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I love football. I played it into two years of college.

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.

Football has been good to me. Everyone has their destiny, but you have to make use of the opportunities. I have spent 15 years at the top of my game. It makes me happy. I love the game. I love scoring goals. But I have always taken it seriously. It is not what the game gives you, it is what you give it.

Football is a great love because I was born into a family of players and therefore born into football. I'm fortunate to have a style of play that a lot of people like. It's a privilege to be able to do what I like best and in my own way, but I'm fortunate that people like it, and that motivates me even more.

For a kid who's lost his mom and all the rage and grief that no one was able to talk out of me, football was a very therapeutic sport. Very.

Football has always been a big part of my life. Almost from the day I was born, playing and coaching football were all I really ever wanted to do.

I have loved football as an almost mythic game since I was in the fourth grade. To me, the game wasn't even grounded in reality. The uniform turned you into a warrior. Being on a team, the mythology of physical combat, the struggle against the elements, the narrative of the game.

When I was in high school, my mom hated football. But then, the more I played, the more it grew on her. This game has done a lot for my family - not just from a financial standpoint, but it also helped bring my family together.

I've been through a lot off the field. I think that kind of translates onto the field. Football serves for a lot of life lessons, and so it allows me to stay humble and continue to work.

I dabbled in football myself until the age of 14, but I didn't have as much love for the sport as I did track and field. I would never have been good enough to take it to the highest level.