Celebrities may get all the attention in the glossies, but when athletes set an example, their words are far-reaching - deep into the inner cities, across Mid-western farmlands, up and down coasts.
I rate Fabien Barthez and played with two great keepers in Alex Stepney and Harry Gregg.
George Steinbrenner forever changed baseball and hopefully someday we will see him honored in baseball's Hall of Fame as one of the great figures in the history of sports.
Kids tend to look up to sports figures and entertainers, probably more than they should, but I've tried to use that in a positive way.
We all idolize sports figures, and we see them fall from grace. You just truly never know anybody anymore.
Sports figures are to the '70s what movie stars were to the '60s.
Right now I like baseball, hockey and tennis players. And horseback riders.
I've called Chicago home for nearly 25 years. It's a city of broad shoulders and big hearts and bold dreams; a city of legendary sports figures, legendary sports venues, and legendary sports fans.
Dennis Conner is Pete Rose in deck shoes.
Guys like Alvin Adams, Sweet D Walter Davis, Larry Nance, and Kyle Macy became my basketball heroes.
When I think about athletes, probably my favorite guest of all time among baseball players was Ted Williams.
When you're a sports figure and people dislike you, they're going to look for the negatives.
For a guy not to want to listen to a Jerry Rice, a Tim Brown, a Charlie Garner, doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Professional wrestlers are human beings like anybody else.
One of my favorite topics to read about my whole life has just been famous athletes, and a lot of those have been combat athletes.
I believe that the obsessive worship of movie, TV and sports figures is less likely to produce spiritual gain than praying to Thor.
If I see LeBron walking down the street, it's not going to be no fistfight. I've got a lot of respect for him.
I think the hardest thing is that all of us would love to just stick to sports - but if you want us to be role models to kids, then you need to stand for more than just sports.
Sport crosses party lines and ethnic lines. It occupies a greater realm, and it's all the more disappointing when sports figures turn out to be like everyone else.
And George Brett. I think most people know that George and I have become pretty good friends over the years.
Joe Louis and I were the first modern national sports figures who were black... But neither of us could do national advertising because the South wouldn't buy it. That was the social stigma we lived under.
