I consciously memorized the speed at which every pitcher in the league threw his fastball, curve, and slider. Then, I'd pick up the speed of the ball in the first 30 feet of its flight and knew how it would move once it has crossed the plate.
I'm much more comfortable and confident running out on the field in front of 70,000 people instead of standing in front of a camera trying to say some lines. The people who do that as a profession are very talented because it's certainly not easy.
My grandfather built my first hoop. It was a peach basket up against a tree, and we played in the dirt. I couldn't have been more than 6 when he put it up, and I just started playing.
You may not win the Super Bowl. Your kids may not go on to be doctors and lawyers and everything may not go perfectly. That doesn't mean it was a bad plan or the wrong thing. It's just like a football season. Everything's not going to go perfect.
What I know is that if you're going to play half-court, you'd better have the greatest executioners of half-court basketball. If you run, you test the stamina and willpower of the other team. That's what I learned as a player.
In every game, there's three teams out there. There's the two basketball teams and the team of officials. If the two teams are evenly matched, it can come down to number of possessions. If one out-of-bounds call goes the wrong way, that can be the di...
I don't know what it is about me: I am no Rock Hudson, but I absolutely wow all the little old white-haired ladies. They stop me and talk to me all over the country, on the street, in restaurants, in elevators.
Anybody who's away from what's normal is just kind of pushed aside as, 'Oh, he's crazy.' But in reality, this world is crazy. It's just chaos everywhere. It's really hard to be part of this world, because it's very possessed. And very egocentric.
I also eat fruit instead of drinking juices. That's something I've read up on. I think that if you drink a lot of fruit juice you take in way too much sugar. You'd be better off eating a bunch of strawberries or apples.
You're a professional. You don't need for me to break a film down for you. If you want to stop the guy you're playing, they pay you millions of dollars. You get you a TV and break the player down yourself.
Look at this, scabs and cuts all over me, I get these every night, every game. They can't tell you that you're not at risk, and you can't tell me there's one guy in the N.B.A. who hasn't thought about it.
If you're a kid, it's all you think about if you stutter. Kids can be so mean. My grades suffered. Class participation weighs heavy in grading, and I wouldn't open my mouth to read or talk in front of anyone.
I was fortunate to have a grandfather who was an optometrist. Vision therapy was something that we routinely did to strengthen our eyes and give us better focus. I was fortunate that he could teach me techniques that are still paying dividends for me...
When you don't know how to cook, you just say, 'I need something quick,' and then you fry something up. Now that I cook, I think, 'Do I want to have fried fish, baked fish, or grilled fish?'
When you think of Peyton Manning, you think 'ambassador.' The game has grown exponentially during his career because of him and what he means to our game, not only as a football player but as a humanitarian.
With a record of 75 fights and 6 losses, some of the losses were very questionable including Brian Nielsen when we fought in Denmark. I knew I won but they didn't give me that fight.
I've grown so much since 1996. I think that was the turning point of when I started to go to church every Sunday and not just because you're supposed to. But because you enjoy going and listening to the Word and being excited about it.
Boys have a tendency to jump around a lot more than girls. Boys have that desire to want to dunk way more than girls do. It just never seemed like something we could truly fathom and do.
Well I forgot how different it was because I've been here for about four or five years. It's a big load off my shoulders now. Now that I'm there, I'm like, man, I can breathe a little bit, you know?
I think sometimes you just need to play in this league. As a rookie coming out of college, you don't understand the real significance of being a pro unless you're playing other pros. It doesn't help you to play sporadically here or there.
I got a kick out of having a big bankroll in my pocket. Even if I only made a couple hundred dollars, I'd always keep it in fives and tens so it'd look big.
