It was a wonderful experience to play in the NFL, and I have no regrets. I truly will miss playing for the Lions. I consider the Lions' players, coaches, staff, management and fans my family. I leave on good terms with everyone in the organization.

I want to thank all of the fans and media who made playing in the NFL such a wonderful experience. I have had the pleasure of meeting many of them.

I quit because I didn't feel like the Detroit Lions had a chance to win. It just killed my enjoyment of the game.

Christianity affects your whole life. I feel I'm more competitive, a better player, but off the field is where there is always a battle.

It was a wonderful experience to play in the NFL, and I have no regrets. I truly will miss playing for the Lions. I consider the Lions' players, coaches, staff, management and fans my family. I leave on good terms with everyone in the organization.

Shortly after the end of last season, I felt that I probably would not return for the 1999-2000 season. I also felt that I should take as much time as possible to sort through my feelings and make sure that my feelings were backed with conviction.

I wish my teammates, coaches and the entire Lions organization all the best.

My desire to exit the game is greater than my desire to remain in it. I have searched my heart through and through and feel comfortable with this decision.

The game is the ultimate significance to me because it is so important to a lot of people. It has left a mark on our culture to be voted as one of the best to ever play.

Let's just win it and go home.

Anyone who has played the game professionally, you're always taught that the ball is the most important, most precious thing, so when the ball hits the ground, it's always a mad scramble. It's amazing how many times there is a fumble, and the person who recovers it initially doesn't walk away with the ball.

As a kid, I played my share of football in the street or in a vacant lot.

As a kid, I played my share of football in the street or in a vacant lot. When we were playing in the street, it was more touch football, so we didn't hit each other into cars.

Happiness does not come from football awards. It's terrible to correlate happiness with football. Happiness comes from a good job, being able to feed your wife and kids. I don't dream football, I dream the American dream - two cars in a garage, be a happy father.

I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do in school, but I definitely didn't have adequate time to reach my full potential as a student.

I don't want to get too detailed into it, but when you're a good high school running back, you can almost be whatever type of runner you want to be. If you're a good size and a good athlete, you can be whatever type of runner you want.

I really love peace and quiet.

I'm from Kansas, so there were a lot of vacant lots and open fields to tackle each other in so we could avoid tackling each other on the street. But running on the street and trying not to get taken down on the concrete, that will make you fast, that's for sure.

I'm not better than anyone else. I'm not supposed to be on a pedestal. I've always stayed away from that.

If I could start with anybody, I would initially draft Tom Brady. Then I would go get Ray Lewis, and then maybe an offensive lineman, or somebody like Adrian Peterson.

In all the time that people have known me, has anyone ever heard me talk about the importance of rushing records or finishing with the most touchdowns? So if that's never been important to me, then why would that be a motivation to keep playing?

Individual goals never meant that much to me. The Heisman is no exception.

It's hard to win in the NFL. You have to maintain a very delicate balance putting together the right team to be able to win and have any amount of success.

Life doesn't stop with football.

Nothing ever turns out the way people expect it to.

You can look at everything from pre-Heisman to post-Heisman, and I think that's why it ranks up at the top, because before then, I didn't even think I was good enough to be a professional ballplayer.

You know, I'm fairly intelligent, but I don't think my grades reflected that.

It's better to have done because then you know what the player is going through and you understand the pressure, but then on the other hand I know a lot of people that were good players but not good coaches, and vice versa.

I have bought pole vault equipment, the landing areas, posts, which costs a lot of money. We pay for coaches.

Coaches are an integral part of any manager's team, especially if they are good pinochle players.

Acting coaches in Hollywood were always telling me to use my hands and body more. But that was never me. I just breathe and sometimes it doesn't look as if I'm doing that.

As I've said, basketball has been, I think, a real cooperative venture. There have been a lot of people that have been involved in it: coaches, administrators - not recently - fans and nobody, nobody any more so than students over the years.

It's a market economy. Apparently the demand for great coaches exceeds the supply, so of course the price of good coaches is going to be high.

And then ultimately what I tell the kids is: coaches can give you information, they can give you guidelines, and they can put you in a position. But the only person who can truly make you better is you.

We need to make sure parents and coaches are aware of the dangers an on the look-out for the warning signs. Performance enhancing drugs are too damaging to young people for parents and coaches to not be involved.

The thing about it is almost everyone could pass that way, but we were kept from doing it by our coaches.

Coaches have to watch for what they don't want to see and listen to what they don't want to hear.

First of all, it was such an honor to be chosen. You had to be voted in by players and coaches that time. But having it in Hawai'i was a brilliant idea.

I try to help developing junior chess. When I lived in USSR, I got a lot of free help from very good coaches - now I am trying to repay that debt.

Our coaches want to be a part of South Carolina football when they win it for the first time. When they win the division, when they win the SEC, win a major bowl game, etc. The opportunities to do it all for the first time here make it extra special.

I know a lot of people on the field - players, coaches, managers - are glad that I'm gone.

The biggest difference is in the leadership. It was better for us. We had more coaches and mentors to help us. A lot of the younger players today suffer from a lack of direction.

Once the World Cup preparations begin there will hardly be an opportunity to do so, since we'll have to put all our energy into the team. We coaches have a list of priorities and dealing with the media isn't in the top five.

The challenge coaches face is replacing players they were counting on to be major pieces of a puzzle. In a lot of cases, there is just no way to make the necessary adjustments.

Let them police themselves, and then it goes another step past them to my coaches and there a coach that is responsible for a different area and different category on the field.

I do have some young coaches, but I don't really believe that is the biggest problem we have here.

All my coaches tell me that I have been under achieving.

We should because when coaches get fired, the players have a lot to do with it.

I started singing about three years ago, I entered a local singing competition called Stratford Idol. The other people in the competition had been taking singing lessons and had vocal coaches. I wasn't taking it too seriously at the time, I would just sing around the house. I was only 12 and I got second place.