I think I always wanted to be quarterback so I could call the play.
— Steve Young
I wish I could've met my wife earlier. I do the math and I want 30 more years. I wish I'd started having kids earlier.
As a kid, I was fearless during the day. But at nighttime, I needed to be home.
Playing football in San Francisco was almost a transcendental experience.
I can hit the whiskers on a cat with a football from a distance of forty yards.
Call me a quarterback, not a running quarterback.
My generation, people who played with me, they're suffering from football.
I always look at the NBA as kind of a muddled mess in the regular season, and then you just get in the tournament, just get in. And then the great teams just get on a roll and play well or the team that is hot gets hot and goes and wins it.
Some of the great John Wayne hero things that have ever happened in football happened because people play hurt.
I don't think my experience with professional football has been what you'd call normal but I don't regret it.
You can be an astronaut, knowing it can be super dangerous but understand intuitively what the risk issues are. Not having the same usable knowledge about the risk of football, or any line of work, doesn't work.
If you're going to run a lot of plays, you better score a lot of points.
Bill Walsh was a genius in many ways.
Just after I retired, Michael Vick came in. And just as background, I really thought the position had changed. I thought the dynamic pass-run, triple-threat quarterback was going to take over the league. And guys like Michael Vick and others would follow and that's what we'd do. But I learned the truth with Peyton Manning and Tom Brady.
I think when you look at the quarterback position, and this mastery of the craft we talk about, it really is an advanced degree. It's like going to med school, or law school, or getting your PH.D. It really is that type of educational effort, on the field and off the field.
Success is really about expertise.
My favorite player I ever played was Reggie White. He played so ferociously. What I loved about playing against him was the millisecond you went down, he became your friend and would ask, 'How's your family?' In a way that could feel weird and awkward.
If sports has anything to do for society, football plays a great role.
I've come to a real understanding of the enormity of what owner entrepreneurs do in founding great businesses. They are rare and a thing of art in many ways.
Most veterans detested training camp, but not me. I loved having a dorm room and a little fridge with snacks, and I looked forward to goofing around in the meetings.
For me, football is a quest. Quests entail overcoming hardship, trials of adversity in the pursuit of true joy.
I have a photographic memory that enables me to visualize what everyone in the huddle is supposed to do on each of the hundreds of plays in our playbook.
When it's all over I might be able to say I've had the strangest career in pro football history.
Staying connected to the game and working for ESPN are very meaningful to me.
Bye weeks are nerve‑wracking.
I don't go out a lot. I do go to a lot of movies.
People always want to grab the negative, but that's not my reality. It comes from my dad. He cracks me up the way he always says, 'Suck it up and be a big girl,' to my sister, or 'Suck it up and be a man,' to us guys. That's what I'm about.
At the time I retired I was kind of known for it, as one of the guys whose career ended technically as a result of a big hit.
Something like speed of play can be a big deal.
I've played more golf with Joe Montana and Steve Bono than I've played with anyone else. We've played a ton of golf. I always tell people; my relationship with Joe was as good as it could be.
People don't remember that Sid Gillman was my coach. He was an old crotchety guy, but he was the first one to basically say, 'You can't just run around'... I remember, he literally tied my feet up.
Private equity is a science project for many, many years, and when you have a science project, it leaves the human beings as a secondary fact.
I'm telling you, studying for week to week in the NFL, and memorization, and reflexive recall... you have to drive it into your brain so far.
I always say football is very unnatural sport. Nobody loves to just ram into people.
The great thing about football is that it's a game that involves so many people.
I am the recipient of the best coaching that one person has ever had.
When fans showed up at Candlestick, there was a great sense of anticipation that they would watch not only winning football, but also artistry. Our offense was that sublime.
It's hard to explain anxiety to those who don't experience it.
I'm a positive person.
I believe there will be players who, instead of playing eight years, will play six. Who will closely watch how they feel. It will shorten careers.
There are a lot of places you can play quarterback and you won't know. You won't know if you're good or bad because there's just not a chance to find out.
Obviously, I love the idea of athletic quarterbacks.
Football's an intense game. I love that. It's awesome.
As the story about CTE got more real, it became more clear that players are playing that without a full understanding of the risks they face, and the long-term effects.
A lot of what you get done in the NFL is by perception. They perceive you as really talented, and they worry about you. You've got to come out of the locker room with something.
Golf is one of those games that I want my kids to know and learn so that they can play it all of their lives.
Golf is important to me. I love the game.
Peyton Manning, you look at his physical abilities, there are a lot of things that are middle of the road. But his mastery of the data allows him to be ahead. I love watching him because he throws the ball so proactively.
Third and 10 down by four at Lambeau Field in the drizzling rain... two minutes left. There's nothing like that.
I went to law school.
