yourlifeyourvoice.org. (tdd# 1-800-448-1433) this week on "our world with black enterprise." duane wade zrib dribbles into book stores. and we cheer on a woman who's been bringing a healthy dose of food to innercity children around the country. that's what's going on on our world next. >> "our world withh black enterprise" is sponsored in part by --

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welcome back to "our world with black enterprise." two-time nba champion dwyane wade scoring big. after a long ku69 oddy battle over his son, he's decided to write about the experience. take a look. >> thanks for being here.

first of all, congratulations, you just won another nba championship. >> thank you. it's been forever since i won the last one six years ago. it's a long time. >> in your book, you talk about that first season. it was after you beat the lakers and you have an e-mail or a text message from your lawyer saying it was over, and you were talking about a custody battle. that prompted you to write this book, right? >> yeah, that moment led to now where i could even talk about being a father first. even though i always thought of myself as a good father, i went through this journey for a reason. i wanted to share my experiences with so many families out there, i know a lot of families deal with a lot of things i deem with. not only as an adult. but as a kid. that's why i talked about my childhood as well.

>> you, like many people have a story. and your story started with issues with your mother, issues at home. what were some of the things? >> yeah, growing up with a mom who's -- as long as i can remember was addicted to drugs, selling drugs, in and out of jail. my father, even when he was around, it got tense with him. just a different way of doing things, very strict, very militant. growing up in the city of chicago, just like any other innercity. it's exactly what it is, drugs, gangs, shootings, killings, and you know, you're looking at yourself like, man, am i going to be a statistic? am i going to be one of them? you want other things for yourself, that's what i did. luckily i had an unbelievable sister. luckily i had an unbelievable support staff along the way to help me break that generational courage. >> is that what made you not be a statistic? >> my sister was the first one that god put in my life that

teq!qitájjuz take you here.ne your father's going to help tak. i had a lot of people grabbing my hand. i didn't do it alone. i understand that, i know that kids need somebody to believe in them. that's what i have. >> fast forward to me, you get married. obviously that didn't work out for forever. and you got to a point like your parents where with you are going to be divorced. you had an expectation despite the parents separating you, you were still co parenting and being a parent. >> that's what i've seen growing up. i was young when they divorced. no matter what was going on in their lives, when it came to me and my sister, they were the best of friends, they did whatever it took to have a relationship with both parents. i thought that was automatic. even though i came from this crazy upbringing. that part of being -- what you

do with your kids, that was the normal part to me. >> you ended up in a custody battle with your children. what kind of toll did that take? >> it took a lot on me. i went a lot of time without them. especially my oldest son, who -- i kind of grew with, from when i was 20 years old, to not be able to be around him, to not be able to be around my son, who was just born at the time. it hurt. but i kept fighting. i think my boy was affected just not knowing what to believe or who loved them, because of so many things being said, very public case that i was in. >> if you could do anything different as you were going through the custody battle what would it be? >> i think i did what i felt was right. i felt the one thing i did good, i didn't speak ill of their mother at one point. no matter what happens, my tongue never spoke ill of her publicly or to my kids.

i took what you call the high road. it's tough to take the high road, but i did, and i think through the whole process, i let my kids know how important they were to me, and how much i love them, et cetera. that's all can you do, is continue to let them know how much you love them. >> so then 2011 happens, these kids come to your door, they're yours, what do you do? >> immediately went out -- my kids weren't coming for the weekend any more, they were there, this was forever. i jumped into daddy mode fast. >> what does daddy mode look like for dwyane wade. when you come home, and nobody cares about the awards. you have to handle stuff in the household. what are you like? >> my kids would explain it differently than me. i have two sides, i'm as cool as your best friend. i can be that cool. but also i'm raising kids who pretty much don't have a clue. everything they learn is what they see from us or we teach

them. so they're going to make a lot of mistakes, they have to be paddled, other times i have to be in their face and let them know what to expect and what not to expect. it's a tough line. >> are you a tough father? are you a disciplinarian? >> i'm -- i don't think i'm too tough, i think i'm good enough. at times i can be fine, at times -- >> are you like pat riley? >> no. i mean my kids -- anything to them, automatically like -- you say their name with a strong voice. that's disciplinarian to them. >> right. there are a lot of people outside waiting for you. a lot of them love you for baublg. at least ten people said i love what he's doing as a father. i love the message that he's sending out to fathers, how important is it to you to be a role model? >> it's very important. whether you like it or not, you are. when you're on that tv, you're on that screen, people look at

you as bigger than life. you're just like everyone else, the tv screen makes you look a little bigger. you're a role model. >> laid diz and gentlemen, olympian, author, dwyane wade. i felt that writing this book, my responsibility was to share responsibility on light. it could be a positive conversation and that's fatherhood. >> you have absolutely done that. the book is called a father first, how my life became bigger than life. i wish you the best of luck. up next, panel of game changers weighs in on channel 9. >> just having the opportunity. having more female role models out there. you know, on the pager platform. that will do tremendous things for our youth. ñç

when back pain slows you down, closed captioning for our world is brought to you by -- so you're back to full speed. [ male announcer ] icy hot. power past pain. title ix sort of allowed me the opportunity to play at the collegiate level. i rouen to the duke university, i was able able to become the woman i am today. >> one thing i think is crystal clear, now that we've experienced the positive impacts that title ix can have on our society, we're not going back. >> welcome back to our world with black enterprise. this year marks the 40th anniversary of title nine.

as a notion of equality, joining me to have this conversation is wendy hilliard. we're also joined by joetta clark digs. and the wnba player for the new york liberty. thank you for being here. >> thank you for having me. >> when people say 40 years have passed and women now have equality in sports, how do you respond? >> title ix's been around for 40 years. when it first started, the opportunities were really not there for girls. 2 was a big difference for high school or college. in 40 years, it's been a huge difference. now it's two out of five, there's been a big, big change. we have a long way to go. >> women weren't doing sports before, because they didn't want to, when in fact a lot of it was gauze of opportunity. >> many of the generation in my family, they all talked about how they loved to play sports much but they just did not have the opportunity. now, you know, moving forward 40

years, i had my opportunity. i knew i wouldn't be able to be a professional athlete on this stage, on a platform without title ix. >> i was watching the olympics this year. they said more women brought home medals than men. do you think the nation is responding to the success of women in sports? >> no doubt. not only were there more women in the u.s. olympic team, have you to understand, because of title ix all those team sports, soccer, basketball, of course, which historically has done well, there's so many more female athletes that are able to participate in sports on a higher level, as a result of that, you saw the results from the olympics. >> you're getting the love, though. we keep talking about the men, why do you think that is? >> i think where we are in society, you know, from where we came from, we have come a long way. but like you said, we still have many steps that need to be taken. we have a long class ahead of

us. but you look at things like, hey, you guys play the same sport, why don't you get paid equally. that's a big question that everyone always asks. >> when you look at the money aspect of it, i think we don't want to focus on that at this point. everyone is not going to make a living out of sports. so the important thing is, give it the opportunity to play and make them aware of these different activities that they can get in high school and college. >> one step for equal opportunities is getting into the building. another step is how you're represented once you're in there. do you think female athletes get represented properly in the media? >> it's got a long way to go. the percentage of media that covers women's sports is very low. that makes a difference. when you talk about the image and athletes can control their image a little more, there's no doubt the press has to come along to give more exposure to these great athletes. >> who gets represented not for their athletic abilities, but

because they're attractive. and they become pinup models rather than superstars. does that hurt women's chances. >> i don't think when you say attractive. when i wanted to be a sports model, they said i didn't have the look. we have to be careful when we put women in categories. anyone can aspire to the point. we can't lose focus on competition. you. >> made an interesting point. often times people are worried about girls getting into sports, they're worried they won't be real girls any more. did you have a challenge with that growing up? >> of course. especial letter with the sport of basketball. where i'm from from patterson, new jersey, and the neighborhood. most of the kids -- most of the little boys play basketball, football or run track. just playing with those little boys throughout recess, it was always like, oh, you're the tom boy, you're the tom boy. i just loved sports.

i love what it does for me. >> how can we get the next generation of girls to love the sport even more and have better access to the sport? >> there are two things. i'm from the sport of gymnastics, i was the first african-american to compete in rhythmic gymnastics, it wasn't an issue. now you have gabby douglas here, who's made an impact on sports. the impact is going to be so many mothers are having their daughters and fathers when they're raising their daughters and they may be a great basketball player they want them to have the opportunities. it's really the next generation that has parents that have participated in sports that's going to help. >> i think to wendy's point as well. they can't lose sight. even though we made great strides. we have to be mindful that the gap is growing between men and women now. at one point we had closed and now it's growing. and so we need to make sure that we analyze the issue of title

ix. we organized the issue of title ix, it was time for us to initiate and follow through. >> title ix was about giving women access to opportunity. are there any specific challenges that african-american women and african-american athletes face? >> definitely. i think when you look at any challenge, can you write a law. does it go into effect. that's because they're women. have you to understand, it wasn't just for sports, it was for math, science. the challenge that we have is that many of the sports, they're not in urban communities. a lot of those numbers, a lot of what we're talking about, is that urban youth don't have a chance to pay for sports. we really have to make sure that more urban youth get different sports, more diverse sports so they can participate. because it's much harder to do sports now. >> what can we do to raise the next generation of wnba stars like you? >> just having an opportunity.

having more female role models out there on the platform. one thing i'm involved with, we have a sport for health equity. and we're using sports, like i said, to bring everyone together. as long as you're given the opportunity. you know, we can go -- it's endsless. and when you don't have the opportunities is when you don't give yourself a chance. when you don't give yourself a chance, you miss 100% of the shots that you never take. >> absolutely. and they have you three as extraordinary role models for what's possible in sports. >> stay right there, i'll be back with more our world with black enterprise. coming up, latoya smith goes to philadelphia in search of a true challenge. >> i hope to change one life. oh, hey mike. what are you up to? oh, just diagramng this accident with mstate farm pocket agent app. you can also get a quote and pay your premium with this thing.

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♪explosion i love telling big stories about big heroes: people we admire and look up to. but, at the end of the day, real life is better than any story. our service men and women are the real heroes. every day they make the sacrifices for their country; for my country; for my son's country. my dad was a marine and a navy historian. he was the first one to show me just how much these men and women give up. they leave their families and their homes. they train, they fight, they struggle for us, and so much of the time it goes unnoticed and un-thanked.

and that is what i love so much about the uso. it gives us real ways to support our real heroes. the uso lifts the spirits of america's troops and their families, and there is a way we can say thanks. you can go to uso.org and make a real difference in their lives today. do it. welcome back. latoya smith visited my hometown of philadelphia with a real challenge. >> here's the story of a woman who's scoring big points. maria battle is our slice of life. >> at the president of the ameri health foundation, she is creating programs to educate

families. >> they take children from a long screening, from their bmi to all their testings they need. their blood pressure, height, weight. they take them through a spirometry check. they get an asthma and action plan, they see the ator gift and pulmonologist. many times that's not something you can do all in one day. we're really trying to capture it all together. >> the children have a fair amount of basic information about asthma. they operate off of a lot of myths. >> the idea is to bring the health options and information to underdeserved communities while showing that staying healthy can be fun. >> we work out as a family. i have a mini-gym at the house. i put the kids through circuit training three times a week. >> if there's one parent who talked to me and said, i no longer have to take my child to the er.

well, that's costing less for us as a plan. but it's providing this mother with the opportunity to know their child is healthy. the child, it provides them with the confidence we can do things such as play basketball or do other types of activities. >> this year's big draw at the philadelphia event was the program's partnership with charlie mack's party for peace weekend bringing in lots of stars in sports and music. >> they meet with them, they talk with them. it was a perfect match. >> a program like this, and a woman like maria battle and a man like charlie mack has the ability to unify the community. >> coming here, trying to raise awareness educate kids about asthma, about getting better health information. about living a healthy life. and this allows us to do that. >> now in its ninth year, the

program is still growing. they're having a clear impact on health care costs. >> i want to continue doing what we're doing in a bigger way, because we can do more. >> with asthma affecting some 9 million children in the u.s., maria knows there's a bit fight ahead. >> she's wouldn't super bowl with healthy hoops. this is a miracle. >> i am blessed to be able to have a job that i can go into the community and bring these type of programs to the community. it's a joy that i can help save one life. that we can change one life. it energizes me. >> we'll be right back. promotional consideration provided by --

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that wraps it up for this edition of "our world with black enterprise." be sure to visit us on the web at blackenterprise.com. thanks for watching, see you next week.