I had a speech class in elementary school. And you know how teachers, when a kid is struggling to pronounce a word, used to lead him and say, 'Johnny, sounds like... ? Johnny, sounds like... ?' I said out loud, 'Sounds like Johnny can't read.' Teacher told me to leave the room.
Shannon Sharpe
A lot of people mistake habit for hard work. Doing something over and over again is not working hard.
I was a terrible student. I didn't graduate magna cum laude: I graduated 'Thank you, Lawdy!'
The thing you can't measure is someone's heart, someone's desire. You can measure a 40, his vertical, his bench press, and that might let you know things like, yeah, he can jump high. But desire, his dedication, his determination, that's something you can't measure. That's something you can't measure about Rod Smith.
When people told me I'd never make it, I listened to the one person who said I could: me.
There is a reason they called it chasing your dreams and not walking after them.
Super Bowl XXXII was a victory made long before stepping on that field in San Diego in 1998. It was earned with my brother guiding me as a kid in Glennville, Ga., and as a seventh-round pick out of Savannah State. Even at the pinnacle, that ring was always his.
My grandmother was a very simple woman. She didn't want a whole lot. My grandmother wanted to go to church and Sunday school every Sunday. She wanted to be in Bible study every Wednesday. The other days, she wanted to be on a fishing creek.
Everything I am I owe to Sterling Sharpe. He made me a better football player, a better father, and a better man. He was, and always will be, my hero.
I am the only player who has been inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame and am the second-best player in my family.
Don't hope someone gives you an opportunity: create one for yourself.
My grandmother raised her nine kids and raised my mom's three.
I'm not uncomfortable with my looks.
I didn't bother with trash-talking people's moms, wives, or girlfriends. I was like, 'Hold on, man, you mean to tell me you're making $10 million a year? That's $9 million, $999,999 too much!' That ate them up.
I've said numerous times the hardest job in America isn't being a professional athlete. It's not being a matador or having some job that puts your life at risk. The hardest job in America is being black, because it's the one thing you can't outrun.
My grandma told me, don't get into trouble. I know how hard she worked to take care of her own nine kids and my mama's three. And I just never wanted to hurt her. I never wanted to do something that would embarrass her.
Growing up on a farm, I saw that if I didn't go to the military or go to school, and I knew my mom and my family wasn't going to be able to send me to school out of their pocket, so it basically came down to athletics. I knew I didn't want to work on a farm. I knew I didn't want to do manual labor the rest of my life.
You can tell the truth, but sometimes you can't always be in your face with it. I found a way to tell the truth and put it in a nice, neat package for people to receive it. A lot of times, you have to put it in a nice, neat box with a bow tie, and when they open it, it's the truth. I think people respect that.
I was born in the 1960s. I came up in the 1970s. I know how race relations were. The thing is, I want to advance the ball and never return to those days again. I want to keep the topic going. I'm going to discuss it. And we're going to make America better. It's my job as a citizen, and I demand it.
The only thing I do is say what everyone else is thinking but doesn't have the guts to say.
There's not a throw that Tom Brady can make that Aaron Rodgers can't, but there are several throws that Aaron Rodgers can make that Tom Brady only dreams of making.
The NFL is made up of 1,800 players, guys from different religious backgrounds, different upbringings. I love Peyton Manning. But I don't want 1,800 Peyton Mannings in the NFL.
President Trump wouldn't stick to politics, so he got to jump into sports. So I feel very comfortable now, moving forward, jumping back and forth. Sports to politics, politics to sports.
I'll always respect that institution of the presidency, and I'll respect President Trump.
No one in my family graduated from college until my brother did, and then I did.
A lot of guys are going to say, 'Look, if it meant me getting a Super Bowl ring, I'd run right over the top of my brother.' And I would have. But once it was said and done, I would have been very disappointed that I had to get the ring at my brother's expense.
People say, 'Since you got rich and famous, you've become insufferable.' I say, 'That's not true. I've always been insufferable.'
I like to think my teammates had a good time when I was around.
In my 14 years, catching 200 yards or scoring 3 touchdowns in a game, breaking a record - none of those compared to winning the Super Bowl for the first time.
I can't for the life of me - and I've tried - love someone like I love my grandmother, my sister and my mom.
When someone keeps doing something, you say that that isn't him, he is just making some bad decisions. Sometimes those decisions reflect the person.
Some guys get on the road, the first thing they do is look for the nearest golf course. I look for a gym.
Charles Barkley played in an era where he was never the guy. He always had to take a back seat to Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Isaiah Thomas, because what did they have that he never got? A championship.
I love to work out.
I'm just a skinny kid from Glennville, Georgia. I'm going to the Hall of Fame. Not to the Hall of Very Good. The Hall of Fame.
I felt like I always had to fight to prove my worth.
You can get in front of the media and say, 'Yeah, I'm working hard.' You can't do it in front of those other 52 guys in the locker room. You can't fool your teammates, because they see you. They see you every day, and they see you more than your family sees you.
At some point in time, we're going to have to stop addressing the kneeling, and we're going to have to start addressing what led Colin Kaepernick to kneel. That's the issue that nobody wants to talk about.
I'm just a skinny kid from Glennville, Georgia - 3,500 people, two traffic lights - going to the Hall of Fame.
I want to make one thing crystal clear. The NFL does have a responsibility to make sure that their players are upstanding, law-abiding citizens.
I was a talker back in elementary school. I used to get A's and B's in everything, but I got an F in conduct.
Even through all those Pro Bowls, at the end of the day, I was always just a seventh-round pick.
Racism is a disease. Go to your doctor with an ailment, and let the doctor tell you, 'Well, look, I'm not going to treat you; we're just not going to talk about it. It's going to go away.' You would look at him like he's crazy. By not talking about racism, it's not going to go away.
I really carried that seventh-round tag with me my whole career, even at the end.
I'm not supposed to be phonetically correct or enunciate perfectly.
There's no other game like the Super Bowl.
When I left my grandmother's home in 1986 headed to Savannah State with two brown grocery bags filled with my belongings, nothing was going to keep me from realizing my dreams.
Colin Kaepernick had a... maybe he had an epiphany. Maybe he had a realization that 'I have a higher calling the playing quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers.'
If you only vote with your back pocket in mind or your own best interest in mind, I believe, it is my belief that's a terrible, terrible way of thinking.
I tell you what: I bet Jerry Jones would not trade places with a 75-year black man in Chicago. I bet Joel Klatt would not trade places with a 30-year old black guy from Chicago or Watts. I bet he wouldn't do that. You know why? It's great to know that I'm white and a male in America.
