I would never encourage my children to be athletes - first because my children are not athletes and second because there are so many people pushing to get to the top in sports that 100 people are crushed for each one who breaks through. This is unfortunate.

Read the news section of the newspaper and there is confusion and uncertainty a world buffeted by large forces people neither understand nor control. But turn to the sports section and it's all different.

I would venture to guess that if I was a construction worker... who requested a transfer to another department for the betterment of his family I would be commended for it. But because it's sports there's just so much passion added to it.

When I was in Birmingham I used to go to a place called Redwood Field. I used to get there for a two o'clock game. Where can you make this kind of money playing sports? It was just a pleasure to go out and enjoy myself and get paid for it.

I know my strengths. Painfully aware of the weaknesses. There's many. I love sports. So working towards a common goal that's exciting to me.

Sport is a wonderful metaphor for life. Of all the sports that I played - skiing baseball fishing - there is no greater example than golf because you're playing against yourself and nature.

The bottom line is what we do might not be the safest so there is always some risk but we are ready to take that into account because we love racing and we love motor sports and it is dangerous.

I find interesting characters or lessons that resonate with people and sometimes I write about them in the sports pages sometimes I write them in a column sometimes in a novel sometimes a play or sometimes in nonfiction. But at the core I always say to myself 'Is there a story here? Is this something people want to read?'

I don't think there's anything that is a greater area of discrimination against women today than the fact that nowhere in the world is there a female role model in team sports that more than half of a general audience would recognize.

I only have two things in my life my family and work. If there's any time left over then I play sports.

When I was in elementary school we weren't allowed to do sports other than cheerleading. By junior high they let us play but we had to come back after 6:30 p.m. to practice because there was only one gymnasium and the boys used it first.

It certainly is dangerous that there are only a few clubs left in Europe that can afford to pay millions. At the end of the day however the spectators decide the rates of pay - by watching the games and consuming the goods and services advertised on sports TV programmes.

There is no life for girls in team sports past Little League. I got into tennis when I realized this and because I thought golf would be too slow for me and I was too scared to swim.

Of course in our grade school in those days there were no organized sports at all. We just went out and ran around the school yard for recess.

There is a syndrome in sports called 'paralysis by analysis.'

There are kids who get on a BMX bike when they're eight years old and they go 'Whoa this is incredible ' and grow up to do extreme sports. It's the same for me with acting.

There is so much hypocrisy in sports.