Aging Athlete Quotes

I'm 56 years old. I like to get out on the court. I continue to try to play the best I can. Obviously, I'm nowhere near where I was when half this age. But I can still hit a pretty decent ball.

Every football player knows when his time is up.

I want the young guys to say, 'How old is this guy that's blocking me every play?'

That's the hard part about sport: as men we haven't started to be in our prime, but as athletes we are old people. I needed support. I lost trust and did stupid things.

The reality is that my style of drumming is largely an athletic undertaking, and it does not pain me to realize that, like all athletes, there comes a time to... take yourself out of the game.

There will be a time when I physically cannot do this sport.

Every year it happens. When I'm not putting up big numbers, I start hearing it - that I'm too old, that time finally has caught up with me.

No one has said, 'What are you doing still playing?' Everyone said, 'Play as long as possible.' You stop when you stop enjoying it, and I'll know when I've had enough and can't keep up with the boys.

When I retired, I stopped playing because of my body, so much pain and injuries.

At some point, you're not going to be able to run the ball for 180 yards, even with the best running back in the NFL. That's when you have to be able to throw the ball.

Tennis is a young man's game. Until you're 25, you can play singles. From 25 to 35, you should play doubles. I won't tell you exactly how old I am, but when I played, there were 28 men on the court - just on my side of the net.

But I'll tell you this: When I lose my athleticism, it's time to go.

I am a little older and understand the nature of the business - the older you get the more your skills supposedly diminish, but I think I am getting wiser in how to use my physical skills. That's the frustrating part when you put so much heart and desire into things and feel like you are not wanted.

Getting past 30 as a sportsman, the end could be just around the corner.

I'm thankful that I have been able to play so long and still be healthy. I'm not all banged up and beaten down. I still feel good. But as much as I would love to play forever, I know that I can't.

As you get older, it's harder to maintain your weight and to fly through the air for those routines. It's also the lifestyle; you train seven to eight hours a day, five to six days a week.

The only demise of Shaquille O'Neal will be his age.

We who have seen him now, light on his feet, smooth moving as a leopard, a young man with an old man's science, the most beautiful fighting machine I have ever seen, may live to see him fat, slow, old, and bald taking a beating from a younger man. But I would like to hazard a prediction that whoever beats Joe Louis in an honest fight in the next fifteen years will have to get up the floor to do it.

There comes a time in any proud sportsman's career when you have to make the difficult decision to stop.

I love soccer. That's all I ever watch. I'll watch it all day if I can. But I'm too bloody old to play now.

I know I don't throw very hard anymore, but I'd like to think I can still hurt a guy who's not looking.

I'd love to still be able to play a bit of football, but my knees are shot to pieces.

Like I said, a 30-year-old hockey player, even when I came to New York when I was 30, I was on the downside of my career, pretty much the end of my career.

I'm not really worried about my numbers now as a 36-year-old. I'm not trying to be the first, experimental case of a 36-year-older trying to maintain his numbers, especially when I'm on a team like this. Can I do the same stuff I could do when I was Amare's age? Of course not. I'm not going to even try. However, I feel that I'm the baddest 36-year-old out there.

As the wonderful agony begins for 1964-65, I sometimes wonder why I do it. I've got an insurance business going on the side, and it is starting to grow nicely. Selling insurance fulfills me, in a way, like basketball. But basketball keeps calling me back. I suppose I'll play until I can't keep up with the kids any longer.