i wore this for you though is that satin or satin it said so it's kind of like it's kind of like it's kind of like the stripe on your tuxedo pants that only basketball players would wear would wear with volleyball socks you feel me like it it kind of like you're sad straight inside a new pants my dog [Music] 1999 2000 that was a thing in a basketball community you go back you remember the atlanta celtics the hoop aau team you remember no y'all remember the celtics celtics that was the thing the james the jane fonda yeah little billy blanks let's go with billy blake let's get a black man billy blanks everybody none of these i'm gonna redirect this thing man because we ain't got a whole lot of time he he's the legend you feel me who the [ __ ] can go michael jordan okay listen listen this is the lebron is one of my my good friends i have so much respect for what he's doing now what he's done and what he would eventually do because he's not done yet so it's definitely i'm gonna say this it would definitely be an argument that would need to be had if lebron james ended up the number one scorer of all time top five in assists and top five in rebounds and have four or five six championships you cannot do nothing but have the conversation of who's the greatest of all time the conversation's already happening well the conversation has been happening but it's not really it's not good lebron's still playing it's hard to have that conversation about the greatest of all time when a man is still putting on his jersey right but when he's done his his his lineup his statistical lineup is going to be the greatest that's ever played the game when it comes to scoring assists rebounds so for and so on i'll come from a jordan era i am biased and i'm going to be a bias to the day i passed away michael jordan will be my always loved you i love you even more he would be my goal but that doesn't mean i'm not taking anything away from lebron lebron is amazing but michael jordan is my goal i play basketball because of michael jordan yeah but bro y'all know how it is and the locker room is different like y'all won championships together and and i to me that this is the number one question i had because i see you on tnt and i see you tweeting instagram anytime the conversation come up you're like he's my goat mj he's my goat but you got mj that's your teammate man you're on a banana boat together you know what i'm saying so does that ever get you got to be super cool to get on a banana boat with other grown men you got to be really you got to be really close you got to be really close that doesn't get awkward where it's like you know you are publicly saying this is my goat and everybody else in the world is talking about who's the goat not for me i think if my thing is like this is a real conversation right you you are all of us have our own individual opinions this has nothing to do with like i said once lebron james is done playing this game of basketball i'm definitely gonna tell my grandkids grandkids grandkids kids kids that i played with one of the greatest to play the game of basketball he will be the goat for a lot of generations i started playing the game because of michael jordan he will be my goal until the day i pass away it doesn't take anything away from lebron this is just like lebron we started playing we we envision playing like michael jordan so for me from chicago where i grew up i made it out the hood because i seen a dude number 23 played a game of basketball at a level that i was like i just want to do some of that so it doesn't to me it doesn't take anything away from lebron lebron will be the goat of this generation that has watched him grow up just like we watched michael jordan kind of grow and and go into what we call a go that's why i always say my goat this is not personal bronze my guy but jordan is my goat so you retired at 37. lebron is 36 turns 37 i believe in december yeah man um how's he still like what makes him special and even when you talk about mileage and how you know how he's doing it night in and night out where you talk about usage rate you talk about you know um low management he ain't doing what kawhi he's doing he ain't doing with these other kd and i love kd i love kyrie but you know kd just took off a d hurt so lebron got to take on more with la right now right so like what makes him special you know you had that ins yeah this dude up there he left the hospital with more than everybody oh bro listen bro brandon this dude up there out the womb bro his shopping cart of talent when he was born was bigger than everybody's though he gave him everything the dude behind lebron he don't have nothing yeah but get but you got to give me more man because we know what goes into it the sport science how we train how we eat how we sleep et cetera et cetera yeah what are we not seeing that you saw yeah here's the thing like you said we know about taking care of your body what do you put in your body nutrition right that's why i have a chef right you guys have a chef for the show right we understand about putting your body we understand about the the training that you need is athletes farm athletes we understand the training that you need well everybody except ocho right okay so besides the guy who eat mcdonald's every day which none of us can do we understand about that but ultimately man i've watched i've watched this guy and i see him take care of his body i see him own it 100 but i also know that guys can roll the ankle and be out four weeks i've seen this guy roll his ankle and come back and give you about 20 in the fourth quarter i'm talking about a bad road ankle and i'm like oh he's done he come right back i'm out four weeks with this row ankle he come right back fourth quarter score 20. right it's a it was like when when god made him he was like i'm gonna give you all this i'm gonna take everything but i'm gonna take one thing from him and i'm gonna need no lining but i'm gonna give you everything else that's what i'll tell brad i'm like he gave you everything he gave him everything he just said i'm gonna just take this one but when is he gonna let it go though no he listen long as he got money ain't letting he too rich to let it go do you think he'd carry in his pocket the goat conversation does he want to be better than mj he said he's the goat uh was it when he went after the bubble when he won it yeah i mean who unless you want to be the goat most people want to be the goat and you can't get there right right we fall short we run out of talent i ran out of talent injuries or whatever lebron is actually there do you think that takes away do you think having this conversation sometimes takes away from what lebron has accomplished yes because he's not done and we're talking about everything he's doing now right we talk about the goat the greatest of all time that's when a player is done and now you can put their resume versus the next resume right now we've been we've been talking about lebron as a goat since 2010. we're 2021. this man still got another five years of play if he you know god willing he don't get hurt so like what i said he will be a goat someone's gonna say lebron's might go hands down nothing else just like i say jordan's my goat it's generational goats that's what people gotta understand it's a lot of great players that play sports but it's errors of goats and everyone want to make one goal it's impossible to make one goat because as great as lebron is it will be another this is just the way the game is this is the way the world works it will be another person that come in and become someone's goat and then there's the bill russell's because he'll say championships and all that so he got 11 and all that we know that lebron's headline has zero championships but it got a lot better it got a lot better but does he no no he bought that hairline we all know what if you got money you could buy anything listen women doing it why we can't do it his headline don't have no championships but it for sure got a lot of comeback players of the year because it bounced back from miami to now l.a i saw the space jam promos it's come bro bro it is the alex smith of basketball that's cgito that's computer generated here that man whole back is bald he's rich but as long as he got that bag he could have some hair to get to you though best shooting guard ever michael jordan i don't want joy no and they got kobe and they got wade and then you have ray allen under that you got a.i you got a bunch of dudes are you okay being behind michael jordan and kobe when you see all the lists when you see all that you the third best shooting guard of all time that's cool with you yeah that's all right i'm cool with that no argument no arguments man listen i'm a kid just like you i'm a kid from the inner city of chicago all right i was never supposed to be here i'm sure like most of us and when you have a conversation about the greatest to play the game in any what is overall what is position based and you can be anywhere in the top conversation with someone mentioning your name bro that is a win that's a win so for me i hear oh dway's the third best shooting guard that's cool i may be the fourth i may be the fifth or maybe the six one day you're still gonna have my name in the conversation so that's i don't care about the number i just care that you respect my game and what i brought to the game enough that you put me in a conversation i'm cool with that i mentioned lebron continuing to play and uh we know about the decision and the the scrutiny and everything that kind of went around that but your decision to go from you weren't ready to to retire when you left miami yeah i was bro i was pissed i was like come on man we got to do something did you piss at me no i wasn't okay that's cool i'm a big fan a lot of people was pissed at me though like i know how to moderate i know how the business goes i know the whole thing and again you're a kid with you know a sparkle in your eye you had an opportunity to go back and play in front of your hometown because you weren't ready to retire what prompted that decision i don't want to talk about cleveland you shouldn't have never been in cleveland fred he didn't want to leave fred he went to cleveland for a year i mean you know chicago for a year let's not talk about that no i can understand chicago but i want to know his mindset or maybe we can ask him both both yes we can talk about both bro you left miami you was in chicago for a year went to cleveland for six months you were gone 19 months i looked up i had to get the number why did you leave you shouldn't left miami bro you the baddest thing i just watched something on instagram earlier when you jump on the the little announcer's table somebody this is my house when you stole the ball and hit the little running three why would you leave miami and why who i don't want to say fault but we know pat and we know the money and to be honest i'm down here i do radio i know they prioritize hassan white size 98 million dollar deal over your deal 47 million dollars in chicago i want to get into it dee get into it why did you leave miami why did you leave miami and you're on your barbara walters [Laughter] i got those [ __ ] what happened when you left miami because you you should have never left bro over alonzo over all the people pat and everybody shacking all them boys dwyane wade is miami heat basketball you should never have left here for 19 months and came right back what happened let's go wade county we're waiting we should say no layups no waiting you guys know it's business man and as much as we're told as much as we want to think that it's wade county and it's my team this is my house it ain't my house because when it come down to it when it come down to negotiations when it comes down to contract when it comes down to money now it's a value put on you right right and so now the value that's put on you come back to you sometimes you're like that's what you think of me that's all i'm worth you know so i think when it came down to it for me as i understood one thing chad i understood that when shaq came i knew the lure of shaq and everything he brought but i understood what i meant to to organization and team and we won that first championship lebron came i took a step back i took less money but understood what i meant to bring everything together it don't work without me right and then when lebron left for me it was time for me to get my just due and i was still good enough i was still giving you 20 a night in all this right but i also understood that those small businesses around the arena and that's downtown and south beach and it's all around they all are making money because people are coming to see the kid i also understood that people are coming into the arena to see me as well so i understand what i bring to the city and so i wouldn't take less and once i heard less coming back from what i felt i was woke i wouldn't take it i'm raising young kids i'm raising young men i'm raising young women if i want to tell them that this is how they should conduct themselves and handle business and stand up for themselves and so forth and so on i had to lead so for me i had to stand up for myself and say listen guys i understand this is what y'all want to offer me but i'm worth more than that and i know my worth and my worth is not whatever the contract was offered to me and that's not taking away anything from what's on white side that's not taking anything away from the heat trying to be players in in in um in free agency but ultimately i out of everybody should have been taken care of first yeah they made a mistake because he ain't done [ __ ] since let me take care of it i'm not saying nothing about anybody else i know but i'm gonna say i'm gonna say he ain't done the thing i ain't worried about him but it was more so this happened more than one summer this was over multiple summers i didn't just leave because my feelings was hurt because of one summer i didn't get paid okay okay but right there that's that's that's that's the most intriguing part about this part of the conversation is that why didn't it get out because we talk about being a businessman and you say you're raising sons and daughters and and and like there's a way you got to con you like this how we do business why why didn't we hear about that you know i i mean i'm interested to hear that part of it because you left you know you felt that type of way the heat felt some type of way and then you end up coming back mm-hmm why didn't we hear about me with the reasons that happened correct because a lot of guys wear the emotions on their sleeves yeah a lot of guys like you know what they want they want people they want people to know that it's not them right like that's the one thing especially in the society we live in now like it wasn't me i wanted to be here they treated me like that or like this and then what brandon's asking too which i want to know is after that happens you come back though yeah like what type of grown-up grown man conversation yeah yeah right has to happen to get wade county back you feel me well here's the thing though as much as and i'm this kind of person is i understand people's fault in things i always look at my what could i have done better in that situation right because it was wade county maybe i could have taken a little step back and looked at it differently or had a different conversation with upper management about my role in like the future right pride and ego definitely comes in play i was pissed my pride and my ego was hurt and so i'm not saying i made a decision based on that but that definitely was a part of it now before i decided to leave i got offered the contract that i asked for previously right you know i mean like previously before that i sat down with management and i asked for all i wanted was three more years to play at 60 million dollars i wanted 20 million dollars a year and it sounds like a lot because i'm talking to the cameras but in our sport in our sport what everything was going even though you guys agent at that time the guys was making 25 30 million then i knew that the money was going up right i knew the tv money was going up and guys are going to make what they're making now 40 30 40 million so i from everything that i felt like i gave that i deserve that's what i asked for now they had different plans it's a business i understand that and so they did what they needed to do and i played that season on a one-year deal for 20 million which was a lot of money and i balled out i got us one game away from the east conference finals i'm ready to keep going and keep this going they had other plans so when they had other plans i had to look out for myself and that's when i decided to be a free agent for the first time uh since 2010 and go out and find the best opportunity to do for me and my family you know i mean miami was my family and i wanted to be here i wanted to be one of those guys that played their whole career here but when it got down to it it just wasn't done the correct way for me and i had to i had to go we got soccer players premier league 10 million followers 20 million followers that follow us repost everything we're doing nfl players nba players and it's like free game but isn't it amazing that we're talking about d wade and you talked about d wade as you know bigger than anybody in basketball in miami the way he's bigger than anybody in sports in miami it's the wayne wade and moreno is the argument in miami because dwayne has three championships and reno has zero right they were both great that's that's the miami hierarchy pat riley falls in there somewhere but bro you're the big dog that's why i had to ask you about leaving so that's why i asked him about leaving i didn't want to leave i've been this is this is my house right i didn't want to leave but you guys know when it come down to the bottom line when it comes down to business it gets real and that's what a lot of people don't own fans don't really understand the business of the game we understand that hey you know this guy is scoring they giving him all the things he wanted it looks on the outside it looks like it should be automatic that this guy finished his career here what a business came up and the business came up to what where at the end of the day i was older i i wasn't as as good as i once was right it was all it's always the next person the next young guy coming in with his hassan whiteside who's got triple doubles whatever the case may be they always looking to better their team as businessman and i wasn't in the number one or number two or possibly number three person on their checklist now what i meant to miami and without what i felt i deserve they didn't feel the same way respect to them for that because i'm a businessman but i gots to go that simple as that yeah but they got it right though they got it right they figured it out because i'm gonna say it like this man if i'm the owner of an organization there's once in a lifetime type of talent that comes in your door and they punch their own tickets uh take tickets out of the out of the city and you tom brady lebron james there's only a couple guys that can do that so i feel like they made the wrong you know decision and then they end up getting it right towards the end of the season you know that's how i feel about it but here's the thing b marshall the money that i asked for previous right when i wanted that three year 60 million or whatever case may be and i got the one year 20. i was offered that the next summer i was positioned with that same number two years 40 million whatever it was that next summer and by the time i had to take all of that to get there well by time i was positioned with it i was gone physically mentally here's my here's an important question for me because i look at you a lot of times as a father and i'm i'm constantly trying to learn right and you talked about you had kids you had a son right you had an older son that hooped right what part did that play in your decision that respect for yourself and that teachable moment to him yeah i mean that's y'all bringing this up chef nancy hi what's up what's up how are you before we get in that you know uh wade and d wade and gabby they you know they're in the fashion they post stuff every week every day every 10 minutes every day what's going on what's the inspiration behind this outfit yeah i don't know i wanted to have some warm colors normally i wear a lot of black but i'm feeling happy and and the um spring is coming i got to get springy so chef before we get into the history lesson talk to us about what we eat and what we haven't we have thai curry today thai curry shrimp with jasmine rice so let me give you a history lesson chef nancy we got d wade on the show yes all right how did you get to here you know what i mean talk to us about because his chef chef richard that he just talked about approving everything that he eats you know what i mean what role did he play in where you're at today he played an intricate part in why i'm here today how i became a private chef is because chef richard opened up a company of private chefs and i auditioned for him and he gave me my first shot i wouldn't be here standing here today if it wasn't for rich wow support support and then so so that moment when chef richard because we i think he's i mean i mean he's a brand and a business and himself and just famous a lot of people know him because of uh d wade and gabby but there's so many other things that he's doing and the murals and how cities are paying homage to you know what he's done for our community and then other chefs he's a big bit of a big deal in the chef he is a big deal and i think we know that but like i want you specifically so you started with that one moment you interviewed with him and then what did that turn into because like a lot of times we don't see the trickle-down effect right like one person that one decision they make how it can impact somebody else's life well he i auditioned with him in january and by maybe like second week of february i was in the kitchen with kelly rowland and that was through him um from there i had antro roll which was one of new york giants and that's how i got to you and then it's basically i say a secret society because you have to know someone so he like put me in that in this secret society basically would you would you say would you say he's that one of the og's in the game oh definitely definitely okay so you know and you know i got to get messages but we're the same chef richard he's off to the side i got to get messy messy i got to get messy you know we got let me speak and 55.50 we got protected the the nest and we got ocho versus science my thing is let me get messy who's a better chef so let me just tell you this let me get messy chan let me just i ain't a part of this i ain't a part of them yeah come on come here [Applause] what you say i got to leave okay there's a car outside there's a car outside for me okay i'll be right there how is it yeah it's good job it's cool it's cool hey don't you act like we're asking you who better lebron michael don't you do that let me speak so here's the thing there's two different styles of cooking i'm from the northeast so i cook in the northeastern style he's from the south he has a southern style but i learned a lot of things from him and he also taught me that everything is doable like you know like he just creates a lot of stuff that my my brain wouldn't even think about creating and yes he's og but oh here we go here we go so am i no no but um because we're the same age but nancy came to uh we were looking for a chef in new york and uh contacted her and i had her to come too because what we would do is we would rent out these penthouses that had kitchens so the chefs would have somewhere to prepare the food nancy came in and she had the least amount of material out of anybody she had some chicken and some other things i don't even remember what else she had but it was a chicken and she came in the truffle chicken truffle and she came in and she put that chicken in the pan and then turned the fire on and i looked at it and i was like man technique right off the rip and she proceeded to cook and as she cooked we talked remember and she was able to cook and talk and just have a great conversation and her spirit was just something like i hadn't experienced before and when she finished preparing that chicken and she gave it to me i ate it the skin was so crispy so flavorful christmas man i ate that thing and what i do i had you to make me a whole [Laughter] and another told my business partner i said it's a wrap i said it's a wrap you know and nancy is what every and you can attest to this every athlete when you go from your hometown to a new city you're looking for somebody to make you feel like home you know you're looking for somebody that that's going to take care of you and from the time i met her she's always taking care of me you know and and through her food you know and through her actions she's so selfless and you know the first time i ever saw her up here talking i almost passed out because you know that that is not what she does no no no no i'm pulling me a chef stick with me i ain't gonna tell you what she did she want a good morning america chef you would have been proud of her she dropped her website her seasonings and boom business i've seen the seasoning you see yes you would have been proud all right you're right there that's this is not who chef is she's super shy but i want to get back to you really quick where are you trying to push the industry because it just seems like when i look at you and i follow your page like you're you're on a mission what what is that mission what are you trying to do in the community with the you know in the whole cooking game well what i what i've always wanted to do was to provide a platform for for our people to be able to strive and to and just to show what we have um this industry has not given us a fair shot at all um be it in a restaurant be it as a private chef anything dealing with food food came from us you know we don't have to look at a recipe to put something down on the plate and make it taste good everything has been stolen from us so what i'm doing is in my my business partner myself what we're doing is we're taking it back and we're not doing it boastfully we're just doing it a piece at a time a piece at a time nancy is a piece you know and i tell every chef that has ever come and worked with my company because i've never said that they work for me am i correct you always work with me you know is i don't expect for you to be with chef roi for 10 years i want you to go out and i want you to go and do your own thing and every time i i turn on that stove and i have a second to look at instagram or something and i see nancy or i see uh chef ali who was with jimmy butler right now you know man i just feel so proud because i had something to do with it you know and i just sit back and i don't say a word we don't say a word we just plant seeds you know and right now what i want to do is i my next step is to get on another platform so that i can provide more opportunity for more people you know and i'm on my way to doing that you know and to even you spoke about the mural you know man i got a mural in wynwood and the city that i grew up in and i'm alive normally they paint you when you up out of here you know what i mean when would tell them what wynwood was a lot of people traveling with you know wynwood i mean we're right down the street from from overtime yeah yeah you know what i mean and we're growing up we weren't even over there right at all we were scared to even go over there it was none of that so to be there unless you know that something is happening and these kids can see that they can see somebody and i always say this and there's no whatever on you know on athletes or or entertainers or whatever but we're showing our children because you know to be able to play at your level it's like winning the lotto you know what i mean so you understand that there's more to don't do it than that do it right but those kids that aren't able to do it they can see that i can now do something else you know what i mean and it's a it's somebody that looks like me that's legacy legacy chef so that's what it's all about and is it i want to ask y'all too with chef nancy and i love chef she cooks me alex tales all the time that's my favorite and chef we're ball players and that's what that's what we do and that's the people we talk to from basketball to football but there there is a group of young black people young black women and men that would like to be the best chefs would like to be that and we call this this show-free game free game because it's bigger than fried food i mean the culinary is deep it's an art like anything else right it's your profession but when you minimize it or limit it to you know uh fried food barbecue you know that's what people when they see black chef they think this is what they're those are called cooks those are cooks i told chef like right a cook is someone who makes one meal for everybody right and they got a specialty right chefs don't have a specialty they can do it all right and these are chefs they can prepare anything out of anything to these point what would you like to tell free game tail to 13 14 50 old not not cooks tell the 15 year old chefs that want to be in your position one day so what him and i share is that we have a love for the craft everything now even me being here i didn't want to be in front of the camera he knows that he knows when i started when he sent me you sent me on an audition and i was like i don't want to cook i don't i didn't want to cook in front of anyone i didn't remember he was like nancy they put the pants on one leg at a time the same way we do it was the love for the craft that came first for us a lot of uh young people are chasing instagram and you know the social media and they want to be stars before they even they want to shine but yeah yeah and oh put that on the t-shirt shine without the they want to shine without the ground i think what what i find amazing about the conversation at least when we get to when we get to this point is that we don't have discussions like this about cooking right because it is very similar to the way we play ball the first time i picked up a football i knew what to do with it right and even if i wasn't great it felt right a lot of times it's the same way with cooking like i know my grandmother my aunties my mom my pops like when they cook they don't they don't need they don't need recipes they don't need all these things and i think what was important about what you said was the craft because so many times we put the glory we put the fame we put the the ending before the journey of the craft and i think that was beautiful that you relayed that yeah here's another thing too and you know chef is one of the most modest people ever but 20 percent of his job is being a chef that's that's 20 other 80 percent is when the kids come down daddy on the road mama's shooting a movie he got to be daddy right right right they come down they first first person they see chef got to be pops at the crib right something happens i'm i'm my driver's not around chef got to take me somewhere you know what cause i like to have a good time i want to drive like it's so many things that come into play when it comes to the position as someone who's a chef but someone who like you know is a part of your family chefs become part of your family cooks they cook and they leave yeah straight up right go heal your food we have that we have that story too because he's always said like chef you take care of my kids you know what i mean if they needed to go to school i'm gonna take them to school if they need to be watched i'm gonna watch them that's just what it is everybody wanna come and cook no he didn't leave that and leave no no no if you want a chef if you want somebody who's going to do more here we go hey you can't leave both of them you can't leave me dried chicken and go but that's real though um i think that you know for young people who are trying to get into uh the culinary arts i think that the the most important thing that you have to remember is that you'll you'll never know enough when you think that you have learned enough then you might as well just put your knives up in this it's a wrap it's over um you have to continuously learn as nervous as i was the first time i cook for him and i'm older than he is i'm nervous like that every single time game day every single time i'm nervous because i'm only as good as what i made no matter how much you love me how much no matter how much we get along we say that in the national football league nfl stand what does the nfl stay alone and it's real it's real i mean when he sits down and he gets ready to eat something i'm around the corner and i'm peeping you know and i'm looking you know if i'm standing in front of him i'm looking and i'm looking to see what's left on the plate i know i slid these asparagus on here he really don't want to deal with him too [Laughter] much if i could get him to eat two of them where he wasn't eating nothing before then i'm like okay good we did this asparagus we like distant cousins man we see each other every now and again but we don't really [ __ ] with each other man you got to add coach because because what you just did was like you inspired you know and you taught and that's that's what that's all coaches are supposed to do now i'm gonna be honest i can't cook like that but when i go home i'm gonna slide some asparagus on the plate too and see if they eat too when they didn't eat anything and i think that's the like that's the motivation at least for for me when i think of our communities when i think of our people those motivations are important right because we always need to see and we always need to allow the the ones coming behind us to know that there are ways to excel right that there are ways to succeed outside of playing ball outside playing because they tell us that sports right when we when i grew up all i knew was football track basketball like pretty much no add the other one add the other one baseball drug dealing oh well that yeah that was the sport right yeah right that's all we knew we knew that's the only way out it's a double-edged sword with life right you know it's giving give and get you know you got to always walk around with your hand open as they say so you can receive blessings and and to give them out as well and one thing i always told nancy and i tell these 13 14 year olds and and and older whoever wants to be a chef or whatever the key to your success is always making your shoes so big that they can't be filled um right now man my man don't even let me put my own water but man give me a little glass of water about this big and knowing i gotta come i'm on some more and i gotta look for him and wait till he come and pour the next i'm sitting there asparagus is right here and i gotta wait for him to come back and pull my water there's job security right there for my man because i can't do that without him so ryan talked ryan talked about inspiration you know chef talked about shoes to be filled you talked about you know chef filling in for you when you're not there being a chef being being a father you know an entire nine your biggest inspiration your children i mean i i follow you bro and the things that you do as a parent but two it gets a little bit more complicated as a as a celebrity parent because people are gonna always want to scrutinize you for for your thoughts it's always going to be some sort of additional conversation but from what i've seen you your your humility from what i've grown to know over the years and just for the things that i've seen you uh how you handle yourself lately right and inspirations what's your biggest influence now since you're retired and you're and what inspired you um you know going forward listen man i um you know what like i go through life and i'm an i'm perfect human being right i'm i'm i'm imperfect all right my wife always i'm in for i'm imperfectly perfect all of us are imperfect but if it's one thing that i promised myself i would do is that no matter what when i decided that i was going to be a parent and when it was decided upon me that i was going to be a parent that i was going to love unconditionally not conditional love i was gonna love unconditionally and we all take what that means for granted and so when you become a parent you realize what selfless being selfless really is and what it really means because before you become a parent it's all about you life is all about you but then you realize it's not about you and so for me man you know when it comes to my kids and i'm not the perfect parent you can ask them i'll show off for sure yeah i'll fall short but here's the thing is my village is strong right when i talk about chef is when i ain't around who the father of the house chef when i ain't around we got a whole village you know what i mean we got family we got my sister-in-law is involved we got a whole thing and my thing is this first of all i don't do this alone i get credit for because i'm the one that they got my last name but it's a whole village that's around me that allowed that that helps raise my kids because of my job and my responsibilities but here's the thing when it comes to my kids and whoever they're going to become whoever they're going to be i don't care all i want them to do is to be happy in life and to and to be themselves throughout the process of life so whoever you are whoever you're going to be it's my job as your father as your parent to facilitate those things and put you in a position to succeed at those things it's not my job to change who you are brandon it's not my job to tell fred you're not like that you don't like that it's not my job to tell me you don't like something if you come to me and say dad i like this or dad i am this now it's my job to sit down with you and understand where you're coming from who you are because you're different than me at this point and now i need to educate myself and get knowledge on okay educate me let's sit down and let's go over these things let's talk about this because i don't know i come from a different school but this is not the only school in town so it's my job to understand that as a parent if you got one way of doing things that's for you but your kids need they need more you know what i mean especially as you keep having kids my kids range from 19 years old to two so i can't parents caviar the same way our parents zaire that was 19 years ago the world has changed i've grown i've changed and now i have to grow with the world so when's that when cobb come to me and say dad i'm blah blah blah blah do this and that i may not know what it is but you know what i got i got google i got friends you know what i'm saying i got tv show whatever it is i got to figure out a way to make sure that my kids is getting what they need from me and that's it it's not my job to make them anything it's my job to build them up and lift them up we know the whole lion king right when when he went out there and lifts them up that's what i do for my kids i lift them up [Applause] you feel me that's our job it's our job to rip our kids out not to be like boy shut up you ain't girl shut up you ain't that's not wrong y'all know it i know all this i know all the words me too you know i don't know absolutely then you don't know all the words right now you're going to the mummy jungle the lion sweet sing with me hey you know it the lions leaves two nights [Applause] oh jesus hey on that note though cause you know obviously you know you talked about your village and you mentioned many people in that village um because because you have to live publicly because you are famous zaire almost beat his ass don't do that he he backed him down fred don't do that no hey no he did though he said he backed him down he's about to get back to him i couldn't get him up i got him on the perimeter to tell my wife at what point though is he gonna start beating no i'm not playing he's coming no it's over for sure you know what though you know how i knew he thought he was gonna win because he was like for real pissed like he felt like he felt like he felt like you took you you you took the game from him that you said you know and his friends was there right he's like i'm not gonna play this like where you want it play like you you old man him which is fine i do that to my son all the time like my son had he had a preseason game bro and he didn't tackle you know what i did i got my super bowl helmet and my bad and every tuesday morning we had blocking drills and tackling drills and i ain't care cause i said you know what if you ain't gonna tackle me i ain't gonna let you play you know why cause they're going to say jordan clark gets ran over on the tackle and i'm not living like that jordan clark the son of ryan cook boom that's exactly exactly so speaking of that though like you talked about your village obviously you have a very public marriage because you're married to someone uh who's famous and you have a blended family which i do as well so kind of take us through the things that that gabby has had to endure the things that she's had to do for you gabby like you know gabby gabby that's her nickname i watch a lot of tv you can't tell me you need to watch it bring it on you better bring it it has already been brought in i remember you know all the gabby lions watch out bro he know all the gabby lines i am he's messy he messy i'm five minutes as hell now so you better you gotta have it hey you gotta you gotta show up your pocketbook's gotta be heavy when you messing around with water just playing football i don't have my own shoe line d wade is safe but like gabby got them leans on happy and this is kind of this is kind of you know the conversation you know channing and i had it we all had it last night was there ever kind of that you know you ain't my mama moment or all those moments that got tense and here is the one i was concerned with when he was already that dude and then gabby comes in the picture yeah he's already twitter with 100 200 000 followers and all right you know what i'm saying like that you wouldn't have that you ain't my mama moment here's the thing so gab so the boys um zaire and dada are my nephew i took custody of both them and i took custody of zai as well at the zaire and thought i was nine years old and ziya was was three years old so she actually came into him at a very young age but it was still the uncomfortableness and if she was here she'd tell you all about it but here's the thing what we had to do as a family we had to understand that listen she's not your mother okay your mother is your mother no one is trying to take place to your mother right so in the world today we call this bonus moms this is a bonus mother for you this is someone who you can bounce things off this is a friend so we it came from a friendship standpoint in the beginning and then that grew into uh hey some things going on at the school she fly we all know she and atlanta working or she's whatever she's working she's flying in and she going up to the school like okay well my kid what you're not going to do to my kids and the kids seeing that now the kids in the in the parent-teacher conference is like yeah what she said right right right you know what i'm saying so we we built it organically you know what i'm saying it wasn't forced on him to say hey all right now this is your mama no you could no they have a mother she's not their mother right she knows she's there what we call we can call a bonus mom don't even call her her her they don't call her gab don't call her gabby they call her a total different name that her family calls her because we want it to be a you know can we get that it's a middle name thing that goes back to someone could her grandfather couldn't say the name or a grandmother couldn't say it now see i see you talking that stuff and being messy and i had i called her nicky then he had an issue yeah yeah like how you know i called her tv can you uh can you hold that camera can you hold that camera how the hell you know my wife and i wasn't gonna rush him because he played football to threw something at him though i don't know what y'all be doing so i'll tell you something you come over in the lead league he got to come like daniel's son you feel me mr miyagi somebody if you could wear that if you wear that jacket you confident i ain't running up on that man confident we're going to talk from this car sure jackson michael jackson jacket with all the zippers but like you know like it's crazy like you talk about like you talk about that story and like the way that your wife was integrated into her family it was different for me um i have an oldest daughter that's not with my wife and i was 19. you know what i'm saying and i'm a i was a 19 year old kid in louisiana in you know in 1998 who was gonna have a baby with a white girl you know what i'm saying whose family when i was getting recruited when they went to lsu had you know signs in their yard like go to lsu do all these things you know what i'm saying and then once they found out their daughter was pregnant for him because they didn't know that that was going on like i was just you know somebody down the street who was going to be an athlete not take care of his kid you said i'm saying and so now you get into this where like you've always wanted your baby they had questions about whether or not they wanted your baby and you know you take care of the mom and you take care of your daughter and you get her when she's three years old and then you know the mom tells you she wants to go off and do something else and you know you now have have a wife and you get married and you take your daughter and now you're dealing with this because like all i've ever been good at like from the jump is loving my children like that's it like the rest of the stuff in the world like i f up at it you know i'm saying like i'm not the tallest i was never the fastest like all that other stuff i wasn't good at but loving my kids that was instant you know what i'm saying like i saw them little farts and right away i was like i freaking love you right and nothing you can do is ever gonna make me not feel that way but then you bring this you bring this woman in and listen she'll tell you i'm like that with the kid she had it for me too you know like if she say something fall to them and i don't like it she'll look at me like you got a problem absolutely but but i'm saying that to myself not out loud and bro like like there were times there were times fellas like we're having these conversations man and i'm away on trips and i'm getting calls that my daughter's doing something or she's this and she's that where i know my wife needs to be protected right like i know that my job as her husband is to take care of her but all i can think about is my child right like all i can think about is that her mom's not around all i can think about is that she's having to deal with these things and i couldn't get myself out of protecting her to protect my wife right and so and so you go through you go through these situations bro and she's crying right and all i ever knew is you always had me like it was never a question i was there and i ain't leaving ever right you have my wife like she's always taking care of you like you were her own and having her ask me why did my mom never want me right and so at that point you go through a range of emotions right one you like you have to explain to her how worthy she is you feel me like i gotta tell her nah don't matter what they do this is who you are this is who god made you to be this is how i feel about you right and then you go through the other thing like i've been here your whole mother effing life your whole life i have never left when they thought there was another decision to make with you i was there right when she wanted to leave and do this i was there i've made every decision in life so that you're okay right but you always have the dynamic whether whether you want to or not that you know what i know that that's not your child and r-r-c that's deep all right that was something man nice damn y'all y'all trying to make me cry on shows with that though was there anything there like rc just said about with the mixed families was there anything there with you and gavin yeah it was something there early on i mean my wife got sued by my ex-wife yeah and think about coming home to that you know what i mean out of practice yeah yeah you get you get sued with two hundred dollars you're okay you get sued with bread bread then you know whatever but once again you know as hard as it was and as hard as it it always is to take that that high roll we took that because ultimately no matter what was going on in the midst of anger or hurt the kids come first and so our whole job this whole time has always been to not allow the kids they one day they're going to be able to read what the hell is going on and that's unfortunate but that's not we're never putting shade on their mother right we're never we're not doing any of that right we're we're we're the adults we're the imperfect ones that have made these decisions only thing we're going to do is lift them up and we're going to lift their mother up and we're going to lift everyone up and that's what we all did we all make sure that all times that no matter the situation how ugly my divorce was all we did is pump positive juice into the relationship that their mother would have was i and zaya and that's all that mattered to me and my wife and it was hard my wife wanted to sue back my wife wanted to go because it's now it's taking that at her profession and what she do and what she's built you know i mean the things that were said but ultimately it's about these kids and if you leave with love and you leave on if you love unconditionally then none of that is going to matter at the end right i wanted to make sure i was on point you know we don't script anything on here but there's some questions you know some things that i came across that i wanted to kind of know myself but you wrote zaire letter before he went off to boarding school he said my goal as a parent is to raise kids who know their worth and that are better than i could ever be i want to ask you what does that mean to you so you guys if you guys have um young kids right boys or girls you understand most of the time they want to be like you they want to live up to the expectations of who you are and what the world has put on them and so zaire is my first born i had zaire um he was born when i was 20 years old in college didn't know what the hell i was going to do in life at that time been there 20 years old i'm like my life's over right but one thing about zaire is i ever been my firstborn and me you know being good at the game of basketball and him following that footsteps to play the game of basketball it's this unfair things that's put on xayah and the one thing i like to always let zaire know is listen your name is not dwayne wade your name is zaire wade you will blaze your own path you will have your own journey you know what i mean and i and i don't look at you and say he needs to be like me you're gonna be you it's my job to find out the greatness in you and be able to show you a little bit hey this is where you're great at don't worry about where people say your dad is or what your dad does your dad is old and retired right he's he's moved on this is your show son you know what i'm saying sorry my job is always to show my kids like their greatness because i feel like we right we all have a purpose in this life right we're all on this earth for a certain reason that we have a purpose we all have greatness inside of us it's my job to get them to their greatness and so through basketball we're going to get there whether it's basketball or not we're going to get there through the lessons that basketball teaches us together right that's real and so that's my job as a parent i mean say listen you ain't scoring 20. one thing about zaire is i realize very early zaire don't play like me he has similarities to the way i play but his game is different i scored and i like to score now i wasn't the best scorer in the game but i i like the score and that's everything close coach huh he was pretty damn close i was good but like you know i like if you look at the records and i'm not in the top 10 but any anyway you brought a lot to the table he pissed me off like he just pissed me off for the people out there for the people out there is going to go to the numbers now you're too humble bro numbers bro no i'm just saying it's some number of people i'm just speaking ain't no numbers this ain't no numbers we're talking about the people out there the people out there that's looking at this camera i'll say it for you but all of that he's a dog he was a dog man what i had to do as a parent is i had to and it took me and this wasn't i didn't say it didn't come in in one day i had to understand desire was not me and it took me and guys ev everything in life that i do i realize that it's not me who's doing it you got to look at yourself in the mirror you got to go to that mirror and look in the mirror and when you have kids and say all right if my kid is going to be boom boom boom how are you going to deal with it sir so when it came to zaire playing basketball i had to realize i heard you not me your strengths and your talents is this let me tap into that with you okay it's not about me and when it came to ziya let me type in okay zaya let me look in the mirror because i'm gonna tell y'all something and people don't don't wanna hear this [ __ ] and don't believe this at three years old me and my wife looked at each other and we said what if what if zaya come home at the time the name was zion if zion comes home one day and say dad i'm gay or dad i'm this i'm dead what are you gonna do sir that's real and so what i did at three when zaya was three is i prepared myself and i looked in the mirror and i said yeah what are you gonna do because you're in the locker room where all the guys use is nothing but you gay you this you that you husbacks whatever so i'm in that locker room every day what are you going to do sir when it comes if your child comes home and say dad sorry i don't want no parts of basketball i don't want no parts of your life this is my life and this is how i am how are you going to do it you thought about that at three i thought about that at three years when did zaya have that conversation with eight years old five years later okay so here's my question right because that's that was important i just kind of explained to you how i feel about my kids right there's a there's an obsession with my children that's probably unhealthy right and so as soon as i heard about zaya i started paying attention i became monday morning father right and i said this is what i do this is what i feel this is what i would say i'm gonna be 100 honest with you bro everything that you did had nothing to do with the thoughts that i had and you made me check myself right because i claim i love my kids right i claim i support my kids and i'm watching another man who who i admire right another man who's lived the life not only on the court but off the court that is to be that is to be emulated do things differently than i would as a parent and then very recently i looked at your child right i looked at xayah and i know the only thing that we want to do is to see our children smile right but what i also realized i was like so he's been loving he's been supportive he's become a champion beyond his child and i said and this looked easy i can't believe that it was easy so can you kind of take us from take us on the journey because we see the destination take us on the journey from finding out from zaya saying dad this is who i am to seeing d wade on talk shows d wade being a champion for his not only for his daughter right but for anybody who looks at zaya and says you know what that's what i hope to have growing up in the city of chicago in the hood you're told that boys do this right boys play football boys play basketball employees play baseball boys date girls whatever the case may be you're told this is what you do right so i'm no different i'm raised that way i'm in the locker room i say all the things that everyone is saying i'm not sitting up here like i have never done or said anything right when it comes against the opposite sex because i was ignorant i didn't understand right when it hit when it hit my doorstep at three years old like i said when me and my wife looked at each other right and and the reason we looked at each other is because of this you know as kids i used to put on heels i used to put all ice to do all those things i try to put on whatever my sisters wear when all my sisters did i try to do those things so at first i said to myself oh no i did that so i ain't just doing the things that i did and then they kept going further and further and then me and my wife had to look at each other and say well well what if and at that moment everything that i was taught went out the window because now i'm a parent and my only my soul job and my sole responsibility is to make sure that this kid grow up knowing that it's supported and is loved by his father and the other parent right that's my only job and so when it came down to zaya at three years old i looked at it and said okay dee i looked in the mirror and now not only did i look in the mirror when i went in the locker room i started changing the way i talked i started changing how i listened to things and i started challenging people in a different way once i started to ask questions to my my wife friends because i've never been god i've never been at that time i've never been no one is in the nba or played basketball has never been openly gay you're right right i've never had a conversation with you even in the locker room openly in our locker room so i never i was ignorant when it come to this space so when my child came home at eight years old we were living in chicago at the time after i left miami which we talked about my child came home and the reason my child didn't come home it was an assignment that was done at school an assignment at school would say tell me about yourself and this was the time when zaya took the time to say i'm black i'm this i'm this and i'm gay at the time zaya said i am gay okay so the teacher called eight years old at eight years old the teacher called home and said hey i just want you guys to know we post these all over the school but we didn't want to post this if you guys didn't blah blah blah right so we sat down with the teacher and talked about the teacher at that time was a gay female okay gave zion the confidence that's a blessing to be able to say those words so when we sat down and there was a and i was in the room across the way i prepared myself for five years for that moment not knowing what i was going to do or saying when when zion sat down with me and was across the way just like me and you are right now ryan i look i'm looking at my child i don't know i don't care about anything else i'm looking at my child and i'm looking at my responsibilities i'm looking at a child that's crying that's afraid to tell their father wow that they're different than what you probably thought i was that i don't want to play basketball i'm i don't sorry i don't even want to be i'm not a boy i feel that i am x y and z right i'm looking at my child scared to tell me and i feel like i am pretty open at this time i realized that i needed to do better and i needed to do more and i needed to educate myself and so what i did is i picked up the phone i researched as much as i can because i needed to understand i sat down with my child and i asked questions because i didn't know because it's not it's not it's not our job and our responsibility to tell you who you are you are going to be who you're going to be it's my job to try to put you in the best positions to help you reach that that goal of who you want to be but it's my my job to tell you you know me and right now we experiencing that with ziya my 13 year old who last year we came out and we spoke to the world that hey my 13 year old came home and said dad this is who i am i am a transgender child and we didn't come out until she was 12 to the world but the reason we came out to the world was because i got tired of trying to hide my child right taking photos with the rest of my family not not posting diet because we posted one thing on her birthday and there was so many bad comments that we wanted to hide her from it but it came to a point where i said am i hiding her from it am i hiding myself from it that's a that's another huge thing to me right like the first two things the the first two feelings you get when you have children are love and protection right yeah and and so like i remember hearing it and saying how would i balance those two things right because you know like we made jokes about me not worrying about being knocked out but like the other thing is like i'm just a fighter like i've always been you know what i'm saying like i got i got like two modes either we're getting along very well or like let's just throw hands and see who went that's called football people you know what i'm saying yeah you know and so and so and like in like not bad like i'm gonna be i'm gonna be honest man like when i watch you as a father and you know like the only i'll be honest the only interaction we've ever had man is you posted something i posted on social media and i ain't gonna lie i told my kids i was famous i was like d-wade reposted me on this story just letting y'all know he reposted you man i felt so good i ain't gonna lie though damn bro i gotta be talking real you know what i'm saying talking about the game he talks some real things i'll be like what he said right right but you know what i'm saying so so so how do you balance right because like you said you know about the locker room right you know about the way people perceive certain things i see not balance how do you move it forward yeah like doing like it's not even moving forward bro like i got tears in my eyes right now and i hate that we you know i'm the one you know exactly the big dude that surprised a lot though the big dude always fast we talked about this machismo thing and i got tears in my eyes because i'm thinking about like the reality is you're part of the one percent yes you know like not a lot of dudes bro like think about that because we think about you know throwing the ball with our boys and doing those things and so you know you one percent of being able to unconditional love that you talked about and a lot of people don't understand what that means you know for the majority of us is we've seen people lose their lives we've seen people take their own lives talk to him right talk to him because of not feeling uncomfortable not feeling comfortable with coming to our parents and saying this is what's going on and then also like how many fathers have said especially in our community that not i ain't my son wonderful that's the thing that's it so but if we gonna be real and you talk about no layups if we gonna be really real in the locker room how how how would we deal with that with this with zaya with you saying that three you saw it at eight you knew it and then you're moving forward people that dealt with it people that are going through it and people that in the future that have that two-year-old son in a year from now like what what advice would you give to them because this is real this is gonna happen this is so many people's lives that yeah they don't understand what you're talking to well you give them advice that's what we want on this you just said advice you just said it i'm over here living real mother life you if everybody on the outside want to act like things as we grew up in a certain era and things was a certain way right life evolves people evolve it this is not 2021 is not the first time that we've experienced gay people we've experienced transit the lgbtq this is not the first time but we're in an era now where people are feeling a little bit more comfortable and confident to come out and express who they really are right like we we're in that generation now right so my thing is this ultimately when it comes to my child and and everyone says that it says they are willing to do this i'm willing to die for mine and so if you want to say something against mine if you want to hurt mine come come and talk to me first because my child has the has the right and the ability to be whoever they want to be in this life and i'm going to make sure of it i don't care what who they who or what they decide to do if it's my this is my job i am the leader of this family as the leader of this family i'm going to make sure who you are is shown and shouted out to the world because i don't want my kids to not feel comfortable and we already black people in the world that's enough right now we want to add like i got people out here dog i got people out here that would tell me that me and my wife are trying to get some kind of financial gain off of my child coming out saying that she's transgender but i gotta over hunt it in a bit i don't need that that's not about me he said you gotta have a hug he sat up he sat up quick not about that it's [Applause] follow through hey wait this ain't my show just like when you hit the one off the backboard and you was like hey i remember kobe did it so i did it no no but i'm saying it but yeah yeah we [ __ ] but yeah yeah it's not it's not about it's not about that for me i saw anything one day we don't know when that day is going to come where our expiration date all of our expedition date is going to come right when i leave this earth i want my my family i want my my mom my kids everybody to say you know what he did everything he could to make sure that we felt seen we felt love and we were hurt and that's all i care about when it comes to my family i don't care about the outside noise we don't listen to ziya don't give a [ __ ] about the outside noise because of you yeah zaya don't care because of you but you know what you know what b marshall i was watching polls thank you i love the polls crew they are they have become family to me my friend i was watching polls with my daughter right the first season one of polls and it was a scene in there where the father came home and threw his son out of the house because he was looking at these magazines that was was was what he perceived gay magazines that was inappropriate about men he kicked him out on the streets and at that moment my child was like i've never i don't i never experienced that i don't even know what that like this was foreign to her and at that moment i was like thank you for allowing me to be her father because it's lesser people out there that can't get over themselves it's not about the child it's about you individually so people can't get over themselves and their pride in their ego you know what i'm saying get out the [ __ ] weight and let your child to be who they are and that's what i've tried to do i try to get out the way and say you know what this is who you are in that situation what did you tell your daughter y'all watching the the show and she saw that i didn't have to say anything she's seen it for the first time she saw that she don't have to live life like that that she has a family that loves her and support her and it's like once again that our village loves her and support her and when i tell you all this we didn't know a lot about transgender we didn't know a lot about lesbian and gay and and queer we didn't know a lot about the issues that everyone say but what we had to do was we had to go educate ourselves so she's she's educated us on a life outside of the black community and just us so in education because now on top of being a nba legend on top of being a great father that you now also have to stand in front of that movement as well so that zayas and the next generation desires are treated in a way that they're not only a part of their community but a part of i'm someone even just some black people they're treated differently because those those those numbers are staggering it's just unbelievable it makes you it's amazing the the um the information that comes out about you know black transgender women you know it it's so sad man and fred you know what it's it's this thing where people feel like when you have a little boy right we grow up as young men and we like oh i can't wait to have a little boy cause i'm gonna give him all my everything i got right you have this little boy you want this little boy you play football football basketball you want them to play that sport right that's what we pass on when we know our knowledge right right it's nothing in us that be like oh when i have a little boy i can't wait to do x1 no we want to play football we want to play basketball that's what we did right that's right but when my child and that object and i'm trying to present that and my child is like no no no this is not who i am i have to listen at some point as a parent i know you're the parent and i'm not saying that people out there get it wrong when they feel that oh the child is now parenting their parents no it's not that but one thing you understand from a young age your child is going to be who they are you have to pay attention you have to watch who they are you have to you have to be able to go there where they at and be able to bring that up right so they can feel confident in whoever they're going to become and so for me as a parent when it came down to xayah yes i tried to put a basketball into your head zaya was like no don't want no part of school tell granddad to stop buying me baseball mitts because i don't want none of that you know what i mean right you know what man tell them that no dad i don't want to do no push-ups don't tell me to man up and i had to learn so hey hold on here i got this one of the things that i saw that you said my goal as a parent is to raise kids who know their worth and that they are better than i could ever be so what's zaya's worth uh ziya's worth is outside of this world we have no idea her and i posted some other day and i pushed hashtag iconic because the movement that ziya the the space and the the voice that she has and and not putting on her she's 13 years old he's a child still but the flies lie as hell and know it and know it and be stunned on them yes but the ability that zaya has with an interview with coming to her father and saying dad this is who i am and having me as a father to be able to speak out for her so i don't speak much me and god me and my wife speaks for her right because we we're we're sitting down we heard we like okay okay we just learned something new okay so this is demi this is what demisexual mean okay i didn't know nothing about demisexual my bad like we sit down with her and then we come out to the world after we go research and talk to all our friends and say okay this is where we're at now with ziya you know what i'm saying and so the whole thing is what i like to tell people is like it's not that our kid is running asylum they are we are learning from our child of who they are and it's our job to now go once they say these are the things i'm interested in to go do their search to go through their research and come back with them with answers and so i have answers and questions i was extremely pissed off with you earlier right because you was in that whole oh if i'm counted in the top five like it's cool you know man that's my that's my humble beginnings i come from if they think i can score oh it's great right like like that that's just mine it's good so so so so but like here's what i'm gonna tell you man and and i count my i'm be honest straight up like that's not football all that stuff i count myself a good parent bro you got to give yourself some credit right yeah give yourself credit for listening you got to give yourself credit for the humility of being a black man who succeeded from the places you succeeded and being willing to listen to your child right like i don't know how y'all grew up but i know i have an opinion in my house and so for you to listen to that bro and for you to know this is brian this is life and death what i'm dealing with that's what i'm saying hold on before you even go there ken before you go there no come on no layups hold on no layups no d wade d with confidence swagger he know he know what he is it ain't about giving himself credit can we just give him flowers because he you know who you is back when you had the bet that little uh uh little boundary yeah the band-aid on your eye he came in being disruptive let's give him flowers let's give him flowers for what you said it's not about him knowing he knows let's give him flowers bro y'all went down here everybody had the weight age like come on now i didn't have that you were stripping you were stripping you were stripping on that i had stitches i didn't want to wear that brown bandit first of all though let me know to be cute he was trying to be cute until now i didn't know that it was band-aids made for our complexion yeah think about it when we grew up they gave us one band-aid it was that light-skinned band-aid i ain't light-skinned so i was like let me come with some flavor because this don't go with my looks bruh what's up with the pink hair and the braids at 40. are you going through a midlife crisis is that gabby cause you don't get braids at 40. that's a 11 year old haircut hey why are you doing the die and the bleach bruh you know what you just you just brought up something out of the scene cause i'm a miami guy yeah yeah bro you retired you got 40. and you started doing the colorful hair and the bridge bro hey he also though he didn't want to explain this to us has over a hundred million dollars in the bank yeah yeah i have not forgotten that you just get bank statements you don't know what you got in there you know what i'm going to do i'm going to ask for his number though before we leave so i can get some investment with the hair and all this i felt that question was going to come and you know what and when i looked at the panel i was like it's definitely coming from you with pink there we go i just don't i don't you know what i don't give a [ __ ] okay pause no no he said he said no i'm gonna live my my thing is this whatever i'm gonna live my life my way and you know what if i feel like i want to color my hair at 50 i'm going to them our hair 50 because can't nobody tell me what to do see i am free they said we're free right yeah i'm free to do what the hell i want to do that's what he's saying though you got i'm a fly dude i feel like sometimes i want to be flyer so i go with a different helicopter yeah people understand this but it's an extension of my expression of my creativity right i feel that i'm a very creative person and throughout this pandemic i felt trapped i felt that my creativity had no space it couldn't go nowhere it was living inside of me i couldn't get it out because we were locked in and we was like cage animals right and in the midst of that pandemic i said i told my wife i said babe i need to do something i need to like i need to i need to do something crazy and she was like what it is i said i'm about to color my hair pink she was like what but for me like even when i get like since i've been older i now have tattoos i didn't have tattoos for 35 six years i now have tattoos i color my hair i get paint on my nails it's all an extension of my creativity sometimes my creativity is oozing out of me and some ways i know how to express it is i express it on my own physical body and so my hair my nails my discs my dress that's all just a that's all that's a part of me that people don't want to see because all they see is the athlete you i'm a bad [ __ ] on that court right you know what i mean we could fight we could talk we could do whatever and so they put you in that position and say oh he's a basketball player who's tough a tough guy don't paint his nails a tough guy don't get his hair colored no i'm i'm i'm versatile i'll be tough and i'll come in you feel it i love it i love it i love it i'm rocking it i've been over here like [ __ ] are she gonna let me talk [ __ ] i know chanting ain't gonna let me talk i'll talk a ton and be gonna cut off everybody i got i gotta i got a i got a plea for him to let me finish fred no time out don't resp no no no let's be real you say no lay up no no no no no no no no no no no no forget d wade right now you just called me have i not the last two shows chill all right you know you're cool all right no no no no no no give me bob cool you cool all right give me my response i don't know when i'm coming back so i said before i got here i'm gonna let d wade talk more than me and nobody else straight up with you that was the thing on the show me cutting people off so the last three shows i just been saying that's why i've been chilling they call me uncle on the show right i'm more of the serious and let's go right um zaya she just did an interview with michelle obama i thought that was courageous man and she did an amazing job we talked about uh uh bravery and you know celebrity dad you know perception in our own community though in the black community you're going to get the most from the black community more than anybody else because they don't understand it i want to ask you in this situation who was the most like we talk about bravery was it ziya did you did you get it from her to go a step further was she more brave than you to want to you know make this known and inspire the next generation or was it you being able to say look let me shape and move this conversation to help other people how can i make it easier for everyone else by you know uh um using your platform and your leverage another thing about this show too yeah i i i kind of go long-winded yeah that's uh i cut them off like in their ass damn can you get the question out it's just a million things so you ain't why you i didn't move from like the red d-wade to the white d-wade like i'm in a bad place because y'all i'll be honest with you bro you're a boy so like hey started out because of japan i should have brought more wine i knew i was coming on the show and had to wear jeans so i couldn't eat today dawg i'm in a bad place to address what fred said and this goes back to what i said in the beginning is are you doing it for your child or are you doing it for you right me and my wife had this conversation are we protecting zaya are we keeping her out of pictures are we not saying anything because it's for her protection or is it for our protection it's the ones that's out there in the public eye knowing the scrutiny that's going to come back and so once i seen her bravery to come out and and have the the confidence to speak her truth because i know so many people we have friends who 20 30 40 years hid from who they really were and when i seen an eight-year-old have the confidence to come out and say dad nikki family this is who i am it was nothing else i could do but support that because i know how hard it is even as a 39 year old man it's hard for me to come out sometime and say how i really feel or or certain things about myself i still keep it hidden because of maybe what the world would say so i look at my child and i say thank you for leading the way now let me take it from here because i am your father i am in the public eye you sit back we would take it from here you led the way you gave us the confidence to step out and say our child is this and and understand this it's ever evolving okay who our child is today may not be who our child is in 10 years okay we're going down this journey with our child and do you guys know this person you was at 20 was not who you was at 30 was now who you're going to be at 40 50 and so on so i know that but is it you or is it zaire because also i talk about getting messy but i feel like my role on this show is to play like the james brown is to play barbara walters and all of that so is it really you that started this or was his idea because there's something special about zaire oh i didn't start first of all zaya started this zaya zaya we all are we all are led by zai who's 13 years old now zaire gab myself whoever's in the public eye to have a voice that people know about all of our job was to at the end of the day was to see nothing but love we don't see color enough we don't see sexuality we don't see gender we see love and so zaire and i give him a lot of credit as a young teenage boy to be able to go to school and his and his friends and people who writing on his social media yeah about his door about his sister about his sibling and to be able to handle it the way he's handled it and to understand that he was going to go out in the world and get these questions and get this jokes and all that and to see him say i don't care about none of that all i care about is my sister my my sibling being happy i don't care what even if you don't understand it at the end of the day when i'm dealing with people is i'm dealing with life and death it's people in the transgender community that are getting killed it's kids that are murdering themselves they're hanging themselves they're killing themselves because you know what some symbol is acceptance some symbol is is unconditional love is not being given to these kids and i'll be damned if my child gonna be that person because of some symbol is me supporting who you are so busy all the people who got something to say every jay boogie who just came out all the people got something to say about my kids i thank you because you're allowing the conversation to keep going forward because you know what you might not have the answer today i don't have all the answers but we're growing from all these conversations so i thank everybody for even hating and starting those conversations because those conversations are starting other conversations that we need to have and that's happening out there so i don't know i'm gonna say this bro hey you're a real life g d wave bro cause like that could have been a whole nother damn 30 minutes about what you just said because i thought this show should have been three hours all right but my belief is stronger than your doubt yes sir what is that what does that mean so i actually made that quote up in 2006. when i won a championship and my whole life until that moment i was always i was always less than in the eyes of people when it came to basketball right no one gave me a chance you know you go into those those big events whether you're at a seminar or whether you're at a camp they say one in one million makes it to the nba the statistics no one bel i'm gonna say no one my core people believed in me right you know but at the end of the day when i went to chapter 7 2006 i was sitting back and i was like what what is it that's that that that represents dwyane wade and at the end of the day my belief in myself and my loved ones is always stronger than your doubt in them right and so my belief is stronger than your doubt because your doubt which the world is ran on people's doubt right people have bad days because of a comment that's made because someone doubt that they look beautiful or that they're this or they're that my belief in myself and what i'm capable of what i'm capable of is stronger than you're doubting me because that's all we get as athletes you guys get we get doubts as black men we get doubts but my belief in myself and what i'm what i'm able when i'm what i'm able to accomplish and who i'm going to be my mom told me is that when i was a little kid and i just walked down the streets and holding my mom's hand she said son your life is bigger than basketball she told me i wanted to be i always tell my mom i want to be a basketball player she said son i hope you do that but your life is bigger and i never knew what my mom meant until i retired from the gaming basketball and now i realize my life is bigger and if it's just being a parent and if it's just supporting my my children um whatever it is my life is bigger than just a sport so my my your doubt in me means nothing because my belief in myself is gonna take me places that's the only reason y'all know who i am is because my belief in myself right so my belief in myself is stronger than your doubting me no matter what that's that's amazing 2006 you put that together and now you now you start to talk about it yeah i got this from all the smoke our brothers you know barnsy dang i wish i could smoke weed huh they had me on their show matt barnes and stephen jackson yep there you go all the smoke and when the last thing they asked me was who do you think um should sit in that seat next football basketball life business what you understand though d way though like what i've learned tonight from d-wade though is that he should be the next black president no no they go back into your history too much and i lived in miami for the first time you know but i was here since 05 too so yeah yeah yeah yeah i don't want to i want them to dig up i want them digging up my pants say don't don't get it don't get a table i got some things hey fred why would you say that i mean that's because that's what that's right always player friendly and don't talk about that in jamaica right now for a reason because you know i was coming with me my last personal question to you on the way out i want to know what a 06 wave would have done in the bubble being kicked out because we talked about the bubble wasn't tough they put an asterisk on the lakers championship what would you have done with no fans in the stand the whole thing i just want to know that from a pro they put an asterisk on the lakers championship they put one on our 2012 championship because the lock that's what that's what the media does ultimately no matter what you're doing you guys play sports understand this to be able to bring a team together to be able to be the best at the end of the year is one of the hardest things you will ever do in life i don't care where you playing the game at it's hard to be the best so the fact that the lakers lebron came out is the best knee one is for everybody the talking heads are gonna say all the things that to talk about the negative parts of it let's talk about the positivity of it the mental health that was being dealt with being locked and caged up into your room for months and having to go out and perform for the world right let's talk about the ability that ain't no crowd in there so everybody you you guys have those guys in practice who can practice but the lights come on and the game get on and they talked about that you know about the practice guy so in the bubble and i'm not saying y'all got that in the nba but in a bubble listen you don't have people out there saying your mom is blah blah blah your mom this your dad dad you suck you did you don't have those those different things that kind of take your mind away from the game you could just focus on the game but at the same time the bubble is not something that we're accustomed to it was like being caged animals trying to win a championship in bubble so you got to take you got to understand what was hard about the bubble and appreciate that this is different than any other season that we've ever seen and crowned the guys who got to the championship because they earned it and it was not easy you know no we got to answer the question we got to answer the question what i don't want to answer no question i got a quick rap d wade all these dudes want to fight on the court all these dudes jump up they saw you're right you got on that white pants gonna start off by saying all right i'm listen when it comes down to it i will fight all right now i'm from chicago i'm going to throw things i ain't just fighting you i ain't saying let's squirrel up no i'm looking for microphones and everything they got in arena but here's the thing every player that was in the position that i was in at some point that was considered a star player right just like michael jordan chicago you need charles oakley yeah i needed i needed udonis hassle because at the end of the day i really don't want to take that fire and i really don't want to fight this i really don't want to fight you reuben patterson but you know what you know you don't want to fight rumor you got his house so with that being said you d ain't got nothing to worry about in life as long as i'm out here living life my boy my man he is good so like i say that i'm not saying i'm gonna run away from a fight cause i will do it that's how i grew up that's the hood but i'm a brand thank you all right all right but you understand we ain't boxers that's why you gotta hide you down this happens in your life just give me the last answer the last question who needs to sit in that seat who needs to sit in this seat next okay well because i'm on tnt right now and i think this guy is very um kind of misunderstood and even though he's he's talked about who he is i think charles barker needs to sit in this scene next week and i'ma say that because charles barkley who i've got an opportunity to spend a lot of time with is a phenomenal human being he's a phenomenal man and a lot of of of of being on the tv has he as he has been for 20 years and away from the game it's this misconception of him as his hater and i know the older guys definitely come off as haters because i've had to talk to shaq about bro you hate me but here's the thing once you sit down and talk to a person you realize that they're more than just what that 15 minutes on pregame or that 15 halftime minutes they're more than that so if there's any other former athlete that can sit on this this this chair right here i would say i hope you guys reach out and get charles barkley because he's going to educate us on a lot of things he's very knowledgeable he's very worldly but also too he's a real dude and real dudes need real dudes watch this podcast podcast watch so if you want some real dude information put yours on this seat and let them ride that's what i say hey we could have went on for three hours we couldn't cool i'm gonna go peter i'm sorry [Music] wrongfully accused we had to fight to get the pills that's why work up in the trash bag i'll pass a lot to take the test before i pass class and my family needed bread i had to come correct

Channel: I AM ATHLETE

Views: 1,115,033

Rating: 4.8008275 out of 5

Keywords: brandon marshall, brandon marshall highlights, brandon marshall podcast, i am athlete, i am athlete podcast, chad johnson, fred taylor, channing crowder, ochocinco, nfl, nfl 2021, nfl podcast, sports, sports podcast, superbowl, super bowl, football highlights, super bowl highlights, football, Dwyane Wade: The G.O.A.T. of Parenting | I AM ATHLETE w/ Brandon Marshall, Ryan Clark & More, goat, basketball goat, lebron james, lebron james ankle, michael jordan, zaya wade, zaire wade

Id: vie52SloEv0

Length: 100min 13sec (6013 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 22 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/His-Dad-Sucked-Tho]

Best sports podcast out rn

[u/poeope]

Man they gonna have to throw all those world's greatest dad coffee mugs away.