When I talk about my family, I’m not just thinking about my parents and my siblings. For Christmas, we had more than 80 of my family members gathered in California. For Easter, it was easily 150 people.

Etan Thomas: You are the eldest brother of three. And all of you appear to be very close, help each other, and are all very successful.

There are a few words that come to mind when I think about the past few years of my life: challenging, rewarding, transformative—they roll off the tip of my tongue in an instant. In the span of a year,

Etan Thomas: You come from a Greek background. How much did your parents teach you about your heritage and your culture growing up?

My favorite kind of movie is one about football.  From Any Given Sunday to The Express, football movies show us, fans and athletes alike, the human quality behind the men who become legendary.  And unlike the way sports celebrity plays out in the media, you walk away from these films understanding one man’s story and appreciate that, for better or worse, he aimed to be his best.

“Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”I was startled out of a deep sleep by my six-month-old daughter who was hungry, gassy or maybe wondering what life had in store for her over the next 15 years.

All my life, children have gravitated towards me. I don’t even have to do much. I walk into a room and next thing I know somebody’s baby is in my face. Of all the people in the room, it’s me that they pick.

My father and I always had a close relationship. He was a successful businessman, he worked for my grandfather into his mid-30s, then went off on his own. He was doing well in the construction business in Washington, but he never made it seem like he was too busy, like he had to work all the time.