So much of a professional athlete's success depends upon not necessarily the play itself but how he deals with... always saying how you deal with good, is just as important as how you deal with bad.
It doesn't matter who picks me up, I'm going to try and be a franchise player for them.
We were like farm animals compared to today's players who are treated like thoroughbreds.
We want to be treated as professionals and like the male footballers.
We have not made cricket and football [soccer] professional because of any astonishing avarice or new vulgarity. We have made them professional because we would have them perfect. We have dedicated men to them as to some god of inhuman excellence. We care more for football than for the fun of playing football.
Personally, I would never criticise a player in public.
I don't think there is any place in football for drinking. I have said on several occasions to players: You don't put diesel in a Ferrari.
I think it's highly unprofessional to not make weight.
If you're healthy and you're told that you're capable of playing and the medical staff signs off on it, to me, you play because that's what you are paid to do.
It is a fine line between communicating and being too chummy. My players, when I've been promoted, have been upset by top-flight refs being mates with opposition players.
I don't think anybody in any sport ever sucks. You're an athlete. You're a professional.
We are footballers, not artists.
I think at Ohio State, we're professional athletes in Columbus.
Guys like Josh Gordon need to stay in his sport and mind his own business.
Any quality player can adjust well to the different demands. It is like a good tennis player who is expected to adjust to the clay at the French Open, the grass at Wimbledon, the hard courts of the U.S. and the heat of the Australian Open. A professional is expected to do all that.
More teams are trying to go full-time, so it gives everyone the best chance possible to be the best footballer they can be, which makes it more appealing to fans, because we're better as we focus solely on the game as our job.
There's far more that goes into being a professional athlete than being a college athlete. So many differences that people don't realize. It's not just about playing football and getting paid to do it. There's a lot of things that you have to deal with.
For the women's team, our job is to be professional footballers for club and country and be the best role models we can be.
A lot of people have a different perspective on this but my personal view is that while things have become more professional with we being centrally contracted, we don't play as regularly as the men do. The number of matches we play is too less as compared to men.
I know people say that we are a load of beer drinkers but we are far more professional these days. These critics should come and have a go at playing darts if they think it is so easy.
