People don’t think an athlete nowadays can have a team-first mentality and I do.
In my 20s, it was easy. In your 40s, it’s a lot more challenging. You have to look at it like you’re an actor, but you’re also a professional athlete. You have to train.
I always wanted to be a pro athlete. When I was younger I wanted to be the first person to be a pro at three different sports, but then realized how impossible that is. At 15 I stopped playing other sports and focused on tennis.
I used to go to some Harvard parties with my athlete friends, and they would introduce me as ‘Winona, the Indian activist.’ It made me uncomfortable. I felt like a novelty.
I like to push characters to extremes so they have to make really tough decisions and there is no life more extreme than that of an athlete.
Since my sophomore year in high school, I knew I didn’t want to do anything but be a professional athlete. I knew when I got to college there was no way anybody was going to stop me from being an NFL player.
I just see myself as an athlete and a competitor, someone who just works really hard at trying to get better at golf.
OK, I’ll put it like this: I doubt if we will see another All-American basketball athlete who is a Rhodes Scholar.
That’s what you feel as an athlete. Pretty much our job is to make the impossible happen every day. It’s like magic, you know. I like that.
When you get off five or six months, and you’re not competing as an athlete, you want to get back out on the field.
I remember making the all-star team in Little League when I was around 11 years old. I was not a great athlete, but I loved it, so making starting second base in the all-star was great for me. I think someone must have been sick and they slotted me in.
When you see all the medals won by Team GB, you can just see how much it means to each and every athlete, so it just feel like it’s a little bit of a missed opportunity – but I’m only 23. I have just got to get on now and keep going.
I’m a sports fan. I’m not just an athlete who plays football.
The conditioning and the lifestyle changes you have to make to remain a healthy athlete are what molded me into what I am today.
I was fully immersed in the now as an athlete.
If your body needs certain food, you have to give it to it. And as an athlete, if I’m doing 100 miles a week and working out, if I eat bad food one day, it’s not bad for me because I burn it off.
The Madden NFL franchise holds a special place in popular culture and the cover is a coveted position for players all over the league. I’m honored to be the first cover athlete chosen by Madden NFL fans and it’s a great way to cap off an amazing year for the Saints and the city of New Orleans.
I think the people who have really followed my career from the time I was seven years old can see my steady progress and see the type of person and athlete I am.
You’re going to fail. It’s how you respond to that failure that kind of defines you as a person, as an athlete.
Being a pro athlete doesn’t mean you treat your body right, even though it’s so important to what you do. Being a runner and training for important races has taught me more about how to fuel than swimming ever did. I realize it’s a process and part of the commitment.
I got to meet Hulk Hogan. He took a liking to me because of my size. He saw that I was a good athlete and could move. He told me at the time, he says, ‘You got a big dollar sign in your forehead, kid,’ and I said, ‘Well, please show it to me, because I’m broke.’
Gina Carano is a great athlete, and I’d be happy if she returns to MMA – doesn’t matter if it’s against Ronda.
Injuries are psychologically so hard for an athlete because you don’t get to do what you love to do.
I’m not your cookie-cutter athlete, and that scares people. People don’t know how to take that.
I’m a purist, and I’m more a fighter than an athlete.
But at school, I wasn’t athletic, and if you’re not athlete in high school, it’s kind of hard to find your place, so play practice seemed perfect, especially if you were as uncoordinated as I was.
As an athlete, you learn to keep pushing through the pain until the pain eventually becomes unbearable. Even then, you are told to continue.
I seem to be the ‘luckiest’ athlete around – and that’s one of the most frustrating things. You compete against a vast array of people and train your whole life for those moments.
My parents themselves both went to university, and they very much expected me to be an intellectual and go through further education, and it’s to kind of their surprise that I became an athlete.
As a professional athlete, part of my job is to make sure I’m consuming high quality nutrients.
Let’s start with the athlete, Nike’s original and most important collaborator. To us, everything starts with the insight. That’s why we work with the deepest roster of athletes, to gain the most profound understanding of what’s needed to perform.
I was an athlete. And I proved I didn’t win just because I was pretty. I was good, too.
I’m not a wushu champion. I was an athlete when I was a kid. I was a swimmer and a runner, but all this action stuff is such a challenge. It really, really is.
Every athlete wants to win an Olympic gold medal, and I’d be lying if I said that’s not what I wanted.
I kind of rode this weird line between athlete and artist. It was a little different because most of the athletes were total jocks, and most of the artists dressed in black and were kind of considered a little on the fringe. But I hung out with both crowds in my high school.
The truth is, I’ve been on a team my whole life. I’m the youngest of 7, so I’ve been training to be an athlete my whole life.
I don’t recommend steroids for everyone, and I don’t recommend growth hormones for everyone. But for certain individuals, I truly believe, because I’ve experimented with it for so many years, that it can make an average athlete a super athlete. It can make a super athlete – incredible. Just legendary.
An athlete cannot run with money in his pockets. He must run with hope in his heart and dreams in his head.
I was a big kid and a big athlete, but let’s be honest: I don’t know diddly about football.
Tiger Woods makes me a better athlete.
Being in school is the best place to be if you are an athlete because you can structure your own time.
I think I want to show fans what it is actually like to be an athlete. Tennis is a part of it, but there is also another job that people are not aware of, the media commitments we have, and I want them to understand this.
If you don’t eat right as an athlete, you’ll get tired and won’t be as sharp. It’s simple to drink sodas and sports drinks, but water is the most essential drink to put in your body.
I remember as a kid watching one of the Olympic games, and I was cheering for a big track athlete. He was the favorite to win, and he lost. I realized in that moment the pain he felt was so much greater than the pain that those who never thought they were going to win would have felt had they lost.
When you reach that elite level, 90 percent is mental and 10 percent is physical. You are competing against yourself. Not against the other athlete.
I train my entire body to be strong. To be a professional athlete, we need every part to be strong – the core, the legs, arms.
I can’t criticize an athlete if they say they’re injured.
I’m an athlete – my legs were everything. I had no idea what my life would be like without them.
As far as match-ups are concerned, I feel pretty good about matching up with anybody. I’m sort of a hybrid wrestler. I’m extremely explosive; I’m a good athlete. I can move around.
I was just a normal athlete. My mother tried to spark something in me. She was an athlete in high school before she got pregnant with my older brother. She was 16, and that was it for her when it came to track and her education.
I’m an athlete, so I can get up one day and run and it wouldn’t bother me. I don’t get the time because I work for long hours every day. Being constantly on the move itself helps me stay fit. I don’t go to a gym. I use the stairs, not the lift. I’m not into fitness, but I feel I should start, as it’s healthy.
I’m very involved in Shred, constantly checking in on something. It takes a lot of time. But it has let me leverage who I am as an athlete into a product.
Fans – they want to see results. I’ve been a fan before. I get it. But I see the bigger picture, too. I would never say an athlete sucks after they’ve been good, because you don’t know what they’re going through. They might be going through something that they can’t shake.
Every athlete, every person is individual.
It’s an amazing life, don’t get me wrong. But being a professional athlete, is… is not as glamorous as everybody sets it out to be.
I’ve had an affinity for Michael Jordan. He’s probably the greatest athlete in my generation.
I think, in the U.S., we have such a focus on the physicality, on being the best athlete, that it sort of overshadows the football aspect of it.
I wasn’t some stud athlete at school that was destined to be a professional wrestler. I was just an insecure little guy that didn’t want to go to school because I had zits on my upper lip.
I would say that one of the really special gifts about playing an athlete is that it’s the best motivation you’ll ever have to get in top shape and stay in top shape because you know that you’re going to be expected to deliver.
