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In all Games, there is always a tendency, particularly in the lead up to the Games when there isn't much sport to talk about, to write about things that are not sport.

I don't necessarily want to know what people are saying when I'm not around, especially if it's about me. I just don't need to hear extra garbage.

If you talk to most athletes, the place you're most comfortable is your playing field. I'm not so comfortable at a podium or talking about events.

In sports teams, apart from talk of sporting prowess and the imparting of inspirational thought, an extraordinary amount of time is spent discussing, and flaunting, material possessions.

There's a lot of chatter in basketball and, rightfully, you want players to be talking to each other... But sometimes in practice, it gets too verbose... so I tried to take things out of the ordinary and make them special so they'd understand the difference.

A lot of reporters don't have conversations - they just fire off questions. I'm going to listen to what you're saying. If you start giving me a pat answer, I'm going to challenge you. That's where my sports background helps, because athletes do it all the time. So you have to stop them... and sometimes they're going to yell back at you. So what?

But if you cover the World Series on the news or do a feature on an Ali boxing match then all of a sudden ears go up all over the place and people say what the hell are you doing. The reason for that is that we're doing something that people are really interested in.

I end up talking about really mundane things with my fans, and then they're kind of like, 'This is boring. I want to go talk to somebody else.' I think I bore my fans to death by over-talking to them.

I enjoy talking to my football men and my chemistry classes and I feel sure that they are quite interested in what I have to say.

But we're not supposed to talk anything besides football.