All of us growing up in South River stuck together. We won a Pop Warner Championship. Then, we played freshman football together, then Junior Varsity, then varsity.
Anybody can throw an incomplete pass, but if you can deliver when the opportunity is there, you're going to be a success.
At the age of 12, between the coaches and my prompting, my mother finally relented and let me participate in Pop Warner football.
Don't ever give up on your dream.
Each phase of life presents a new set of challenges. I think life is just a series of lessons. Life is a library.
Everybody is looking for that minor league of high school football and cheerleading, and I think Pop Warner is the perfect program for that.
Football and society changed me as a person. I had to take a look at who I was and had to rebuild myself after my injury.
Football was suddenly taken away. I had gone through a divorce, with three children involved, and I had become very ungrounded, caught up in the world of high society.
I could not go to football practice until my homework was done. It taught me priorities.
I firmly believe that whatever fields of endeavor you might choose to enter, the lessons you learn in Pop Warner can help you in the future.
I found out what a magnificent machine the human body is. The endorphins had kicked in, and I was not in pain.
I had a chance to play professional baseball with the Minnesota Twins as a shortstop. I turned it down to play football. I did all kinds of athletics growing up.
I had a tough time when I was successful. I started to live my life based upon the image people had of me. It was all wrong, my head got turned. What brought me back to reality was breaking my leg.
I played football for 23 years, and to this day I think some of the best fundamentals I have carried through my entire career, and some of the most important lessons were learned through Pop Warner football.
I really like the way American football is run.
I stayed skinny through high school because of Pop Warner. I watched my diet. It was a pretty good way to keep our weight down. A lot of my teammates were the same way.
I think parents have this vision of their son running into some other youngster who is 250 pounds. That's not the way it is. Strict weight categories are so important to the safety record of Pop Warner.
I think we should have more than 45 dressed for games. They should dress 50. The physical demands of the game over a season requires five more players.
I was all set to go to North Carolina State. I wasn't raised catholic. I didn't have that Notre Dame tradition drilled into me, I just thought Notre Dame was a great football school.
I was always told that I was too small, too skinny, too slow, not tough enough, and I never ever believed what people told me.
I was given a chance to do some broadcasting. I've never been satisfied with just being a participant. I want to be the best.
I worked hard. I worked late. I went in early. I did everything I could to gain an advantage.
I'll go to a boxing event live. I watched some of Mike Tyson's fights. Sugar Ray Leonard is a good friend.
If you put your best effort out, you may not always win, but if you don't, you'll never have a chance to win.
If you're given an opportunity, you have to be able to capitalize on it.
In competition, everybody has talent, but the question is, who gets noticed?
It took me three years psychologically and mentally to adjust to being away from the game.
Life's a marathon, you just have to keep plugging.
My 11th year as a professional, I was 35. I was considered the best.
My family had not been professional sports people. They worked hard and sacrificed so much for me.
No matter how great you are, the next great one is already sitting there waiting to take your place.
Nobody in football should be called a genius. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein.
On November 18, 1985, I was one of the best-known professional football players in America, and at 10 p.m. I was a hospital patient with a compound fracture of my leg, my career over.
Pop Warner Little Scholars teaches kids how to prepare for that next challenge.
Rugby is great. The players don't wear helmets or padding; they just beat the living daylights out of each other and then go for a beer. I love that.
Some of the closest friendships I've had throughout my life have stemmed from my Pop Warner experience.
Sport was the only thing I knew and all I wanted to know. The Good Lord blessed me with athletic ability, and I wanted to make the best of what I had.
Techniques change as a young athlete's body changes.
The first recollection I have of a major sporting occasion was going with my father to see the New York Giants. I was 12.
This is a game, first and foremost. There was only one Vince Lombardi, and he died.
When I can 10 or 11, my mom was the one out there catching passes for me. She was my prime receiver.
When you're coaching kids, it's vital to teach them that football is a game that you should have fun playing.
Winning the Super Bowl was genuinely a dream come true.
You have to love what you're doing. If you love it, you never give up on it. The only time anybody is ever a failure is when they quit trying.
You learn to be part of a team or a squad. You learn to depend on one another. Isn't it great when you're a young halfback and a defensive linemen knocks you down, that he also helps you up?
You never know when opportunities are going to come. It could be blocking a kick, it could be recovering a fumble.
You're the only person who can decide whether you can or should do something.
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