Remember that a good football novel has to have the same ingredients as any other good novel: drama, convincing and interesting characters, a strong story-line, and some kind of magic in the writing.
Our national identity is so interwoven with football.
I'm not necessarily intimidated by really jocky guys. I can talk football with them, you know what I mean?
I've played many matches against English clubs and the national team - and I always notice a difference in those games. When you play against the inventors of football, it adds more importance to the result, and you can see that demonstrated by the levels on the pitch.
I do get invitations all of the time to play actual fantasy football, by the way, but I get the feeling that I'd like it too much. I have enough demands on my time. My fans would kill me.
At the time when I started, coming out of football, I always used a forearm or an elbow. When it became Bionic is when I said it was Bionic. I went to some secret doctor in Istanbul who put some Bionic stuff in there.
I don't even enjoy football, at least professional football, anymore because I'm breaking the game down constantly. You're sitting there watching the plays, and you're talking mental reps on what would I have done here against this coverage or this leverage, this, that. It is what it is.
When I was young, all the books were about a Mary Jane and the football player and the prom and ending up with the quiet guy and making your mom happy.
Sharks are as tough as those football fans who take their shirts off during games in Chicago in January, only more intelligent.
As the youngest of six kids, I grew up spending summers on Martha's Vineyard, and I was always topless. All the pictures are of me in jean shorts, no shirt - with my brothers, playing football.
I was a New York Jets fan growing up. My dad said I used to sit there at a very young age and watch football with him and tell him, 'I'm going to play for that team one day.'
You can play football and be the next Jim Brown or play baseball and be the next Reggie Jackson.
It's grossly unfair to judge Walter Payton solely on the yards he gains. He is a complete football player, better than Jim Brown, better than O.J. Simpson.
I think the greatest all-around athlete ever was Jim Brown. He played lacrosse, basketball and ran track at Syracuse. He played professional football for the Browns.
Football players value job security and stability as much anybody else.
I grew up a huge jock, a lot of basketball and football. We had a pond in my back yard growing up, and we played a lot of hockey, too. I loved to score goals.
The directors told me they were going to recruit good players with whom I could play decent football. Marko Marin, Oscar and me, we like to have the ball at our feet. Juan Mata likes the ball; so does Ramires.
I played a little basketball. Some football in junior high.
I had to decide if I was going to try a junior college or walk on somewhere. I even thought about changing sports. But I eventually decided that football was my passion.
I actually ran in junior high school a little bit, you know, like most kids do in track and things. Then I got out of it and just trained for football and played ball for so many years - high school, college and the NFL.
