Jessica Ennis-Hill Quotes

I love track and field, but I also know the day will come when I will have to do something else.

I know too well how much I am going to miss football after my career for me to put up my own barriers.

When our career is over, when we retire and the basketball stops bouncing, we still have to find something else to do.

I learned early in my career that I had to be prepared for life after football because you never knew when it would end.

I didn't want to be one of those ex-pros, aye hanging around. I think that's wrong.

I have no regrets about my career or retiring. Not once have I thought 'Gosh, I wish I was back on the court.

Often there are players who have only football as a way of expressing themselves and never develop other interests. And when they no longer play football, they no longer do anything; they no longer exist, or rather they have the sensation of no longer existing.

I never contemplated any kind of existence or identity after my career. I never thought at some point the entertainment industry is going to be through with me. And when it first occurred to me that my career was going to cease to be ascendant, then I freaked out.

You can't do sports for the rest of your life; I don't care how good you are. You can be the best ever, but it's still going to go away.

People ask me all the time would I like to still be playing? No. I'm glad I played when I played.

You know, even though I feel that I can still play the game, God has made the answer clear to me. Retirement is now. I have to retire as a Green Bay Packer.

Had I been a great athlete, I'm not sure I would have even gone into coaching. I may have turned out feeling that my life ended when my athletic career ended, as happens so many times with various athletes.

I have interests outside of rugby and have been cultivating them for when I do decide to hang up the boots.

I never felt I would get to the stage where I would to have to actively think about retiring from international football as I always thought it would pass me by.

Retiring was hard. I'd spent 15 years doing something I loved, but when you get older everything seems to go. When I started spending too long with the physio and the doctor, I knew it was time to call it a day. But I had no preparation for being retired and I didn't know what to do.

I've accomplished everything a person can accomplish on a basketball court, but I never thought about the future when I was younger. I never made plans for the next stage in my life.

I'm not an educated woman. What am I gonna do for the rest of my life? I'm an athlete... And now I have absolutely nothing.

The closer I get to retirement, the more I feel it will be a huge change, a shock, because athletics has been the core of my whole life. I know I'll miss the feeling of running fast, the adrenaline rush, and hearing the crowd cheering me on.

No athlete ever ends his or her career the way you want to. We all want to play forever. But it doesn't work that way. Accepting the end gracefully is part of being a professional athlete.

I read Leisel Jones' book. She said she retired at 27 and said, 'Now what?' because swimming was the biggest part of her life. So for me, that's why I'm keeping up my studies on the side even if it's going to take a bit longer than normal, but at least I'll have it.

Well, my last year was 04-05 with the Heat, and I relaxed for a few years, and I said, 'Well, what am I going to do?' I've got to do my passion, and my passion is basketball.

A lot of guys I've seen in my career that played at a high level and were done, they moved on, never thought another day about it.

The thing that forced me to think about my retirement was that I had played my cricket with honour and distinction, and I did not want to put myself in a position where I was considered a liability or unwanted by the selectors.

I don't know how to do anything else that isn't training and playing football.

I didn't want to come to the end of my career and think, 'What next?'