Athletic Careers Quotes

The draft is one of my favorite events because it is about football. People are focused on how their teams improve. It's a celebration of football. And most importantly, it represents a very important time in the lives of these men who are entering the NFL, and their families.

Many of the most successful coaches and managers have come from players who never reached the highest level. The one exception seems to be basketball, where many of the greatest stars at least tried to coach a team.

If they're trying to get high school kids to go to the D-League, I will be shouting from mountaintops saying, 'What is this going to do to a generation of kids who say, 'All right, I'm going to do this,' you get one or two years to make it, and now you're out without any opportunities. Who's taking care of those kids now?'

Say I had been with a guy like Tom Brady, Peyton Manning or Drew Brees all of my career. Are you kidding me?

You don't see too many attacking flair players continuing until their mid-30s at a high level.

I think that the significance of the WNBA is that it has given women a different platform and a different level of respect as professionals, both as players and also in our coaching.

There are a lot of guys kind of on the bubble that can either be that sort who turn into journeyman kind of guys that will find a new spot or guys that can make a claim to be in one place for a long time. You can name a lot of names this year, an unusual number. And I think that most of them will be OK.

These kids are the future of the National Football League. They're the next generation that will be playing high school football, NCAA football, and some even to the pros.

Unfortunately, we don't have the luxury of being paid like NBA, NFL and soccer and baseball athletes. They have that cushion where they can kind of hang out. Even the guys on the bench. But for us, we don't fight, we don't get paid and that's the scary reality to it all.

The only reason baseball's numerical touchstones have any significance is that most players - even the game's greats - peter out just barely before they reach them.

I saw [ that I and my father, Cecil end our careers with 319 home runs] after I retired. It was just weird. With all the games we played, neither one of us could hit one more home run? Obviously, it was supposed to go that way. It's a pretty cool thing, I guess.

Considering the relatively brief careers of professional athletes, teenagers who are good enough to play at the highest level should be able to exploit that market.

This is a tragedy for the players. Their careers are short and this is money and opportunity they'll never get back.

It's not like being a professional basketball player where you're in a big house. Maybe three, four or five guys make a couple million bucks a year, but that's it. The rest of them have second jobs.

The WNBA changed everything. It started in 1997, and I graduated from high school in 1998.

For players, during our active career, it is always difficult to talk about coaches - whether it is former or a current.

We do not use managers, we are the representatives of our athletes, and that is why I am deeply involved in athletics, I follow our athletes careers from start to finish, 100% all the way.