Charles Barkley

Charles Barkley is a former American basketball power forward. A current resident of Arizona, Barkley is commonly nicknamed Sir Charles and occasionally The Round Mound of Rebound. Barkley was named Most Valuable Player of the NBA in 1993. In 1996, the NBA's 50th anniversary, he was named one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History. Barkley won the Olympic gold medal with the U.S. Dream Teams in the 1992 and 1996 Games. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2006.

Sourced

• Can I Play??
  • Series of McDonald's commercials

• I'm not a role model.
  • Series of Nike commercials

• I don't know much about Angola, but I know one thing, they're in a lot of trouble.
  • Press conference before the USA played Angola in the 1st round of the 1992 Olympics.

• You know it's gone to hell, when the best rapper out there is a white guy and the best golfer is a black guy.
  • Interview in the New York Post in October 2000.
  • Notes: Although Barkley popularised the phrase, it was first used several months earlier by Chris Rock.

• Kids are great. That's one of the best things about our business, all the kids you get to meet. It's a shame they have to grow up to be regular people and come to the games and call you names.
  • Verified on Late Late Show Oct 22 2004

• Anytime a fan touches you, you have the right to beat the hell out of him.
  • From CNN interview, Nov 22 2004, following a fight between players and fans at a recent Pistons-Pacers game.

• I'd have played against him (Len Bias) for the next 14 years. I would have been in my prime and he would have been in his. I'll never forget what he looked like. He was a 'Wow!' player. When Maryland played and was on television, I watched. It was like, 'I need to watch this guy; I'll be seeing him real soon.' . . . It was just shocking. Thing is, cocaine was huge then. My brother had been in and out of rehab. . . . It was a popular drug at the time. And guys I was playing against, like John Lucas and Michael Ray Richardson and John Drew had done cocaine. I was thinking: 'What the hell is up with this cocaine? I should try this once to see what it was all about.' Then, we heard the reports were that Bias only used it once . . . that it was his first time. When I heard that, it scared me to death . . . scared the daylights out of me. It scared me into not trying it even once, not going anywhere near it.
  • Asked to comment on the 20th anniversary of the cocaine-overdose death of Len Bias,

• Only poor people go to jail.
  • From interview on Jim Rome show