I played in football games where you walk off the field and the scoreboard didn't end up the way you wanted. But you knew that you really did give it all. And the other team was too strong.
You're obviously conscious of being brash or big-headed but I always knew I was going to be a footballer when I was seven or eight. I didn't just think I wanted to be one, I knew I was going to be one. Nothing ever surprised me really.
I'm a very traditional person. The tattoos are about my grandmother dying and they tell the story about my mother and father, my brothers and my sister, my kids. It's pretty much a family tree on my arm with my life in football too.
I developed a mechanism so that whatever mistakes I made, I would bounce straight back. Whatever was happening off the pitch, I could put it to one side and maintain my form. Call it mental resilience or a strong mind, but that is what we mean when w...
If you're out there stressing on your pro day, then you're not going to perform well, so I plan on having a little fun. Play a little music while we're out there throwing the football, have everybody tapping their toes and bobbing their head and just...
I love the game so much. I've been penalized. I've been fined. I have some regrets in my career. But for those four hours on Sunday, you can be free and just let it all go. Retiring had nothing to do with football; it had to do with my family.
I do realize that God has given me so many blessings in my life. I mean, not only with football, but with the family that He's blessed me with and the opportunity He's given me to grow up in a home that embraces God.
Football is one of those games that definitely relates to life in a lot of ways. Everything can be going good, and just like that, you have a turnover. Things are going south, you're going the opposite direction. How are you going to recover from it?...
You learn to understand it, but if you step back, you do think it is either strange or unfair. But I know that if you don't score, play well or win, you are wrong to have a helicopter and fly home each week to see your kids. You are wrong to have a b...
I signed schoolboy forms for Watford when I was 12, but then my parents got divorced, and I never kicked a ball for three years. I rebelled, I left home, but getting back into football sorted me out. It was the second chance I needed.
As the National Football League and other pro sports increasingly reckon with the early dementia, mental health issues, suicides and even criminal behavior of former players, the risk of what's known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), is beco...
My favorite team is the Bengals. In Idaho, we didn't really have a home team. But my parents are from Ohio, and when I was a little kid, my aunts and uncles would send me Boomer Esiason T-shirts and Ickey Woods mini-footballs, so I got hooked on thos...
When I got out of coaching, I had taught a class at the University of California, an extension class on football for fans. I was looking for tools. I was showing them films. I was going to write a textbook. Trip Hawkins came to me about making it a g...
When I was a freshman in high school, I got a letterman jacket, which you'd think would be great stock. The jacket had the big S on it, for Santa Monica. But rather than having a football or a baseball on the S, I had a little nine iron. Girls though...
William McKinley Oswald was my high school football coach. He was a great coach and had a profound influence on my life. But I think he could have learned his method of motivating players from an army drill sergeant.
I live in Leeds, which is about 200 miles north of London, and I get to go and do all the 'Harry Potter' stuff and make great films and be part of this wonderful thing all around the world, and then I get to go home and chill out with my friends in L...
I live in Beverly Hills and I'm proud of it. The only things I miss are pie and mash shops and football games. I've lived in America longer than I lived in England. When I first got here, it just felt right to me. I like the open space, and the weath...
My parents are from north London, and so it's not like I'm some Yank who wants to make a profit out of football. I don't care about making money. I just want to see Spurs succeed and, if I can help, that's great.
I've no regrets at all, but I still think at times that I would have loved to play in England. You live football over there; it's a great culture. People respect you more; it's more difficult to find respect in Spain. There is more criticism here.
I wish I could go to the school where my close friends go, but I obviously can't. The good thing is, they're really good about inviting me to all the football games and all that stuff. So I end up having an adopted team spirit for a school I don't go...
A lot of things look good on an academic's blackboard in terms of the actions that need to be taken. It's almost like a football coach, when you draw the X's and O's: Every play that is chalked on that board goes for a touchdown. Well, there are a lo...
