Frank Deford Quotes

My dad was a sports writer when I was younger and then he became just a general columnist. But I grew up with him literally getting into brawls with football coaches.

I don't read a lot of the sports, because I think people sometimes either build it up, or you have this guy that hates sports that is going to write bad about it, so I figure I'm not going to read it. Because I'm not going to let him put an idea into my head.

I know that some of the finest writing I've ever read has been sports writing, whatever the topic was, whatever the sport they were writing about. It seems to be an area where people are allowed a little more leeway than when they're reporting on traffic jams and city-council meetings.

By the time I left ESPN in 2003, 'SportsCenter' had become a far different show than the one I initially joined in 1996.

Of course newspaper sportswriting is mostly terrible - and of course it is usually the best writing in the paper.

At times during high school and college I wished to be a sportswriter.

As anyone who has read 'Sports Illustrated's Steve Rushin knows, it's quite possible to write an unreadable column without being a TV pundit. But if you want to be a consistently good columnist, you can't be on television.

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.

ESPN has this problem with sports, it's impossible to fill 24 hours with sports programming so they have to resort to things like poker and arm wrestling tournaments.

To this day, while maintaining a healthy respect for the Giants and Jets and other teams I cover, I admit to checking the results every Monday to see how the Bears did.

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.

Most announcers play pattycake, pattycake with the players they're covering.

Sally Jenkins of the 'Washington Post' is the best sports columnist in the country. Second best is Gene Wojciechowski of ESPN.com, and third is Dan Wetzel on Yahoo!

My real heroes have always been sportswriters.

I know I could be the host of 'SportsCenter' in two years if I changed my show today to sports.

I really like ESPN. They do a great job.

I never watched TV because I was always doing a game. I didn't have any experience to be home watching games. I didn't know how to do it. Brent Musburger and those guys could sit and watch every game and know the scores. And I was amazed and said, 'I'd like to have something like that someday.'

Sanitizing ESPN of politics and opinion would make it a relic; sports fans have dozens of places online to go for scores and highlights.

If something touches on the world of sports, ESPN has never told me that I cannot discuss a sports-related matter.

The media do not analyse the game. They analyse the result.

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 get to talk about sports on television for a living.

I'm not a sportswriter.

My TV stays locked at 'SportsCenter.' That and 'Pardon the Interruption.'