DeAndre Yedlin Quotes

I didn't pick wrestling over football. My coaches picked that for me. I never wanted to wrestle in college. I always wanted to play football. They thought I was too small, but I had a lot of heart.

People at school used to assume I was going to be a footballer, and it wasn't until I got to 16, when I was at Southampton, that I had a doubt for the first time in my life. Southampton said I wasn't big enough, but it was just because I hadn't grown. Simple as that.

I was the last one to get a scholarship out of my year - at 14, I think. I couldn't play up front because I was too small.

I feel like I'm a matchup problem, but that's of course because of my height and the height difference at my position sometimes.

I'm never the biggest guy on the football field.

I could've played basketball, but my mind was on baseball. I didn't know what I was in for. In high school it was a matter of talent. No one told you what to do.

I was very slender and small. All my friends were on the team, so I had to make it too. I was a very aggressive player. I wanted to be one of the best, but I just ended up as one of the good ones.

I failed to make the chess team because of my height.

I started playing basketball when I was about three years old. After that, everything else just came naturally. I had older cousins that used to let me hang with them, so I got my toughness from them.

My brother never got an opportunity to throw a pitch, and I didn't want the same thing to happen to another young kid.

If we could have just screwed another head on his shoulders, he would have been the greatest golfer who ever lived.

Sports are basically our way of feeling sorry for ourselves. Most men can't become athletes. We're watching guys who actually made it. We see them dunking and making touchdowns. Then we think about ourselves when we were younger.

My father was a really good athlete, so his pop-ups really were sky high. Eventually I learned how to judge them properly and catch them well. It was great training for when I started to play on teams, which I did all through school.

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.

If I was bigger I might not have had the same skill set as I do, the speed.

You can't go out to the mound hobbling and take a pitcher out with a cane.

People think I played 10 years. I only played 68 games.

Football was really my least favorite sport and the last sport that I ended up picking up as a kid. My dad started me off with baseball, which most kids did at that time. I really enjoyed basketball. That was my favorite sport.

I wanted to be a second baseman for the Chicago Cubs. Problem is that my athletic abilities in my mind are greater than what my body can accomplish.

I was really just too small for football.

I played hockey my whole life until my ambition outstripped my ability, which happens to most Canadians around 15 or 16 years old.

I played all kinds of sports growing up: soccer, basketball, track. You name it, I've probably played it.

I'd love to still be able to play a bit of football, but my knees are shot to pieces.

I'm like LeBron, man. I'm like a smaller LeBron. That's why I'm not in the NBA. If I had about five, six more inches, I'd be in the league.

There's the hardest thing - when you cannot be as athletic or perform at a level you really want to. Your mind is telling you, but your body is not allowing you.