Bob McNair Quotes

Getting past 30 as a sportsman, the end could be just around the corner.

I think there's nothing sadder than a pro athlete who plays past his prime.

Every year it happens. When I'm not putting up big numbers, I start hearing it - that I'm too old, that time finally has caught up with me.

I always think of it in terms of music. You're not always going to be a huge rock star in music, but musicians can play until the day they die. With sports, it's different. You can't always do it until the very end, and that's a hard reality of sports.

Me not being able to play the way that I can play, that's when you kind of know it's that time.

I find it quite sad to see the likes of Evander Holyfield carrying on past their sell-by date.

My athleticism will go away some day. I'm gonna be old one of these days, so I'm going to be able to use those post moves.

It might have been easier to retire, to say my knee couldn't handle it and let that be that. At the same time, the prospect of not being able to compete in gymnastics anymore was heartbreaking.

The reality is that my style of drumming is largely an athletic undertaking, and it does not pain me to realize that, like all athletes, there comes a time to... take yourself out of the game.

But I'll tell you this: When I lose my athleticism, it's time to go.

I've had moments where I realize my body isn't going to withstand many more seasons, but I am very satisfied with my career and I am trying not to look at retirement as a sad thing.

No professional athlete likes to admit that he has played too long. There is too much money involved, rarely enough saved, and there is the eternal hope that age has not withered skills.

A sort of sadness shall always remain in my mind that I was not allowed to retire while playing, but anyway, it's all a part of life for a sportsman who, while playing, never realises when he should retire, but he starts thinking about it when he is dropped.

There are only a certain amount of years you can play this game, and it's even a lower amount for a running back.

When I announced my retirement, that was actually when I was trying to come back and I realized, it just wasn't viable. It passed me by. My shoulder is done. I brush my teeth with my left hand now. That's just the way it goes. I can't shoot a basketball, I can't throw any kind of ball. I was right handed.

To say a player is past it at 29, 30 isn't right.

There will be a time when I physically cannot do this sport.

You've got to remember, the older you get the slower you get. I've seen a lot of players get old ... if I can have a good season in 1972 and come back with another good one, well, that's different. I might not quit. But two bad ones back to back and staying home would be written on the wall.

It's rare enough as an older generation player that you're 100% fit - there's always something niggling.

You can't do some of the things you used to do. I suppose you have to go at a gentler pace. I mean, God help us, you can't sit at home being a Vicar or anything.

The decision to retire was quite an easy one for me because by that stage my knees were so badly gone. If I had been like Martina Navratilova and my body had let me I would have carried on playing a lot longer.

I retired from rugby because I was old and getting really slow.

You don't dominate any sport when you're over 40.

In sports... you play from the time you're eight years old, and then you're done forever.

I love the game very much, but when you were a certain type of player for a few years, being a front-end starter, that's the way I still think I can pitch. But the body tells you no.