David Shields Quotes

My real heroes have always been sportswriters.

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.

Sports journalism is in the midst of an identity crisis so profound that we no longer know whether we're made up of one word or two.

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.

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

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.

And I realized that there was no sports reporter, so I started covering sporting events.

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.

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.

There may not be much future for the kind of sports column I did.

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!

If I hadn't have been good enough at football, I'd have been a sports journalist - which is what I do now anyway. Or a cricketer. I might have been a cricketer.

I'm not a sportswriter.

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.

People are tuning in for one reason and one reason only: to find out what's happened. That's what took me a very long time at 'SportsCenter' to figure out.

Writing was far more of an art in the sports world than it is now.

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

A sports writer is a stylist of some kind. He is trying to convey mood and character and emotion.

I have such respect for the guys at ESPN.

I wanted to be a sports broadcaster like Stephen A. Smith.

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.

There'd be a call from Michigan Scout, then Michigan Rivals, then Iowa Scout, then Iowa Rivals. These guys are competing, and I'm just the guy in the middle giving them the story.

I get to talk about sports on television for a living.

I want to be the black Dick Vitale.