I've been an athlete that's sort of in advance; always thinking. After basketball I'd love to have my own radio show, my own TV show.
I've read that same formula, but as an athlete I'm classified as phenomenal. You could look it up.
I've been the type of person [and] the type of athlete, I don't like to be given anything. I like to earn.
About strip clubs and athletes. The best way I can explain why a lot of players end up there is because it's one of the safest places a high-profile person can spend time in a boring city.
I think that to be a competitive athlete, you have to be goal-oriented.
I don't want to be a celebrity athlete. When you are, there's this pressure on you. It's like you have this halo over your head and have to walk on eggshells. That's not for me. All that glamour builds up a false sense of ego. It's not needed. I'm already happy with who I am. My job is just to get on the podium.
I never dreamed of being a flagbearer. Every athlete has a wish to get to the Olympic Games. I had that wish, but to carry the flag of your country is doubly thrilling.
I have started to realize that I am really just a world athlete and a world entertainer -- I am a world-known person, I am a global icon.
The guy is the greatest male athletes of all time.
When I was in high school I was a super serious athlete. I wasn't fun at all.
Competitiveness drives my blood. I'm an athlete at heart and I just love the competition. I can't live without it. It's just a rush.
I mean, I grew up an athlete training and training and training. So I kind of have that mentality.
Representing Canada as a hockey player is always a tremendous honor, which also comes with a lot of responsibility. Being able to compete and win a gold medal on our home soil made it a once in a lifetime experience. Capping off the best ever performance by not only the Canadian athletes, but also Vancouver and all Canadians, made for an amazing Olympic experience.
I've tried not to exaggerate the glory of athletes. I'd rather, if I could, preserve a sense of proportion, to write about them asexcellent ballplayers, first-rate players. But I'm sure I have contributed to false values--as Stanley Woodward said, "Godding up those ballplayers." The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.
Being at school, being who I am, being an athlete, it was hard to find people like me. There's not many athletes that can be at my level. That was kind of hard finding people who love something so much they want to keep on doing it.
Entertainers, athletes, and stars started giving me support.
Football develops, it becomes quicker, players develop as athletes.
Giving something back is a huge deal. You'll notice every successful athlete uses that at some point in his career during an interview. "I'm gonna give something back. Gotta give something back to the community." "Yaaaay! Right on!" People just fall for it. It's a necessary inclusion.
I never really knew what it meant, to win, until one day I was flying on the Phoenix Suns airplane, the team plane, on the way to Chicago. I was talking to Danny Ainge on this flight, and he was talking about the concept of knowing how to win. And so he proceeded to give me from his perspective as an athlete, and now he's a coach, what the whole concept of knowing how to win is, and he said part of it is rooted in experience, the experience of winning, but it's attitudinal, it's the belief that you should, it's the belief that you can, it's the belief.
I often hear that it's unfair that athletes should make what they make versus teachers, because who's more important. But that's not how the market works. Markets don't sign things. You know what you're worth is what somebody will pay you. It's not some arbitrary - the purpose of a company is not to create jobs and health care. That's not why they exist. And it's not to create fairness or any of that. That's not why people form businesses and try to sell a service or a product.
Some people are guilty when they win. Some people, "Ah, you know, it's so unfortunate, some people had to lose." I mean, even some modern-day competitors, athletes have a guilt complex about winning. They think it isn't fair. That's not how you win. You don't feel guilty when you wine, and you don't feel sorry for anybody about it.
I respect Georges St. Pierre as a businessman and an athlete. I don't have anything against him personally. But he's not the kind of fighter I like watching.
You will be competing against athletes from many nations. But, most important, you are competing against yourself. All we expect is for you to do your very best, to push yourself just one second faster, one notch higher, one inch further.
Oscar Pistorius is now infamous for reasons that I think everybody knows about, but when I hit on his story and put it in the book, what I found fascinating was a description, from one of the scientists who helped Pistorius, of what the Paralympics will become. Because they don't place any restriction on enhancements for athletes, in the very near future the Paralympics will bear a closer resemblance to NASCAR than to the traditional Olympics. There will be a human-machine melding that will result in crazy feats of athleticism.
I've had this sneaking feeling throughout the game that it's there to be won.
