NBA Veteran, poet, author, activist, husband, and father of three, Etan Thomas is often called “The Renaissance Man” of the NBA. His new book, Fatherhood, Rising to the Ultimate Challenge was recently released to rave reviews.

To pen his new book, Etan enlisted the help of a variety of celebrity contributors from the likes of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and  Kevin Durant, to Rev. Al Sharpton and Ice Cube. Check out an excerpt from his interview with NYDailyNews.com:

Why invite such a varied set of contributors?

I wanted to have a mix of people who can speak to everybody. Somebody might hear more from Ice Cube than they would from Tony Hawk. Other people might hear more from Elijah Cummings than they would from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. The more voices, the wider the sector of young people that would be reached.

I’m not a fatherhood expert. It is not something that I have a degree in. I’m not qualified to lecture anybody. It’s a learning process for me as well. I wanted to hear from all these different men so I could learn, too.

What motivated you to write this book?

I just wanted to go through each topic and aspect of fatherhood. Some parts focus on young men getting over the anger of not having a father with them. In another chapter, I deal with the fact that when kids are younger and come from a single-parent home, all these statistics tell them that they are not going to be successful. They are going to end up in prison. I want to tell young people they can create their own path and here are some people who have done just that. These are people who have been through situations way worse than yours. Just look at Baron Davis and Kevin Durant, both of whom were able to rise above their upbringings.

Fatherhood, is in fact the second book from this NBA big man. In 2005, he released a book of poetry titled “More Than An Athlete.”

Congrats Etan! I’ll be sure to pick up my copy!