Five Questions with Titus O'Neil

NHL.com's Q&A feature called "Five Questions With …" runs every Tuesday through the 2017-18 regular season. We talk to key figures in the game and ask them questions to gain insight into their lives, careers and the latest news.
This special 2018 Honda NHL All-Star Game edition features WWE superstar Titus O'Neil, who spoke Friday at the Declaration of Principles Summit at the Westin Waterside in Tampa. Titus O'Neil is known to millions for his exploits in the WWE as one of the stars of RAW. But his wrestling role is just that, a role. It does not define who he is or what he is about.

O'Neil, born Thaddeus Bullard, delivered one of the keynote addresses of the Declaration of Principles Summit, discussing athlete activism and illustrating how the simple message he received as a teenager from a stranger - "I love you and I believe in you" - changed the course of his life and serves as the foundation of his life as an athlete, entertainer, philanthropist, activist, father and mentor.
Video: Explaining Hockey's Declaration of Principles
Friday, before a standing-room crowd in the hotel ballroom, O'Neill used his powerful story - born to a 12-year old mother who had been sexually assaulted, a childhood of poverty and, eventually, finding a path, through athletics, to attend college and become successful - to prove one's beginnings do not have to limit one's journey.
Here are Five Questions With ... Titus O'Neil:
You talked throughout your speech here at the Declaration of Principles Summit about the message you received as a child - "I love you and I believe in you" - and how it changed your life and how you have used that same message to change the lives of others. I'm wondering if you have a favorite story about how the message has helped someone else?
I shared that message with hundreds of kids. One kid in particular was a kid that was introduced to me. He had just lost his scholarship at Texas, where he was running track. A friend of mine brought him over and asked me to speak to him and see if I could help him. I talked to him and he just broke down crying and saying, "I don't know what I am going to do." I told him that listening to his story, it is very similar to mine. I want you to know that I love you and I believe in you and I am going to do everything I can to help you. Now that kid is on pace to graduate from the university of Florida and he runs track. His name is Kyren Hollis. That is just one of many scenarios in which I have implemented that message in my everyday life that has paid dividends for other people.
In this role as a philanthropist and activist, you are asked to do a lot of public speaking. It is a skill that you had to learn and one that you showed here today that you have mastered. What is your secret to be so good at speaking so convincingly to crowds?
For me, I know my story and can tell my story better than anybody. I know the information I want to pass along within those stories. To me, public speaking is just being who you are and bringing some humor into it if you can and just giving people valuable information that hopefully will educate them, inspire them or entertain them or try to do all three when I speak. At the core of everyone, we all want to laugh, we all want to hear a good story, we all want to be educated. That is what helps me go into these situations not nervous, but excited about the opportunity to have a chance to speak to a whole new audience where someone in the audience may have a very similar background to me, and some that may have a completely opposite one, but the thing that we all have in common is that we do want to see some people around us have a chance to succeed, whether it is minorities, children, women or whatever it may be. We all want to see the playing field equal at some point.

What about the Declaration of Principles speaks to you the most?
That the NHL actually wants to get involved, and that they are making financial contributions to not only introduce the game of hockey to those in underserved communities. They are not trying to make hockey players out of anyone, they are trying to make better people and teach them about character and showing them what people of good character look like and what they do for a living, and hopefully those people in those underserved communities, when they mesh with those people that come from a very gracious background, they are able to work together and learn together. That's how people grow; they grow from being around people that are different than they are and being introduced to different things. I think the biggest key that I got excited about is they say in the Principles that it is well beyond the rink; inside and outside the playing field. That is what I believe, I believe WWE and WWE superstar is what I do for a living, but it is not who I am for a living. I think that message comes through in the Declaration of Principles. Yes, we are all involved in the game of hockey and that is what we do for a living, but not who we are for a living.
Now we can have a little bit of wrestling fun. You said you have been going to hockey here since 2007 and you know a lot of the players, so if you could be any player on the Lightning, who would you be?
Steven Stamkos! He's the face of the franchise. He's a great human being. An excellent player and a good friend, somebody who I know for a fact has a charitable heart. He is a great individual and I am very proud to know him. To see his success after fighting back from injury and things like that and to have our team in the position it is in this season and him being a key part of that, I think that speaks volumes, not only about the training staff and the teammates around him, but him as an individual as well.

Do you think with a little bit of training you could score goals like Steven Stamkos? And who on the Lightning would be the best WWE star?
Absolutely not. That dude is one of the greatest in the game. I just like admiring him from afar. That would be like you asking him if thinks he can body-slam somebody. He's probably tell you, 'No, he's too small.'
Hmm, maybe Steve [would be the best WWE star] just because he has that look about him. [Goaltender] Andrei Vasilevskiy does too. Steve has a very marketable face and in sports and entertainment you want to be marketable. It's more than just the wrestling, you have to speak in front of crowds and entertain. I think, given the right opportunity, he could entertain.