I've always wanted to make it to the NBA and be on a team, so whatever team drafts me I'm going to be happy with.
I know this: the opportunity to play, when that leaves, it is over.
I know I have the abilities to be a head coach or D-coordinator. It's something I wouldn't mind doing. But it's tough being a player and going back and doing something like that, because egos get in the way.
There are certain things that I always dreamed of, like fighting in the UFC. There's just certain things that I feel like haven't been accomplished there. There's such great women coming up in the sport; seems like a wonderful time to be in women's MMA.
I really didn't want to play basketball for the longest time, but I just wouldn't stop growing. But I always wanted to be a professional soccer player.
Until my senior year, baseball and basketball were my best sports; and even when I was a senior, I still wanted to play baseball professionally. But the family wanted me to go to college, and I guess I agreed with them, or else I would have accepted some of the offers I got.
Growing up as a high jumper, I said if I could ever jump 2.40, I'd be pretty satisfied with my career. It's definitely a barrier for high jumpers.
I never thought basketball was going to be my future. I just wanted to play because it gets you girls.
Our whole family had been sports oriented. My dad had played a lot of semipro but never had any opportunity to do anything with it. Back then, he had to make a living.
I'm as proud as the next guy, but I've always been a little skeptical of the daddies who walk around talking about what great athletes their kids are.
I am happy with being a tennis player and the choice I took when I was 12. But clearly, if I wouldn't have been a tennis player, I would have loved to be a soccer player. But again, I am happy with the choice I made.
So many kids want to be football players, and to still feel like I'm living the dream at 37 is amazing.
I think it was wishful thinking of me to dream of being an NBA player. And once I made the NBA I dreamed of being an All-Star, but I never dreamed of being an MVP.
When I dreamt of being a footballer I dreamt of being a forward, but I wasn't talented enough.
It's a dream come true. I mean, when I was a kid, I used to dream about playing college football one day, and now I'm playing in the best conference, and I truly believe that.
As a kid growing up in Latrobe, PA, I could dream about being an Olympian like Jesse Owens or Johnny Weissmuller. I could also dream about being a great golfer like Bobby Jones or Byron Nelson. But the idea of being an Olympic golfer never occurred to me.
A lot of players will tell you, 'When I was a kid, I watched Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, LeBron, Magic, and I wanted to be just like them.' For me, it wasn't like that at all.
For a long time, I thought I was going to play basketball. There's not many 6-4 white guys playing the three spot in the NBA, so I realized I probably didn't have much of a future in basketball and that football was probably going to be my best bet.
When I was younger, soccer was my life. I always wanted to play.
I was never able to be a part of U.S.A. Basketball in high school or college. So for me, it's a privilege.
When I was younger, trying to make the freshman and JV team, my dream was always to make it to the NBA.
My dream was to be either a volleyball player or a veterinarian.
Thank the Lord for a mother who was a general as well as a Latter-day Saint; who realized that it was a remarkable and splendid thing to encourage a boy to do something besides perhaps milking cows if he was on a farm, if he had ambitions along athletic lines.
When I was growing up, I was running around; I was a little tomboy. So I was just running around trying to be an athlete and trying to reenact things from TV, but I wasn't really into reading comic books or anything like that.
In high school, my dream was to go to the NBA. But when recruiting came around, the letters for football compared to basketball were like 25 to one, and my one wasn't from Duke.
