The Official Site of Jordan Farmar

Tue, Mar 10th 2009, 11:05

Jordan's Playboy.com Blog - Five on 5: Week 17

Hey guys what’s up? Check out Pau Gasol and me playing ourselves on CBS’ Numb3rs on Friday at 10 p.m., March 13. Hope you enjoy it as much as we did. I also want to thank all the radio stations for having me on last week, it was a lot of fun.

As part of our team’s overall goal to win the NBA Championship, we’re pumped to be the first team to hit 50 wins this season and Lakers coach Phil Jackson now wants us to be the first to reach 60. Starting this week, 10 of our next 13 games will be on the road. With the NBA’s best road record, we say, “Bring it on!”

The college regular season finished last weekend with my Bruins finishing second at 12-5 in the Pac-10 to Washington and 24-7 overall, and now the Pac-10 Tournament plays out at our Staples Center this week. It was Senior Day last weekend and it was great seeing my guys Josh Shipp, Darren Collison and Alfred Aboya, who I played with at UCLA, all get their due. No player has won more games as a Bruin than Aboya, who got his 116th victory. Alfred also shares the record for most games played with Darren. The trio playing their last game at home for the Bruins got me thinking about my own college career. I had an unforgettable experience. Life for a sports star on campus comes with a lot of attention and some privileges, sometimes not. Sometimes, teachers know who you are, they respect and appreciate what you do, and they work with you on what you have to do to get through in the classroom. But some teachers know you’re a star athlete and they’re not going to cut you any slack — “I don’t care if you’re on the road, you have to read your chapters, you have to be here to do your pop quizzes and everything.” So it’s like you’re going to have to work twice as hard. It’s a catch-22, lol!

During this past season when I visited friends like Darren, it seemed like the girls were a lot better than when I was there, lol. It could be partly because I’m now on the outside looking in. But there just seemed like a different batch of girls now, a better crew that’s come in. But I was also thinking about the difference between a big city campus or one in a smaller town. You know, I considered going to the University of Florida coming out of high school, and I was thinking how different things would’ve been. I’m talking life in general. I made so many contacts and associations through UCLA, especially being a hometown kid.

But I realize campus life at UCLA is not like Gainesville, Florida, which is essentially a college town, and everything around there revolves around the college. Westwood, California, lol, is nothing like that. It’s a commuter school; many students don’t live there. Just thinkabout how different that is than being in a community of 30,000-40,000 college kids, where you go to football games together, you live and party on campus, where you are part of a separate community that is big on school spirit. So it means a different college experience, a great experience, no doubt, but like a year-long summer camp. You’ll find kids who want to have a good time, and be part of that. That’s cool and it’ll possibly be some of the best years of their lives.

Big city schools like UCLA are places where people go to get business done. You may want to get a career so you can have a good job later. Or if your goal is to play pro sports, like basketball, it’s the closest thing to professional basketball you’re going to get. So it’s like a business step in the right direction. Over the next few weeks with the NCAA tournament getting underway, I’ll talk about my picks and also about what went into my decision to leave school early and declare for the NBA draft, along with what it felt like to go to both the NCAA and NBA finals and not come away with a win.

Thanks for the great questions from my Playboy.com readers, and also to Melissa for her props for my basketball camps in the Holy Land. On a basic level, we were trying to get the Arab and Israeli kids to see the other side as people, as humans who want to play and laugh, just like they do. At the end of the day, you don’t want kids thinking about war, you want them to think about just being kids, and learning some valuable lessons about co-operation and teamwork that can stay with them throughout their lives. If I can use my name to get other people involved, people who may not have thought anything about it, but hear about what I’m trying to accomplish, on that basic level, then that’s progress. People have called wanting to contribute financially, or maybe help make it a more structured format to make it bigger and better — people who are interested in the situation but never thought of using basketball to make things happen. I put myself out there and the kids were excited to see me. They watch TV, they see the NBA, they know who the Lakers are and it makes it easier to get their respect and get the kids onboard to have fun. And like I’ve said before, from my own personal experience, sports is key in teaching life lessons and also breaking down all sorts of barriers.

There’ve been some cool Qs asking about my taste in music, clothes and other things like my take on politics, etc. and I ask you to check out some of my previous blogs at Playboy.com/blog/sports. For all my college fans, have fun and be safe on your upcoming spring break trips. Check out my new dish next week

— JFarm.