I was on Saipan when I got hit. Not too bad, but bad enough to hamper me if I stayed. I was hit in my left buttocks just below the belt line.
I don't believe I throw quite the same as before I was injured.
I was on my way to becoming a Hall of Famer and having my name in the rafters, but three surgeries in 14 months, that is not good. I wasn't the same player.
It was a kind of paralysis you would get from tendonitis and I would last about five to ten minutes into the set and it would set in and I really couldn't play.
Coping with injuries is always difficult for athletes because all we want to do is, basically, to have our best performances unhindered.
Injuries obviously change the way you approach the game.
I tend to hold on to injuries a lot longer than others.
Injuries are a big factor when you're trying to go on a championship run.
When you get hit by a car sometimes your shoes will fly off, sometimes your pants will come off, but I was not fortunate enough to see the pants portion.
Since that moment in Houston where I fractured my collarbone, I've experienced a lot more experiences in the NFL than I had up to that point. A lot of them great, some of them not so great.
But, then again, I had to stop because there was too much pain or too much trouble. After I retired I still had one more elbow surgery just to be able to do normal things.
When I was in the army, there were four times that I was wounded. I also got more than 30 wounds on my body, and my injuries were ranked on the second rank of invalids. The first rank is the most severe. So, that means that I had lost more than 60 per cent of working capability.
For somebody who has injured their brain, every single thing they say and think will be the subject of their own questioning.
I wanted to definitely be a musician or a good preacher or a heck of a baseball player. I couldn't play ball too good - I hurt my finger, and I stopped that. I couldn't preach, and well, all I had left was getting into the music thing.
Our quarterbacks were getting hurt; a couple got kicked out of school. The coach asked who wanted to try out for QB. I went and tried out, and from there on, I was a quarterback. I was ineligible in 10th grade until spring, so I did baseball. I started in left field and pitched.
I started out with the guitar and was a studio musician back in the 50s, and then got shot in my finger.
Of course, I believe injury has stopped me winning more tournaments.
People are right to question what I've got left and how I am going to be after the injuries and defeats.
I believe there will be players who, instead of playing eight years, will play six. Who will closely watch how they feel. It will shorten careers.
I went into dancing but damaged my knees so decided to become an actress instead.
I remember being 32 years old and feeling great, better than ever physically. Then at 33, I tore my shoulder and was out for eight months, and it was like I fell off a cliff. I was never the same.
My dad played for a coal-mining team in eastern Ohio; he was a very good pitcher. If he hadn't hurt his arm, he probably would have got a shot somewhere. He hurt his arm one spring, didn't warm up good enough, couldn't throw a fastball anymore. Another coal miner taught him how to throw the knuckleball.
If you do base your life on how many touchdowns you score, how many championships you win, then when you have a setback, then when you have an injury, you're not playing, or something goes wrong, your self-worth goes down.
Players now have a groin injury for months and months, and I often think they don't really give a toss whether they're playing or not because they're getting paid anyway.
I understand that when a player reaches his mid-thirties, and has a few injuries, people start to question how long he can last.
