Lynn Samuels Quotes

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

Every athlete, I think, would like to play forever. They never want to acknowledge that they've lost a step or they can't quite do what they did before.

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.

Being in the league six years, things have kind of slowed down for me.

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

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.

I think, at 32, you are past your prime as a footballer.

I can't see myself playing as a 36-year-old.

Sometimes guys peak early. They get drafted higher, and they make it to the NFL, and they don't have a lot of growth.

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

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

You know, when you first come up, and you get called up to the big leagues, all you want to do is just, you just want to have a career, a nice career. You want to make a living at it.

In track years... track is not like other sports. You do have track athletes that stay in this sport until, like, 35, 36, but I think when you get to 28, it's really difficult.

You don't see too many attacking flair players continuing until their mid-30s at a high level.

As a running back, when you get the ball year after year - and I would say three years on the short end and seven on the long side - you reach a point where it seems like overnight, your body changes and you can't do what you used to do anymore. We see those drastic declines more at running back than any other position.

Boxing does not favor boxers over 35 who rely on reflexes.

Some guys go to different teams and as they get older, they just want to ride the coattail of the younger guys. I don't want to do that.

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.

I boxed till my late 30s, so 47, that's impossible really to be at your best and if you aren't at your best you shouldn't be boxing.

Baseball players tend to have something like 20 good years in them and then around their mid-thirties they aren't in the same shape as the young guys in the league and kind of aren't worth as much. Then they retire before 40. And they are left floating adrift in the middle of the ocean.

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.

A 30-year-old rock climber is an old man. At 40, one is in the middle of his high-altitude power. At 50, a crosser of deserts is at his best age. But at 60, each of us is out of the game.

Every time an older player gets toward the end of their career, they're always talking about 'I feel better now than I did 10 years ago.'

We start to decline as humans and, particularly, as athletes right around 25 years old. If you're real lucky, you might push that to 27 or 28.