- Home
- Tours & Scoring
- News & Opinion
- Video & Photos
- Instruction
-
Tee Times
- Courses & Travel
-
Equipment
-
On TV
Featured Shows
Full Episodes
- Big Break Ireland
- Big Break Indian Wells
- Big Break Dominican Republic
- Big Break Sandals Resorts
- Big Break Disney Golf
- Big Break Prince Edward Island
- Big Break Michigan
- The Haney Project Charles Barkley
- The Haney Project Ray Romano
- The Haney Project Rush Limbaugh
- Playing Lessons
- Golf Fitness Academy
- The Golf Fix
HP Byron Nelson Champ...
View Leaderboard >
- 1
- J.Dufner
- -11
- F
- 2
- D.Pride
- -10
- F
- T3
- J.Blixt
- -9
- F
- T3
- J.Durant
- -9
- F
- T3
- J.Henry
- -9
- F
- T3
- M.Leishman
- -9
- F
- T7
- K.Duke
- -6
- F
- T7
- P.Mickelson
- -6
- F
- T9
- J.Bohn
- -5
- F
- T9
- J.Day
- -5
- F
- T9
- R.Garrigus
- -5
- F
- T9
- R.Palmer
- -5
- F
- T9
- P.Perez
- -5
- F
- T9
- V.Singh
- -5
- F
- T15
- P.Harrington
- -4
- F
- T15
- M.Kuchar
- -4
- F
- T15
- D.Mathis
- -4
- F
- T15
- S.Piercy
- -4
- F
- T19
- R.Beem
- -3
- F
- T19
- J.Driscoll
- -3
- F
Golf in America: Alonzo Mourning Interview Part II (8:24)
To view this site, you need to have Flash Player 9.0 or later installed. Click here to get the latest Flash player.
DESCRIPTION
Watch 2-Time NBA Defensive Player of the Year Alonzo Mourning talk about the kidney ailment that sidelined him in 2003 and what he’s doing to help others who face the same battle in this ‘Golf in America’ Web Exclusive.
TRANSCRIPTS
-There are 2 other initiatives that Zo's Summer Groove, donate
Zo and helps facilitate in the city. It's Zo's Fund
for Life -Yes, yes. -and sponsor a student. -Yes. -Alright,
could just tell us what those are about that? -Well,
the fund for life is an organization that I created
for individual that are dealing with chronic kidney disease and
trying to educate them and encourage them and help them
take a different path and approach towards any kidney-related issues
because many of you might know that I had a
transplant, a kidney transplant back in 2003, was diagnosed in
2000 with a rare kidney disease, you know, and something
that I felt like- that I went through this particular
situation for a reason, you know, I felt like there
was a responsibility for me there to kind of share
my experience with others and so try to provide support
to others. Now, we raised close to 2 million dollars
the Fund for Life to provide, educate and help people
who can't afford medicines and what have you -Right. -of
this dealing with kidney disease. -Now, the response of doing
it was an initiative that was created to allow people
in the community to have a direct effect on the
child's life. You know, so, you have an opportunity to
provide support and adopt a student and follow the progress
of the child over 3, 4, 5-year period based on
4800 dollar donation a year and you can contribute that
monthly and this will allow you to support a child,
sponsor child, so that all the services that we provide
in the over time use it, which are all enrichment
services, wrap around services for the children and the families
-Uh huh. -that allow us to address any deficiencies or
obstacles that might negate the child from walk to the
doors of high school, walk across the stage and give
him a diploma and going off to college, you know.
So, those services are wrapped around services that it costs
us 4800 a year to provide for each and every
child. So, it gives the community a vehicle and opportunity
to invest in these kids and have a direct effect
on 1 child you wanna sponsor to, which will enable
us to continue to expand the program, a good program,
and because we are in capacity, this will give us
an opportunity for people to adopt the child so we
can expand the program and utilize this in the school
systems as well. -You mentioned your kidney diagnosis focal-- How
do you pronounce it? -Focal segmental glomerulosclerosis. -Yeah, what is--
-It's the disease that scars and deteriorates the filters in
the kidney. -Yeah, and those can't be regenerated. So, that's
why there was-- that what-- -Yeah, they're working on, I
mean, new technology-- science has evolved -Right. -tremendously over the
years where they have stem cell research and things that
I need, so the possibilities are great for the future.
-Uh huh. -But currently, they have medicines that kind of
stabilize it and kind of slow the progression down, but
I had collapse in focal sclerosis, which is the worse
that you can have. -Okay. -And it's very prominent in
African-American community as well as in the Native American community
focal sclerosis is and it is a rapid deterioration of
the filters in the kidney, you know, -Uh huh. but
the good thing about it is they have medicines that
kind stabilize the condition if it's not too far long
and at the same time because of transplantation, the procedure
has improved tremendously where [unk] based it from that perspective.
-Speaking about that, in October of 2009, the Alonzo Mourning
access to care act was implemented in the state of
Florida. Can you tell us about that? And how that
come-- -Well, I mean, when you think about healthcare, it's
very, very difficult for individuals to afford proper medical care.
-Uh huh. -And when you think about insurances only cover,
but so much. They only cover maybe like 75%, 80%
that insurance's cover. So, the rest of that 25%, 20%,
you need coverage to cover the rest of that. We
got some individuals what will have to exhaust all of
their assets in order for them to qualify -Uh huh.
-to pay for that 20%, 25% that the insurance company
does not cover. So, we implemented that Access to Care
Act, which will individuals that are under the age of
60 to qualify for that insurance without having to exhaust
of their assets, without having to lose their house and
their car or what have you-- so he can live
a very productive life, you know, so-- I think the
most important thing is to provide and our President is
trying to do that right now. You know, he's trying
to provide all the proper medical care for individual. They
cannot afford and people won't lose their homes and all
their assets in order for them to care for some
of the medical conditions that are life threatening medical condition
that they're dealing with. It's unfortunate because, I mean, everybody
in life has dealt a different hand. -Right. -You know,
and unfortunately, some people get bad hands. It is like
going to- I mean, it's a terrible analogy, but just
like going to casino. If you're gonna gamble, you know,
you're gonna take the hand that you dealt with. You
got to play those cards. -You got to play. -Yeah,
you got to play those cards, you know, and sometimes
in life, we all need assistance. You know, we will
not be here without somebody else's contribution. -Exactly. -You and
I are blessed to have that, you know. So, I'm
excited to have an opportunity to have taken a negative,
a negative and very deflating and humbling situation like my
kidney transplant and my kidney disease, which came at a
pretty rough time for me. I'm excited about using that
to bless others. -Uh huh. -I've been able to touch
so many lives. I've touch more lives off the court
than I have on court because there are 20 million
Americans who suffer from chronic kidney disease and there's another
20 million who are at risk -Right. -They don't even
know it. -You know, so being a voice for those
individuals just makes me feel good because I feel like
God is using me and using that particular situation, which
is a very challenging and tough situation for me. He's
using me to be a spokesperson and to the help
those individuals out. -10 years ago, I was diagnosed as
a type 2 diabetic and that's basically a pandemic in
our community. The African-American community because 1 out of every
2 children born today have a 50% chance of being
diagnosed with this disease. -Wow. -So, you know, I lend
myself, my celebrity -Right. -and my time and my money
when I can because of the things that you're doing
there with your community. -You know, it's plenty of mix
on that, you know, a lot of people don't realize,
we're all products of our influences. -Uh huh. -You know.
-So, just based on how you affected by diabetes and
you will fortunately out to be financially be able to
take care of that particular condition, find the best doctors
or what have, we just go to think about, and
I heard Bill Clinton say this when he had a
speech at this dinner and he said, look, regardless of
how bad you got, he said, there's almost 90% people
in the world, got a the whole a lot worse
than you do. -Exactly. -Alright, so [unk] for me, you
know, well, he's right--
It appears you are using Internet Explorer 7 and may experience slow site performance. Please consider upgrading to a more modern web browser
