Gale Sayers Quotes

Up until the age of 16, I was very focused on sport - I played a lot of football. Then I tore my ACL and had to stop playing.

I didn't think I was going to play that day. I'd have to thank the training staff for getting me on the field that day. They made a bigger deal than I thought it was.

The operations were big ones, so I knew it'd take a lot of hard work. It's hard, you know? You're in the gym for hours on end doing strengthening exercises, and that's just so you are able to start running again. You can't even think about getting on the pitch to start with.

After having my first surgery in 2003, having an ACL replacement, I never thought I'd be able to compete again.

Am I ever going to be able to play football again? What's going on with my career? I was just thinking things like that. You've got tears going down your eyes. You've got your trainers right there and my parents right there. I was just thinking, "Is this it?" I didn't know what a knee injury was. I'd never felt pain like that.

Even when I was young, playing college football, and I injured my knee, I bounced right back.

I made it to the NFL and I had an injury, a really bad injury, actually, where I was out for 18 months in football. And the doctor said it was career-ending.

I was kind of at the turning point in my career with my knee. I was dealing with the struggles of trying to make the transition back on the court consistently and not a game here, then sit a game.

When I make a tackle or make a play and I have a slight pain or something, you're going to react the way you react.

Unfortunately, my football career wasn't very long. The reason I finished playing was because I fractured both ankles in a matter of months.

I struggled quite a long time with my backhand, which was one of my best weapons before my surgery. It took me a long time until I regained full confidence in it again and only tried to keep the ball in play at the start of the '09 season.

I've decided to listen to my doctors and get the procedure I need on my knee. USA Basketball said I had to do what was best for me. They want me to be obviously as healthy as possible so I can continue to play this game at a high level.

I was able to do Classics, the U.S. national championships and the Pan American Games and feel like I improved with each meet, but I was still struggling with a lot of residual pain from the two surgeries.

The return is one of the hardest shots to make when you come back from injury.

I hurt my left knee playing left tackle. I had surgery on my right knee.

The only way to get a three to four-month break would be to tear a tendon or a hamstring or something like that.

I had a hard time at Chelsea mainly because I was injured much of the time. Every time I recovered from one injury I seemed to get a new one and it set me back again.

If I break my ankle right now, this Olympics wasn't meant to be.

An injured Zlatan is a pretty serious thing for any team.

Yeah, two or three weeks ago I was fairly snappy. I've never been injured before and this year it feels like I've hardly played.

I know with my knee injury, I didn't have the type of medical technology we have today. If I could've had what we had now, I probably could've been back out in three months. I didn't have that.

Injuries are a big factor when you're trying to go on a championship run.

Coping with injuries is always difficult for athletes because all we want to do is, basically, to have our best performances unhindered.

One thing the fans got to understand is that I missed two years, and we took it really, really slow, and we made sure everything was good, and my foot has been great.

It's never fun to be injured; it's always boring being on the side. You want to go back to help the team and to be able to play.