I was a terrible student. I didn't graduate magna cum laude: I graduated 'Thank you, Lawdy!'
— Shannon Sharpe
I love the NFL. Everything that I really have is because of the NFL... but every idea that the NFL pitched is not a great idea.
To say someone is the greatest, I just don't want championships to define that greatness. Because under that theory, Robert Horry is one of the five or six best basketball players ever - he has seven championship rings. We know that not to be true.
I tell people, when I train, I don't do a Hansel and Gretel workout. I don't drop breadcrumbs. I saved nothing for the trip home.
In our culture, when the parents are having a tough time, the grandparents take care of the kids.
I'm a big cardio guy. I love spinning, and I do that seven to eight times a week because I have time. What else am I going to do? I don't have a hobby. I don't play golf; I don't restore cars; and I don't have a fixer-upper house that I'm working on. So basically, my day is built around just working out. That's what I enjoy doing.
I'm just a skinny kid from Glennville, Georgia - 3,500 people, two traffic lights - going to the Hall of Fame.
Don't hope someone gives you an opportunity: create one for yourself.
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.
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.
Peyton Manning is funny, hence the 'Saturday Night Live'; you see him in his commercials. He's funny.
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 don't have a problem with athletes speaking up, but I want to make sure before they speak up, they read up.
If you want to boo, I want you to boo me as loud as you can, because I think that's a sign of respect: You don't boo the bad players; you boo the really good ones.
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.
There's no other game like the Super Bowl.
I like to talk. I admit it.
I've got my bell rung, and when I first came in the league, the term wasn't 'concussion,' it was 'getting dinged' or 'had your bell rung.' So I had my bell rung a few times.
To get down on the ground and get yourself up for an extended period of time at 245 lbs... that takes a lot. When you see those CrossFit guys, none of them weigh 245, I can assure you of that.
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.
It trips me out when I hear people say, 'Well, I don't see color.' You see color. Now, how you respond and how you handle the situation once you've seen and noticed color is different.
I think with lean cuts of chicken and beef, fish, turkey, ground beef and bison, you can't go wrong with those.
I had a persona as a player, and I know this will come as a shock, but I liked to talk. But don't let the persona overshadow the person. The persona liked to have fun. The person knew when it was time to get to work.
There is a reason they called it chasing your dreams and not walking after them.
When people told me I'd never make it, I listened to the one person who said I could: me.
A lot of problems that are going on aren't going to get better if we don't talk about it. Race is the biggest one. It's a very, very uncomfortable topic because the biggest part of America was founded on it.
Most people, they're dug in. 'Michael Jordan is the best player, and there's nothing LeBron can do.' A lot of people dug in that LeBron is whiny and he complains, he jumped teams, he wants all the best players. And once you have your mind made up on a particular topic, there's no moving you off of that.
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 have the utmost respect for Charles Barkley. He was a heck of a ballplayer... When it comes to basketball, please quote Charles Barkley. But when it comes to race in America? Please don't quote Charles Barkley.
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 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.
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.
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 don't know if Rush Limbaugh knows the difference between a screen porch and a screen play.
Adrian Peterson has home-run speed.
I'm not trying to have no surgeries because I'm trying to impress somebody and I end up hurting or tearing my labrum or rotator cuff.
Didn't know until my rookie year you could buy chicken parts separate, like drumsticks and thighs and breast. My granny always bought the whole chicken and cut it up.
What I tell people all the time is that bodies are made in the kitchen, not in the gym. You cannot exercise a bad diet. It's just impossible. Unless you want to be the ultra-marathoner or someone like a Michael Phelps that's swimming 70 or 80,000 meters in a week, you cannot exercise a bad diet.
I'm big on green veggies: arugula, spinach, and kale.
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.
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.
For me, having played the game of football, I look at it through a much different lens. I don't look at it from a fan's perspective. I'm always trying to analyze and critique things when I'm watching sporting events. That's why I never have the sound on.
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.
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.
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.
My grandmother raised her nine kids and raised my mom's three.
Of all the four major sports, whether you like Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski, maybe you like Bobby Orr, or you like Larry Bird or Tom Brady - Bill Russell is the greatest athlete to play in Boston.
No one in my family graduated from college until my brother did, and then I did.
You sacrifice so much to get to the NFL. You miss recitals and graduations. Moments that you can't have because you're focused on being the best.
