Athletes Quotes

As Israel prepares to enter, my position is well known. It is one that I have taken at previous Olympics. It is wrong that the IOC refuses to have a minute's silence for Israeli athletes that were slaughtered in Munich.

Americans' addiction to sports, with the NFL at the top, is based on the excitement generated by the potential for the unexpected great play which can only happen with honest competition from great athletes.

In the seventies we had to make it acceptable for people to accept girls and women as athletes. We had to make it okay for them to be active. Those were much scarier times for females in sports.

My concentration level blocks out everything. Concentration is why some athletes are better than others. You develop that concentration in training and concentrate in a meet.

We typically don't choose our athletes until about a month prior to the Games because anything can happen.

We have got to go out there and deliver, go on the streets and find athletes, improve facilities around the country and find coaches. We have got to go out there and search for a star.

I have spoken with many former athletes, and they tell me the best time they had was in sports. I listen to them and use their experience in my career.

Athletes have to be confident and I am thinking like that.

To be candid with you, free agency hurts all sports. It's great for athletes making an enormous amount of money. But to say it helps the sports, I don't believe that.

If we carry on filling up the calendar, we keep on pushing the athlete, we shorten the athletes longevity. The risk is to shorten a career that could have lasted 10 years because the athlete is burnt out.