Adebayo Akinfenwa Quotes

People said I'm too big to play football.

I don't see myself as angry, although other people see that. I just see myself as a short, dumpy guy with bad feet, and I'm passionate.

I think I've got some more big plays left in me.

If I wasn't five-foot, I wouldn't be who I am! My size is a huge part of me.

I always thought of it like, 'What can my body do for me?' and not, 'How do I look?'

Sports were a way for me to get comfortable with my body. I learned to appreciate everything I could still do.

I'm more on the bigger side, so people don't think I have speed. I'm not the fastest guy, but I guarantee I'm not the slowest.

No, I don't want them to remove my scar. Scars are cool.

If I don't score runs in 5-10 games, it doesn't mean that everything is lost. I know what kind of a player I am and what my capabilities are.

When I was 6 or 7, my gymnastics coach looked at my quads and told the other coach to come over and see my quads. They were big then and still are. But I've kind of embraced it through the years.

Playing league, I was always a chunky ball. And my head, it was huge, too.

The jokes about how I look have actually made me stronger.

I really wanted to be a model when I was little. I loved photography, and I loved being on camera. But I was short and chubby, so I couldn't. Anyway, being an artist is way more interesting than just being a model because it's about you and what you want to be. You're not being treated like a clothes hanger.

One the reasons I talk about my story is I want other people who are in the circumstances I was in to understand they are just as good and as valuable as everyone else.

It's not an easy thing to be in this league 10 years. Especially with me being a second-round pick, the 46th pick, and an undersized guard, to carve a lane for myself and have a career, for my family to realize that and appreciate that, it meant a lot to me.

I think I'm a model in a football player body sometimes.

That's the thing: You'll lose your legs, your athleticism, but if you can shoot - definitely from 3 - you can play into your high thirties.

I find it very cool when girls hit on me because, for a long time, I was a fat kid. I became sexy at a later stage.

A lot of people tell me now I'm their inspiration. They say, 'I don't play baseball,' and then they mention whatever - engineer, doctor, college student, high school student - but they're hurt because, for some reason, people feel shame about themselves or embarrassed because they are short or skinny or fat or whatever.

I don't want to alter anything on my body.

Shaq wasn't talented - he was just strong. I was talented, but I wasn't strong.

I could see that I was losing weight and sometimes I'd see a few good comments and that spiralled me to be like: 'This is how I need to stay.' No one cares whether your performance was good, or if you sounded great.

Coming out of college, I wasn't considered the fastest, the biggest or the smartest. There was no way around that.

I've been working on the way my originality, my body, my face, my original form is perceived by me.

It amazes me. I'm just a fat, middle-aged, bald guy, but people still want to meet me.