Which writers or artists most influenced your work?

Oh, over the years, there are so many. One would be the man — I wanted to take his job away some day — Paul Zimmerman, sports editor of the L.A. Times. Jim Murray is writing for the Times now. Red Smith. I had the honor of meeting Grantland Rice way back when I was at the University of San Francisco. When we played New York in football back in 1951. Just a lot of good sports writers became friends of mine. And I respect them a great deal.

I didn’t have a lot of mentors when I – I mean I kind of just grew up in the gym, just climbing a lot. So I didn’t really have mentors. I mean I definitely had people that I looked up to and people in the climbing community, but that’s just sort of the typical hero worship style, you know. Like Peter Croft was a really prominent soloist from the generation before me and I was like, “Oh, Peter’s the man!”

My wife has inspired me probably the most out of my person in my life…Mia Hamm had a huge impact on my life – not just as a player. When I was new to the team I watched how she treated her teammates. I watched how she interacted with fans. I watched how she dealt with sponsors and her off the field business decisions. Mia was the symbol of the impossible.