I was the guy on the swim team entertaining the bus on the way to the meets.

I get a little bit emotional during a game!

Oh, I can’t play soccer, and I’m not a great swimmer. I won’t drown, but you won’t see me doing laps in a pool.

I treated it like every day was my last day with a basketball.

I swam underwater for 50 meters at a time and walked the length of the pool underwater, with a brick in each hand, all on a single breath.

In England, when an athlete gets to the top, we do our best to destroy him.

I was a huge Mike Tyson fan growing up; his fights were always on in my house.

I am very happy to be signing for the best team in the world and especially proud to be the first Portuguese player to join United.

When I used to play sports, I’d be the one cheering the team on, ‚Come on, we can beat these guys!‘ That’s just in me.

I knew I’d be in the UFC since I started my career.

They used to call me ‚Touchdown T.‘ I remember in high school, we had homecoming, and I got in front of the pep rally, and I told them, ‚I’m going to run for three touchdowns.‘ I ran for three touchdowns, kicked the extra point, and took myself out the game.

That’s what you live for as a sportsman. You have to put up a fight.

I’m already the face of the UFC, plus the face of boxing, WWE, and Hollywood.

I have never cared especially for outdoor sports and have no desire to excel at tennis, swimming, or golf. I’ll leave those things to the men.

I used to pray that God would make me a great athlete, and He never did.

I think of myself more as a sportsman than I do an artist.

I swim like a fish and I have an amazing kick.

I’ve played with IVs before, during and after games. I’ve played with a broken hand, a sprained ankle, a torn shoulder, a fractured tooth, a severed lip, and a knee the size of a softball. I don’t miss 15 games because of a toe injury that everybody knows wasn’t that serious in the first place.

One of my lungs is half gone, and the other half, because I smoked for years, has a lesion. So I can’t swim anymore and had the swimming pool covered over. Now it’s what I call the dance pavilion, and so I and my friends sit out and put music on and watch people dance.

To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don’t grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float.

I know how to swim through backlash. I can tread water through backlash… If anything, that’s all giving me power.

The only thing I ever wanted to be was a professional football player.

As soon as I got out there I felt a strange relationship with the pitcher’s mound. It was as if I’d been born out there. Pitching just felt like the most natural thing in the world. Striking out batters was easy.

Football is all about fans.

David Beckham has never impressed me.

When I’m out on the football field, I have so much confidence in what I’m doing.

I have often wanted to drown my troubles, but I can’t get my wife to go swimming.

Fortunately for a quarterback, you can play for a long time because you don’t get hit very often.

Without sounding biased, 70 days of football is not enough. Even if Messi plays 70 days he cannot be in the national team. You need to play around the year to be in contention for the national team.

When I was in Portugal I hardly played six-or-seven matches. Although I would train daily to keep my shape. Even then it was really difficult when I came back to get in shape and represent my country.

To win is always good for the feeling of the whole team.

It’s the philosophies of being an athlete that carry me today.

Playing basketball all my life, I’ve collected a lot of different basketball shoes. It’s pretty much all I wear.

I can’t play soccer, and I’m not a great swimmer. I won’t drown, but you won’t see me doing laps in a pool.

You need to think outside the box. You need to think differently if you want to sustain what, for me, is my peak performance: the very best that I can achieve as an athlete every day.

My father was a swim teacher. We used to swim before school, swim after school.

Swimming has its educational value – mental, moral, and physical – in giving you a sense of mastery over an element, and of power of saving life, and in the development of wind and limb.

Proper sleep has helped me get to where I am today as an athlete, and it is something that I continue to rely on every day.

I hope to play until I’m, like, 38 or something, and that’s a lot of years in the game and a lot of travel and a lot of sacrifice on my family’s part.

As an artist, as a brand, as a rapper, as a musician, you know you got a window and a lot of people, even an athlete; they don’t have no exit strategy. It’s just living in the false reality that it’s going to be like this forever.

Just do some kind of workout. Doesn’t matter if it’s going for a walk around the block, going for a jog, doing some calisthenics, lifting weights, going to a pool and swimming – you name it. But do something that gets your blood flowing and gets your mind in the game.

Oh! Most miserable wretch that I am! Why have I not learnt how to swim?

As an athlete, you’d better laugh at yourself when you slip in the mud.

The day I think I’m not enjoying the game and contributing the way I would like to, I’ll hang up my boots.

Had I been a great athlete, I’m not sure I would have even gone into coaching. I may have turned out feeling that my life ended when my athletic career ended, as happens so many times with various athletes.

The Black Mamba collection of watches is me: It is my alter ego, so to speak. As I mentioned before, it is sharp, cutting edge and sleek which are characteristics I try to apply when I’m out there on the basketball court.

An agent won’t help you get drafted higher, won’t make you win more games, and won’t make you faster or stronger.