Often there are players who have only football as a way of expressing themselves and never develop other interests. And when they no longer play football, they no longer do anything; they no longer exist, or rather they have the sensation of no longer existing.
I don't think anything can prepare you for the 'Strictly' experience. It really is insane. I mean, I played football, rugby, American football. I go to the gym. I like to think I'd be quite fit, and I don't have much fat on me to lose, and yet I still lost a stone and half and three inches off my waist.
Football has been my life for as long as I can remember.
One hundred religious persons knit into a unity by careful organizations do not constitute a church any more than eleven dead men make a football team. The first requisite is life, always.
But I just want to be known for my football.
A lot of football success is in the mind. You must believe you are the best and then make sure that you are.
I always wanted to become a football player, and I thank my parents, as they helped me so much to realise this dream. They always supported me on my path.
The bottom line is winning. I want to do what we need to do to win football games.
Pro football was taking off when I became commissioner, and when a sport's successful and you're its chief executive officer, much of the credit flows to you and you develop a good track record.
English football is really different to football in other countries.
I sail, scuba dive, play football, basketball.
I remember playing football dressed in peculiar costumes with some friends in France and laughing so hard we couldn't even stand up, let alone kick the ball.
I played football for a team called the East Dragons on the east side of town. We only had six regular season games. And six games I played tail back and I had 18 touchdowns in six games. That's when I knew I had some athletic ability.
In football, you're dealing with grown men. In gymnastics, you're dealing with prepubescent teenage girls. There's a huge difference. At that age, you're not confident enough to have a voice.
I'm not claiming that football is the nation's salvation in this area, but it's one of them, one little thing that apparently has captured the imagination of a large sector of our society. But when football can't be a relatively pure outlet, a fun thing, then it hurts itself.
I also developed an interest in sports, and played in informal games at a nearby school yard where the neighborhood children met to play touch football, baseball, basketball and occasionally, ice hockey.
There were a couple of years when I wanted to be a football player, but I really always wanted to be a singer.
A consulting position might work in another profession, but not in pro football. There's no such thing. They give a guy a parking spot and put his name up as a consultant, and in six months, they erase the name.
I'd followed the strange deaths of pro football players for years, sensing something odd going on.
I love the atmosphere football brings; I love being around my teammates; I love the struggle in football. I love the fact that it is a part of my life. I don't look at it as any more important or less important as any other part of my life.
Playing for 14 years definitely took its toll mentally. I decided when I was playing my last season that when I retired from football I would never go back into it, and I've never regretted that decision.
It is wonderful... Steve and Dan took professional football to a whole different level with the way they played the game. The fact that Steve is going in with Dan is very special.
We have got a problem winning games in the league. We have to educate ourselves and maybe we have to not play the lovely football that we have been.
I don't wish that I was playing football. I love baseball, and the way I play is like it's my last day ever playing it. I do like football, but you've got to respect that it's not like baseball.
If you'd rather go to the football game than read a comic, that's fine. I'd rather do both.
There is a growing feeling that perhaps Texas is really another country, a place where the skies, the disasters, the diamonds, the politicians, the women, the fortunes, the football players and the murders are all bigger than anywhere else.
Before the first year, nobody gave it a chance. Now, 36 years later, everybody knows Monday Night Football.
People get the impression that we approach football without method: that we're a bunch of skilled individualists. This just isn't so. I'm all for individuality. But I personally go through every tactical plan before every match.
I just want to play well, have the people in Chicago enjoy watching soccer. You have a very good baseball team, a very good ice hockey team, and a very good football team. Hopefully you'll have a very good soccer team.
You can relax more when you're playing a silly character than when you're playing a really rigid character. But to be fair, I think George Clooney is a bigger teenager than any of the 'Twilight' cast. He's the guy throwing a football at your head and then hiding around the corner, pretending it wasn't him!
Believe it or not, one teacher used to call me a giant spastic for not being able to play football.
I hate the idea of theatre just being an evening pastime. It should be emotionally and intellectually demanding. I love football. The level of analysis that you listen to on the terraces is astonishing. If people did that in the theatre... but they don't. They expect to sit back and not participate.
Football is now all about money. There are problems with the values within the game. This is sad because football is the most beautiful game. We can play it in the street. We can play it everywhere.
I started out wanting to coach football.
Sharks are as tough as those football fans who take their shirts off during games in Chicago in January, only more intelligent.
My dad played football, too, in the former Yugoslavia.
