Hank Aaron Quotes

Getting past 30 as a sportsman, the end could be just around the corner.

I always think of it in terms of music. You're not always going to be a huge rock star in music, but musicians can play until the day they die. With sports, it's different. You can't always do it until the very end, and that's a hard reality of sports.

The reality is that my style of drumming is largely an athletic undertaking, and it does not pain me to realize that, like all athletes, there comes a time to... take yourself out of the game.

Every athlete, I think, would like to play forever. They never want to acknowledge that they've lost a step or they can't quite do what they did before.

You can't do sports for the rest of your life; I don't care how good you are. You can be the best ever, but it's still going to go away.

A sort of sadness shall always remain in my mind that I was not allowed to retire while playing, but anyway, it's all a part of life for a sportsman who, while playing, never realises when he should retire, but he starts thinking about it when he is dropped.

Boxing does not favor boxers over 35 who rely on reflexes.

I find it quite sad to see the likes of Evander Holyfield carrying on past their sell-by date.

My athleticism will go away some day. I'm gonna be old one of these days, so I'm going to be able to use those post moves.

I've always looked at my career as an athlete would look at his. I won't play forever. Some don't know when to walk away, but the smart ones do.

I've said many times in the past that my career's not going to go on much longer; I'm not going to keep going and riding until I'm in my 30s and things like this.

Touring is a young man's game, but after 30 years of it, I want to stay home.

I don't think you retire from movies; movies retire you.

The decision to retire was quite an easy one for me because by that stage my knees were so badly gone. If I had been like Martina Navratilova and my body had let me I would have carried on playing a lot longer.

I never felt I would get to the stage where I would to have to actively think about retiring from international football as I always thought it would pass me by.

I retired from rugby because I was old and getting really slow.

Like I said, a 30-year-old hockey player, even when I came to New York when I was 30, I was on the downside of my career, pretty much the end of my career.

So I always figured I'd still be playing at this age.

In sports... you play from the time you're eight years old, and then you're done forever.

I've been running a full marathon every year for more than 20 years, and my record is getting worse. Getting older, getting worse. It's natural.

I think there's nothing sadder than a pro athlete who plays past his prime.

What people don't understand is the summertime is motivation - how willing you're willing to work for the upcoming season - and I think, as older players, once you see that drive fall off in the summer, then I think it's time to hang it up.

In track years... track is not like other sports. You do have track athletes that stay in this sport until, like, 35, 36, but I think when you get to 28, it's really difficult.

I think, at 32, you are past your prime as a footballer.

Your career goes fast, just a blink of an eye and you're an ex-baseball player, longer than you are a baseball player. I try not to think about it too much, but it seems like it does go fast.