Gary Woodland Quotes

I'm a big watcher of sports, consumer of sports content, so I love documentaries; I love the format.

I'm a huge sports fan but have no interest in minutiae. I don't remember who won Super Bowls five years ago or listen to sports talk radio.

I have been a sports fan my whole life. To be able to talk about sports in an intelligent, journalistic fashion and to do things of a serious nature is a dream job.

The wonderful thing about delivering sports commentary on NPR was that because it has such a broad audience, I was able to reach people who otherwise had little or no interest in sport - especially as an important part of our human culture.

I haven't read a word of Proust. And I listen obsessively to sports radio.

With Venus and Serena and their ascension - and you had a lot of kids that saw them and wanted to be like them - it's like any sport, any major athlete, like Michael Jordan in basketball: everybody wanted to be like Mike.

For 30 years I wrote for newspapers and magazines, wrote books on the Dallas Cowboys' dynasties of the '70s and '90s, wrote about Michael Jordan in Chicago and Barry Bonds in the Bay Area, even wrote columns for ESPN.com from 2004 to 2006.

I'm completely cricketed out. If I never have to write another word about cricket again, I'll be a happy man.

I told another ESPN friend here, I love all sports. I can't think of any I don't love. I've even come to appreciate cricket. Maybe I could play a sportswriter. I don't know. Anything in the sports realm is appealing.

I wanted to be a sportswriter because I loved sports and I could not hit the curve ball, the jump shot, or the opposing ball carrier.

Talk radio has almost ruined the sports fan.

It's part of the juice of sports that you tend to find certain sports figures that you cheer on from other cities and others that you're a bit skeptical about.

E! didn't like it when we'd make fun of clips from ESPN - they'd be like, 'That's sports! That's not our audience!'

A lot of players will tell you, 'When I was a kid, I watched Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, LeBron, Magic, and I wanted to be just like them.' For me, it wasn't like that at all.

My father took me to a lot of sports events as a child, and our TV stayed on ESPN.

I watched a lot of Scottie Pippen, Magic Johnson, Kevin Durant, and a lot of Paul Pierce. I used to watch Tracy McGrady as well along with Kevin Garnett.

I know that every football fan would love to do my job; get paid to watch football and say it how they see it, and I know I'm in a very privileged position.

I have such respect for the guys at ESPN.

If you're a sports fan and you're home and you're washing dishes, usually your TV is on ESPN and you're just getting the highlights and keeping up-to-date with all of the sports going around, all of the news.

I always watched Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson, and I said I could be playing on the court with them.

I like to watch the best in every sport, so definitely like Tom Brady or Tiger Woods, his comeback story, or even Usain Bolt. I look up to those guys just because they're great.

There'd be days I was in the locker room with my dad doing media, and there'd be other days that I'd be with my mom in the press box and just kind of looking at stuff from that point of view. I'd see guys writing stories after the game and stuff like that. So it was cool to me to see both sides.

Ryan Giggs and David Beckham were the two players I've always looked up to.

I'm passionate about the game - just like the fans are, and I've coached in the league for a long time, so that's the perspective I will bring to ESPN.

What the people say on TV means nothing to me, and it means nothing to anybody that's actually playing football. It's for the fans to watch and enjoy.