Jim Kelly Quotes

I remember running at school sports day, and I would win everything, but I wasn't a super athlete or a superstar at high school.

In my day, 20-year-olds already had 150 first-team appearances under their belts.

Sports are something that, for the most part, are for kids, and if you're able to extend your career, you're very lucky.

I've been fortunate enough to play at all the age groups but I'm not eligible for them anymore.

For so many years, I wished it could have been different. I wished I could have gotten the opportunity sooner. I would have loved to see what had happened had I got to the NFL right out of college and all of those different things.

When I was in university, my dream was to be a coach, like a high school track coach. Not to teach.

And there is such a thing as a decathlon high. It's like a rock rolling down hill, picking up momentum. You get better and better.

If you look at any superior athlete, you will find a strong parental influence. Parents introduce their children to a sport, and then they support them.

We played a lot of sandlot ball, so we were used to tackling each other, or falling on the concrete, things of that nature. And nine times out of 10, our flag games turned into tackle anyway. So when I got to high school, tackle football was kind of natural.

I think when you are the parents of a gifted athlete, the best thing in the world you can do is to encourage them, in my opinion. My dad didn't push me and I didn't push my children in athletics.

In sports, people reach their peak very early. You have to move on. I don't know if I will ever surpass what I did at the Olympics, but I'm still doing the work I always wanted to do.

Kids can have great passion and great ability but if you have the facilities for your particular sport that can give you the inspiration to become a sportsman.

You got guys now declaring they're ready to play pro ball in their second or third year of high school. It's crazy! They're missing so much.

I won the city scoring championship as a senior.

For me, I was really lucky to go to a city like Chicago where the team was struggling at the time, and I was able to go in and play right away.

I started track and field when I was 12 and didn't get to an Olympic Games until I was nearly 23. By any stretch of the imagination that's a very long apprenticeship.

We should not go to a baseball rule. If a kid goes to college and, after a year or two, wants to go to the NBA and is good enough - and he grew, he got bigger, he got more confidence - let him go. Why would you now force a kid to go two years?

I cherished my time playing high school sports.

I grew up in a tiny town in Texas, so I understood the world of high school football.

Nowadays, of course, flesh peddlers and scouting services identify the best athletes when they are still in junior high. Prospects are not allowed to sneak up on us.

I've grown up a lot, and I have such great memories of playing football.

Growing up in Quebec, we were always playing sports. Your first athletic competition was against the kids living on your block.

My dad wanted me to play football so bad, he took me to Washington High School on the west side of Atlanta because they were number one. They never lost.

I didn't do any football stuff when I was a kid... Mostly baseball and basketball the whole time. That's all I did. I played football starting in seventh grade. As I got older, I started playing a little bit more. Then in high school, I really fell in love with it.

I was playing first-team football at Cardiff at 16.