My dad, being a businessman, constantly talked to me about carrying myself in a certain way and treating people with respect. And I think that's something that's carried over throughout my life. It's how I deal with certain situations.
— Colin Kaepernick
Every time I step on the field, I step on the field to make plays.
When you step on the field, you want to be a starter. You want to be the person everybody looks to and says, 'If we need a play to be made, let's go to him.'
I don't look at film that closely about my mechanics of where's my elbow at.
Its a touchy subject, 'cause I never want to take it there, where it seems like it's all about race. But I feel like that's something that comes along with the territory of being a black quarterback. When you have success - 'Oh, you're a freak athlete.' Not, 'Oh, you're a good quarterback.'
I refuse to take shortcuts.
The biggest thing is I watch myself: What I need to improve on, what I can do different.
Jim Tomsula is going to be great coach for us. Players' coach. Always around the guys. Someone that's willing to listen to what the players say and has their intake.
This stand wasn't because I feel like I'm being put down in any kind of way. This is because I'm seeing things happen to people that don't have a voice: people that don't have a platform to talk and have their voices heard and affect change. So I'm in the position where I can do that, and I'm going to do that for people that can't.
A lot of them have families to feed, and I think it's a tragic situation where players aren't comfortable speaking what's on their mind or what's right because they're afraid of consequences that come along with it. That's not an ideal environment for anybody.
Most people don't want to change. They're comfortable and set in their ways. But in order to change, you have to be able to agitate people at times. And I think that's something that's very necessary for us to improve as a country.
You have full-field view when you're watching the film. Eye in the sky, it's a lot easier to look at it that way than when you're back behind center.
I'll always be a fan of coach Harbaugh. Not too sure about Michigan.
The SFPD has had a lot of issues, and I think one of the issues that needs to be addressed is the racist text messages that have been passed back and forth between PD members, not only talking about the community, but also talking about colleagues that work in the same department as them.
I realize that men and women of the military go out and sacrifice their lives and put their selves in harm's way for my freedom of speech and my freedoms in this country, and my freedom to take a seat or take a knee, so I have the utmost respect for them, and I think what I did was taken out of context and spun a different way.
I'm going to continue to stand with the people that are being oppressed.
All my life, I've had these flashbacks, these dreams, nightmares, daymares, like visions, where I relive certain plays. Only the bad plays. I see them over and over, as if somebody's rewinding a tape and forcing me to watch.
I never felt that I was supposed to be white. Or black, either. My parents just wanted to let me be who I needed to be.
I'm not incapable of going through things.
If you're going to do something, you're going to do it to be the best.
If I got a football scholarship, I was going to be a football player.
To me, when people say, 'Oh, you're a freak athlete,' it's bittersweet. It's a huge compliment to say, 'O.K., you have physical abilities that are kind of above and beyond.' But at the same time, I feel like it diminishes the mental side of the game.
I'm still trying to improve. Everything I can do to improve every part of my game - I'm going to do it.
Once you're on the field, you're playing. You're not worried about anything other than doing your job to help your team.
We have a presidential candidate who's deleted emails and done things illegally and is a presidential candidate. That doesn't make sense to me, because if that was any other person, you'd be in prison. So what is this country really standing for?
The support I've gotten from my teammates has been great.
It was just something - I didn't agree with what the flag was representing at this time, and you know, if you look at the original picture where people addressed it, I was trying to sit behind the coolers and out of the way, 'cause I didn't want to interrupt anybody else's right to stand and hold attention to the flag.
Mental health, for me, is doing everything I can to help this team win. Sitting around not doing anything isn't something I've been too big on since I was young.
In the heat of the battle, it's always different than when you go back and look at it on film.
Whatever the offense dictates to allow me doing what I or this offense needs to do to win games, I'm going to do it.
I think that's something that's hard for this country to address, is what the real issues are and coming to the point where we can admit that these are issues. Once we admit that, we can deal with it, we can fix them, and we can make this country and these communities a better place.
I have great respect for the men and women that have fought for this country. I have family, I have friends that have gone and fought for this country. And they fight for freedom, they fight for the people, they fight for liberty and justice, for everyone.
People don't realize what's really going on in this country. There are a lot things that are going on that are unjust. People aren't being held accountable for. And that's something that needs to change. That's something that this country stands for: freedom, liberty and justice for all.
I haven't seen a quarterback play a perfect game yet.
I don't believe in pressure. The pressure is not being prepared for what you want to do.
I felt the way people talked to me was like, 'It's OK to be No. 2 in the NFL, a backup,' and things like that. That's never been my approach.
I don't want people to think you have to look a certain way or be a certain mold to be able to be a quarterback.
I'll never take the easy way out.
If you work hard and perform well, it doesn't matter whether you're 20 or 40. People are going to follow, and you can go in there and run the show.
People can talk all they want; that doesn't affect how I go about my business.
People are dying in vain because this country isn't holding their end of the bargain up as far as, you know, giving freedom and justice and liberty to everybody.
I've had times where one of my roommates was moving out of the house in college, and because we were the only black people in that neighborhood, the cops got called, and we had guns drawn on us. Came in the house, without knocking, guns drawn on my teammates and roommates. So I have experienced this.
I have great respect for the religion. I know a lot of people that are Muslim and are phenomenal people.
You have to take care of the ball to win football games.
I'm going out to play, and to play to win.
I'm here to play football.
We have a lot of people that are oppressed. We have a lot of people that aren't treated equally, aren't given equal opportunities. Police brutality is a huge thing that needs to be addressed. There are a lot of issues that need to be talked about, need to be brought to life, and we need to fix those.
There's a lot of things that need to change. One specifically? Police brutality.
I'm going to speak the truth when I'm asked about it.
