Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hey, it's Graham. It's Thursday, and that means
we're offering you another positive piece of a past
interview. Each week our team digs through
the archives to find our strongest feel good stories to
present to you in podcast form. This week, Dirk Nowitzki.
(00:20):
Did I read this correctly that you were popular in high school
because of bubble gum? Oh, you've really got you guys
really did did some deep research, but I was always
hungry. And so I either had a little
gum, which of of course is not allowed in school, but I always
kind of like had 1/2 just a little piece, something just to
(00:40):
nibble on. And so some of my friends would
always come and like, hey, do you have something like, here's
a little piece of gum? But yeah, that's, I forgot I
said that. That's that's that's good
research. How did the hairstyle change
after Boris Becker when Wimbledon?
You know, hairstyles. I tried.
I tried way too many things in in my career and my life.
(01:04):
But that was cool. I was a huge tennis fan and I
remember going to the hairdresser and I was like, I
want, I want my haircut like Boris.
And she's like, what? So she didn't make it red, but
she made it sort of spiky, I guess.
And Boris was one of my first, you know, idols that I loved
watching. It was such a war.
(01:24):
And 1 Wimbledon when he was 17. Just a great, great player.
Why do you consider basketball agirly sport?
I think that was early when whenI played handball in tennis and
handball, you know, I don't handball is not really big in
the US, but it's really big in Europe.
You can push somebody, you can hold him, you can even shove him
to the ground at times and only get like a little bit of a
(01:45):
penalty. And so to me, that was that was
a tough sport. And my mom and my sister both
played basketball. So to me, that was like, you
know, you can't touch anybody and you know, if you bump
somebody too hard, it's two shots.
And so to me growing up, there were just us boys.
We play, we play handball. When I was about 10-11, they
(02:07):
were like, you're so tall, you just come to one practice.
And so I joined the school team.We're doing well right away.
And, and then I really started really loving the, the, the
sport. And then, and then I joined the,
the, the club with my cousin whowas a year older than me.
That kind of took me as I just see one practice and see if you
like it and that was it. Really loved it.
Loved it from day one start and never never stopped again.
(02:31):
And and explained the the schoolgym by by the way I I mean the
the court nothing like this. Yeah, it's probably half the
size. Basketball wasn't a big sport in
Germany at all at the time. So there were really no nice
school gyms. If you want to play basketball
or or really any sport in in Europe, you usually join a club.
(02:52):
The club have the nice facilities and nice gyms.
So the school gyms are usually super small.
And it was like, it was this wooden backboard.
And I mean, it was old school, but it was enough for us to run
around a little bit, do some layups.
That's where I really started was in in the school team.
Holger what impact did he have on your life?
He was just a huge mentor and I owe him everything because I
(03:15):
wasn't sure a time with 15 wherewhere this journey in basketball
would take me. And he taught me everything.
He taught me how to move to shoot and and also help me off
the court with with stuff with school and just growing into the
person I wanted to to become. So what?
Would he have you read? Every year for a birthday or
(03:37):
Christmas, he would give me books and I'm like, oh, great,
another book holder. That's sweet, great, great gift.
But he always tried to brighten my horizon and and and learn
different things and somewhere novels somewhere like books,
really hard to read for me aboutnature and physics.
And I'm just like, holder, this is not like it takes me years to
(04:00):
get through this. You know, he had me play music.
He wanted me to play the saxophone.
So I played the saxophone for a couple years and, you know, just
just, you know, open your mind up to other things, not just
sports. And also at the time we weren't
sure if it's going to work out. So he said you, the more
well-rounded you are, it's goingto help you in life better if
(04:20):
you need a job later on or whatever.
But yeah, that was his way of always trying to push me and and
push me to new limits. And you mentioned the saxophone.
What did he once have you dribbled to?
So we had one of his friends wasa was a jazz musician and he
actually was his mentor when he started playing.
And so the, the guy would sometimes come to practice with
(04:45):
his, with his sax and he would play the saxophone and we'd had
to dribble to the rhythm and then, you know, mix up the
dribbles and, and make the basically the bouncing sound as
the drums. And Holger would call it dance
the game. He didn't want us to play like
robots, right? He never grown up.
Even when he was coaching our, he didn't want us to run all
(05:06):
these plays. And you just go set this pick
and he set another pick. His philosophy was everybody's
got to have fun and enjoy. And it's like a, the sport is
like a jazz band. It's five guys out there.
Everybody has their own skill level and they're they're all
good at something. And he always said when when
somebody did a good move, you'relike, oh, beat all this jazz.
(05:27):
Explain how he was trying to help you as a defender by
fencing. So the long story is he he never
liked weightlifting. He thought that I was still
growing as I was as a teenager and it's just going to hurt my
joints. So he, we basically tried to
(05:48):
find things in the summer for meto do to, to keep the fun, get a
little bigger, a little strongeror movement, better movement.
So we tried all sorts of other different sports to, to see,
hey, what training can we steal from them?
What's what's good for what could work for us?
So we rowed a lot. We did a rowing camp every year
(06:10):
in the summer for the which is good all all around power.
We went to like a boxing training just to see how they
train and warm up and and then fencing was, was was on the on
the schedule. Once I'm like, I don't even have
a suit or anything. What what are we doing?
So the this club made me a wholefencing suit and got to to
fence. And what's so good about fencing
(06:32):
is they're, they're attacking, but they're, while they attack,
they also always play defense. So basically Holger's philosophy
there was on defense, basically you have to be active with your
hands and without giving, selling out and giving too much
up and somebody can just blow byyou.
So it was, it was a cool experience.
(06:53):
But as we all know, I think defense wasn't really my strong
suit. So I don't think the fencing
took my defense to another level, but it was it was fun to
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