Marv Levy

If I had coached in high school for 60 years, I would have loved it. Getting to the top was not a goal. I welcomed the opportunities, but I just believed do the best doggone job you can, and good things will happen.

My father was an athlete, a great athlete, fought in the Marines in World War I. He was all sports and activity. My mother was all academics. I still have the complete works of Shakespeare that she had.

People sometimes ask me to name the greatest coach in NFL history. George Halas may have set the standard, but Don Shula has won more games than anyone, and he has done it in the most competitive era. He had an incomparable ability to evaluate players, to motivate them, and to teach them the game of football.

Chronological age is only an approximation of your functional age.

I exercise, walk a lot, and break into the occasional trot. I also lift weights three days a week, and I like to read about what makes a good diet. Overall, I do follow a healthy lifestyle.

Teaching is very important. The nature of your personality isn't that important. Lombardi was very extraverted, very bombastic. Landry very quiet, reserved. Both were great teachers and great coaches.

As coaches, we learn to accept criticism for our decisions. If a writer says you shouldn't have gone for it on fourth-and-one, we understand that's part of the job. We expect it.

I am going to miss Don Shula. I like him, and I admire him. I'm going to miss looking those 53 yards across the field and thinking, 'There is a coaching legend.'

I just want people to finish the book and say, 'I was entertained.' When I set out to do it, I had no deal in place. I knew it would be tough. I read somewhere that John Steinbeck was turned down 22 times on his first novel. But I was just going to do it.

When I was twelve, I went hunting with my father and we shot a bird. He was laying there and something struck me. Why do we call this fun to kill this creature who was as happy as I was when I woke up this morning.

Absolutely everything undergoes evolvement - whether it's technology, journalism, the NFL, medicine.

I was enamored with Charles Dickens as a kid, and his names blew me away.

I have stayed active. I do keep moving. But I should start swimming more. Great exercise.

If you don't change with the times, the times are going to change you.

If you believe you are doing a good job in which you enjoy and like then dont resign regardless of the pressures.

I did a lot of studying of great writers. I read that Hemingway rewrote 'The Sun Also Rises' 39 times.

When I was twelve I went hunting with my father and we shot a bird. He was laying there and something struck me. Why do we call this fun to kill this creature who was as happy as I was when I woke up this morning.

The age factor means nothing to me. I'm old enough to know my limitations and I'm young enough to exceed them.

Experience should be a plus as long as it doesn't become complacency. If you say, 'We're not going to change; we didn't do it that way before,' then you've become too old.

I'm hoping to get started on a new novel.

I took all the courses you would need to be able to go to law school. But my experience in college with football made me want to go into coaching.

When I first started reading poetry, all the poets I read - Edgar Allan Poe, Oliver Wendell Holmes, John Greenleaf Whittier - were rhyme poets. That's what captured me.

I never have suspected or sensed a whiff of cheating in any of our Super Bowls.

Age is inevitable. Aging isn't.

Bill Polian and I agreed when we first came together with the Buffalo Bills that we'd bring players only of high character to the team.

In Buffalo, you can't imagine how much people revere Fred Jackson because of his high character, his community involvement, coming from a Division III school.

Whenever I think of baseball, the first name that comes to mind is Babe Ruth. What the Babe was to baseball, Shula is to football coaching. There are certain figures in sports who are larger than the games they play or coach, and Don Shula is one of those.

Did I ever think at the time, when I was with the Alouettes and the Chicago Blitz, that I would be head-coaching a team in the Super Bowl? It would be hard to believe. Is it a dream come true? Yes.