Pro football gave me a good sense of perspective to enter politics: I'd already been booed, cheered, cut, sold, traded and hung in effigy.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Football was a wonderful experience for me. It was a means of, oh, I don't know, sustaining for much of my youth. In times of trouble, I've always had football. I always knew I was a football player. And that was a comfort on many occasions.
I did enjoy football, but the injury factor for me, you know, I had so many issues. I don't know how long my career would've been.
When it came to football there was a certain age where I realized that my future in football was being a grease spot on the side of some bigger player.
If I stayed a football player, my career would have been over 20 years ago. As it is, my knees are shot. I found I got the same good feeling in acting that I had in sports, but I found I could have a more profound impact on people.
My legacy isn't about what I did playing football, but how I use the opportunities that came from playing football.
Politics and football don't mix.
I wanted to join the Army when football failed. That was my only realistic form of making an honest living.
I had played sports all my life, and I thought that was going to be the way. But I saw where the potential in football was going to end. When it comes to decision-making, I just follow my gut at the end of the day. And if I don't, I get in trouble. I wanted to become a filmmaker.
I have no interest in owning a football club; I don't play golf; I don't like horseracing and I'd rather become a professional bungee jumper than enter politics.
I know I had been successful in football. I had been successful in broadcasting. I didn't think that anything could touch me. I thought, I can beat anything.