Athletic Mastery Quotes

The difference between the good players and the great is how long they stay in their prime.

I always saw hurdles as a form of art, because it's very individual. One technique that may produce a world record for one guy could be useless for another guy.

As an athlete there are times in your career where, during a game, any decision you make seems to be the right one. The bowler bowls where you want, you don't have to think and you are so 'in the zone' that you are not aware of anything else around you.

You're always struggling because you're not playing on a 53-and-a-third by a 120-yard field. You're not playing on a baseball diamond. With golf, every field is different and every atmosphere is different. The grass is different. The weather is different. You're outside. You're not in a stadium. There are so many different variables, so you never master golf. So, I think good athletes like a challenge.

I want to be the best player to ever play this game.

What we accepted as great art - whether the book, the script, the painting, the symphony - is that which could be saved and savored. But the performances of the athletic artists who ran and jumped and wrestled were gone with the wind.

Some athletes can master two sports, but most are only good at one.

There were probably about five games in my career where everything was moving in slow motion and you could be out there all day, totally in the zone, and you don't even know where you are on the field, everything is just totally blocked out.

Yeah, I am a little bit, and I think it is a natural progression of the sport, of going upwards in technical ability and everything like that.

The technocracy of professional sport has managed to impose a soccer of lightning speed and brute strength: a soccer that negates joy, kills fantasy and outlaws daring.

International rugby is a step up, and this is somewhere you come to get better and improve as a player.

I just play, that's all. When I'm in the field, I always connect with what I'm doing. I can't explain it. I can't control it. It just happens.

And there is such a thing as a decathlon high. It's like a rock rolling down hill, picking up momentum. You get better and better.

My chief gifts are - naturally good at all sports with a raw talent for pretty much everything, which if nurtured could develop into improper talent.

Nike was the essence of sports, transcendence through sports.

I wasn't artistic in drawing or painting, but I think I am artistic in sport. I think I'm always looking for the ultimate, the maximum. It's a challenge that excites me.

Waterpolo is my life. Our relationship is that of predetermination I'll never be better at anything than waterpolo and that is why it is my duty to pursue this sport as long as I can, and to the best of my abilities.

Football is an art form in itself. All sports are.

The decathlon takes so long to learn that people who are good athletes don't want to go back to the beginning again.

As good as NFL Films is at making players human, it's even better at making players superhuman. No Hollywood studio has made movies that are more grand or gorgeous. Every meticulous shot of 'Hard Knocks' is a vision: every slow-motion spiral, every shaved head steaming like a Manhattan manhole cover.

I'm just kind of really interested in athletes as artists of a pretty serious variety and people who devote themselves to what they do in a really incredible way.