Athlete Influence Quotes

Celebrities may get all the attention in the glossies, but when athletes set an example, their words are far-reaching - deep into the inner cities, across Mid-western farmlands, up and down coasts.

What's so amazing in today's society is people look up to football players. And as a football player, you have a platform. And it's so much more important than any touchdown or trophy or anything you could win with football. Its taking that platform and be able to influence people.

Money has changed today's black athletes. Those who have the ability as African men to bring a change in a community that so desperately needs it are concentrating only on their own careers, some charities and how much money they can make.

I was a big Michael Jordan fan growing up. I don't feel my game resembles his though.

[T]here seems to have been an actual decline in rational thinking. The United States had become a place where entertainers and professional athletes were mistaken for people of importance. They were idolized and treated as leaders; their opinions were sought on everything and they took themselves just as seriously-after all, if an athlete is paid a million or more a year, he knows he is important ... so his opinions of foreign affairs and domestic policies must be important, too, even though he proves himself to be ignorant and subliterate every time he opens his mouth.

Anything you can do to help someone, I just think it's so important because there's a lot of kids that look up athletes of all size and shapes in a lot of different fields, not necessarily in the basketball field. They get involved emotionally with those people because there's something about certain athletes that people rally around.

Art Monk was an example for Jerry Rice. That's what Jerry always told me.

The Laker brand and name itself is fantastic. When you have a guy like Kobe Bryant in that brand also, it takes it out of this world. I think the fact that everybody sees the work ethic this guy has makes them work harder.

I bring immediate impact off the court as much as I do on the court.

I don't care what anybody says: a pro athlete is going to be a role model. I tried to use that as a positive influence, to let kids know we are regular people.

Ads sway kids' preferences. Star athletes spokespeople sway kids' preference.

I always wanted to become a good role model for kids as a professional football player. Unfortunately, I didn't attain that through football, but I was smart enough to realize that professional wrestling provided another opportunity for that.

The symbolic significance of individual athletes' achievements has sometimes proved more productive than the negotiations of diplomats or politicians.

I don't believe professional athletes should be role models. I believe parents should be role models.... It's not like it was when I was growing up. My mom and my grandmother told me how it was going to be. If I didn't like it, they said, Don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out. Parents have to take better control.

When Michael Jordan quit, I suddenly found myself without a sports hero.

… [now football] players want to be politicians and use their fame to lecture other Americans, the parsons of the press corps want to make them moral spokesmen…

If I was a kid and my favorite player has a good game, and if I tweet him after the game and he replies back or favorites my tweet, it's essentially like you just had a conversation with him. I couldn't imagine what that would do for me. To me it's the way it should go.

Whether you want to or not, you do serve as a role model. People will always put more faith in baseball players than anyone else.

Who's to say because you're just a basketball player, or you are a basketball player, who's to say you can't chime in on other subjects or other important topics?

As an athlete, there are limits to my ability to reach out, a platform that politics can offer.

Major League Baseball has always recognized the influence that our stars can have on the youth of America. As such, we are concerned that recent revelations and allegations of steroid use have been sending a terrible message to young people.

As athletes, just looking at it from an outside perspective, it's really remarkable, the impact you could have on somebody that you have no idea.

Well, I do feel that I carry the responsibility of representing my country wherever I am, and this responsibility came with the success that I had in last couple of years, not just myself but the whole group of tennis players that comes from Serbia. And athletes in general are, in this moment, the biggest ambassadors that our country has.

I think that a lot of times we get wrapped up in just our career - we play ball, we make good money. As a kid you probably grew up a Lakers fan, a Clippers fan or whatever it is because sports is just a thing when you're a child. But, when you really look at the overall picture, we have a platform and a voice.

Amazingly, I think that a lot of times athletes are - are kind of in a position where other think they shouldn't weigh in on certain social topics.