football

I don't look at football as a violent, barbaric sport. It's a very spiritual sport, especially for someone facing the challenges during a game: the fear of failure, the fear of getting too big an ego, of making a mistake and everybody criticizing you.

Sectional football games have the glory and the despair of war, and when a Texas team takes the field against a foreign state, it is an army with banners.

You're not going to see my sense of humor on the football field. That's not a place for me to joke around.

Too many athletes are living in a tiny window. They have no vision for themselves - what they can be outside of football and what they can mean to a community. They just don't know any better. My hopes and dreams are unlimited.

To be a footballer was just a dream, and I don't believe in dreams. I only deal in what is real. To be honest, I've never thought about what I could get out of football or where it would take me. I just wanted to play. I'm the same now.

Deacon Jones has been the most inspirational person in my football career.

Look at a football field. It looks like a big movie screen. This is theatre. Football combines the strategy of chess. It's part ballet. It's part battleground, part playground. We clarify, amplify and glorify the game with our footage, the narration and that music, and in the end create an inspirational piece of footage.

Arsenal have won that advantage, nobody gave it to them. By playing fantastic football and by winning matches and by winning trophies, they won that respect that the opponent has for them.

I don't wish that I was playing football. I love baseball, and the way I play is like it's my last day ever playing it. I do like football, but you've got to respect that it's not like baseball.

Contracts are not a holy relic in football. You can like this attitude or not, but it's the truth. Sometimes you have to think about if it is meaningful to try out a new impulse.

Football is my profession now. I'm getting married in August... It's a new experience for me as someone just getting out of college. I still have the same attitude about football I always had. I play hard. I enjoy practice. I'd rather be throwing in passing drills than sitting around and watching TV.

Ben Schwartzwalder was a decent guy, but he was from another era. He was like a Marine, with a real army attitude. He thought there was only one way to play football, and that was the rough way.

Some years ago there was a study to discover the most stressful occupation. It turned out not to be the head of a large business, football manager or prime minister, but rather: bus driver.

Football teaches you hard work. It takes a lot of unspectacular preparation to have spectacular results in both business and football.

The Greatest_ is a bite-your-tongue-book. Ultimately a tragic tale it is also immensely uplifting and easily the best footballer biography I have ever read.

If I'd been born ugly, you'd never have heard of Pelé.

After graduating early from high school, I carefully listened to the quarterback during my first play in college spring ball. My mind was on the very basics of football: alignment, assignment, and where to stand in the huddle. The quarterback broke the huddle and I ran to the line, meeting the confident eyes of a defensive end_6-foot-6, 260- pound Matt Shaughnessy.I was seventeen, a true freshman, and he was a 23-year-old fifth-year senior, a third-round draft pick. Huge difference between the two of us. Impressing the coach was not on my mind. Survival was. __h, Jesus,_ I said. I wasn__ cursing. I was praying for help.Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray ( James 5:13).That day Matt came off the ball so fast. Bam! Next thing I knew, I was flat on my back, thrown to the ground. I got up and limped back to the huddle.Four years later...standing on the sidelines in my first NFL game, bouncing on my toes, waiting for my chance to go in, one of the tight ends went down. My time to shine! Where do I stand? Who do I have? I look up and meet the same eyes I met on my first play in college football.Matt Shaughnessy! ...

The StadiumHave you ever entered an empty stadium? Try it. Stand in the middle of the field and listen. There is nothing less empty than an empty stadium. There is nothing less mute than stands bereft of spectators.At Wembley, shouts from the 1966 World Cup, which England won, still resound, and if you listen very closely you can hear groans from 1953 when England fell to the Hungarians. Montevideo__ Centenario Stadium sighs with nostalgia for the glory days of Uruguayan soccer. Maracanã is still crying over Brazil__ 1950 World Cup defeat. At Bombonera in Buenos Aires, drums boom from half a century ago. From the depths of Azteca Stadium, you can hear the ceremonial chants of the ancient Mexican ball game. The concrete terraces of Camp Nou in Barcelona speak Catalan, and the stands of San Mamés in Bilbao talk in Basque. In Milan, the ghosts of Giuseppe Meazza scores goals that shake the stadium bearing his name. The final match of the 1974 World Cup, won by Germany, is played day after day and night after night at Munich__ Olympic Stadium. King Fahd Stadium in Saudi Arabia has marble and gold boxes and carpeted stands, but it has no memory or much of anything to say.