"[He's entered my life] probably when I was six or seven, so he's been there for the long haul. He's been tremendous, and it was him who got me to be into basketball and understand the game the way I do now," Hayes-Davis explains.
"A lot of coaches I've played for and a lot of people comment on my intelligence of basketball and how well I can read the game, and that's a credit to him. From when I was younger, he kind of made me – not made me – but when we watched NBA games growing up, he would have me make sure I listened to the commentators, make sure I listened to what people were saying about the game, and why they were doing this and why they were doing that. You know, all of that teaching and instructing that he did with me helped me to be where I am now."
Although he has a very close relationship with his stepfather, it took Hayes-Davis a little while to warm up to having Albert around. Nevertheless, as the years went by, Hayes-Davis's admiration for his stepfather grew and grew, and was epitomized by one moment during his college days at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
"I think, when I was younger, it was that stereotypical 'You're not my dad, my real dad', and then you're trying to date my mother, so you see in the movies and stuff, it's the son that's protective of his mother and everything. And then, as you get older, it changes. And the change depends upon the man, like I said," he recalls.
"As I've grown up and watched the things that he's done for my family – for myself and for my mother – that's why I say he's the greatest man I've ever known. And the example I always give people is: I had a game in college and my mother obviously wanted to watch me play, so he drove from Ohio to Wisconsin, which is about a six-and-a-half-hour drive, so that my mother could watch the game. Watched the game, they left, drove six and a half hours back and then he went to work and worked a 12-hour shift at Chrysler, which if people don't know is an auto manufacturing plant, so it's not easy work. It's not like he's sitting at a desk – he's working. So, he did all of that, and any man who is willing to do that for his wife to see her child – and a child that's not his – like I said, the greatest man I've ever known."