Division I Quotes

My wrestling dream was to become a Division I national champion. That was my No. 1 dream - not Olympics, not money. Just winning that tournament.

At six years old, our son had friends who played soccer from 4 P.M. to 7 P.M., Monday through Friday. A six-year-old practicing as much as a Division I athlete.

I go to a wrestling match, and I love it. But at a wrestling match, on every level - that includes Division I - you go into an empty and cold gym, you roll out a mat, and you set 10 chairs up on each side. That's a dual meet, and it's very hard to act like it's a big event.

After high school, I earned a scholarship to play Division I soccer at a small school in North Carolina, but I didn't get much playing time, which forced me to determine who I was beyond the field, something I had previously never had to do.

The Big Five is a competition played in the University of Pennsylvania's Palestra among five Philadelphia-area Division I schools: Saint Joseph's, La Salle, Penn, Temple, and Villanova. 'The Big Five' was immensely popular, and rivalries quickly grew to intense proportions.

The athletes are still out competing the same as a Division I team, and I think we've done a good job of creating an atmosphere where they're responsible for their actions and their play.

I think the only time I doubted myself was my senior year in high school. I was not offered a Division I scholarship. I remember a scout from Ohio State coming in and looking at my film. He was all excited to meet me. Then he met me and I was 5'10" and he said that I was not a Division I quarterback.

I loved the idea of playing quarterback on Friday Night Lights in high school, that whole experience. I wanted to be a Division I quarterback, that became my goal growing up, other than being a professional hockey player.

A Division I college wrestling team has so many guys at such a high level it'd be like having every single guy in the gym being a top 10 UFC guy, and that's who you're competing against every single day. Most everyone has been wrestling since they were 5 years old. It's been their dream to wrestle in college. There's such a high level of intensity.

I've lined the field. I've washed the uniforms. I've washed my own equipment. Those Division I guys don't understand that. I've worked myself up the ladder.

It's hard to get a job. There are more lawyers within a five-mile radius of wherever you're sitting than there are Division I jobs.

I was a true wrestler. I was a Division I national champion. I came into the business wanting one thing and one thing only, and that was to be the champion, and I wasn't going to let anybody stand in my way. I think there was one guy that had a problem with that, and that was Undertaker.

I was very close to playing at an Ivy League School. The Division I schools, when a coach would come visit all he would talk about was my size.

I think, between me and Chris Brown, if you combined our games, you'd get, like, a real Division I basketball player.

I think they need to expand the playoff system. I think the minimum should be 16 teams, but they could easily go with more than that... in other words, I want to see more football. Everybody from rec league softball on down can figure out how to put together a tournament and yet Division I can't.

People told me I couldn't play Division I football.

In college wrestling, you see a lot of talented athletes come in and fail because Division I class wrestling is the pinnacle of wrestling in America.