The alumni magazine for George Washington University has a lengthy profile on the school’s most famous alum, Mayor Vince Gray.

There’s plenty of details on the mayor’s background for Grayophiles to enjoy, like the fact that his father drove a cab at night as a second job to earn extra income when Gray was growing up.

Here some choice quotes from mayor.

On his youthful baseball skills: “Not to be self-aggrandizing, but I was really a ball player from the moment I picked up a bat.”

On his difficult first year at GW and how he wanted to drop out: “My first year there I was given what I think was bad advice. They had me taking 18 semester hours, which—when you do the math—you need 120 to graduate, so that is an average of 15 a semester. And not only was it 18 semester hours; it was zoology, it was chemistry, it was European history, German—it was a hugely challenging set of courses.”

“I realized that there were going to be a lot of tough decisions … and the question is do you step to it or do you walk away from it and I decided that I needed to step to it.”

On the leadership style of former Mayor Adrian Fenty and Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee: “It was the insular, exclusionary approach to governing that really bothered me … I’m a very inclusive person. I believe in the reality that we live in a democracy. I believe in it even more here, where we experience less of a democracy than most places because we are the District of Columbia. So why would we want to live in a situation where our own leaders treat us that way?”

“I had worked with this administration for four years, and it was very painful for me to see how people were treated, how people were oppressed. I felt frankly that the city needed a change.”