When I played, I would never, ever try to run Reggie Miller off the line because I knew Reggie. If I ran at him, and I was trying to run him off the line, I was going to get kicked.
When I was in the 9th or 10th grade, Cheryl was All-American, and she was getting all the pub. I thought to myself, 'Why isn't anyone paying any attention to me?' I used to wish that I wasn't Reggie Miller, that I was Reggie Smith or Reggie Jackson.
When I was growing up, my favorite player was Reggie Jackson - and I never got the opportunity to get an autograph from Reggie. I was so frustrated. I mean, he was my idol. And I couldn't get no autograph. I would go through punishment waiting on him (after games) because he was always the last guy to come out. And I would go back home with no autograph.
All I can tell you is I played with Johnny Mitchell. Johnny Mitchell was one of the greatest athletic talents I ever played with, but I could never trust him. When the game was on the line and he was supposed to run an out route at 10 yards, he would run an in route at eight and slide to the outside and scream to me that he was open. But it was how he got open that really made me uncomfortable in trusting him.
I patterned myself after Reggie Jackson. I wanted to have that same swing and hit some homeruns. When I was down in A-ball, I was trying to be Reggie Jackson and I was striking out all the time. And I was like, 'This isn't the way Reggie is doing it, so I got to change.'
After watching my first World Series in 1977, I wanted to be Reggie Jackson. I bought a big Reggie poster. I ate Reggie candy bars. I entered a phase during which I insisted on having the same style of glasses Reggie had: gold wire frames with the double bar across.
As guys know that you're a shooter, well, they're going to try to run you off the line.
I loved playing against the Pacers and Reggie Miller. Reggie was a great competitor, and I enjoyed playing against competitors.
My favorite player I ever played was Reggie White. He played so ferociously. What I loved about playing against him was the millisecond you went down, he became your friend and would ask, 'How's your family?' In a way that could feel weird and awkward.
When you bowl at him you are not just trying to get him out, you are trying to impress him. "I want him to walk off thinking 'that Flintoff, he's all right isn't he?" I feel privileged to have played against him.
I remember going to Bob Preston's dressing room because I was losing a laugh - as you do in a long run. He said, 'Give me the script. That's where you're going off the road.' That's comedy. It's never the line itself; it's in the foundation.
Mitt Romney we think is going run again. He says he has no plans to run, but he said if he did run, this time things would turn out differently. Yes they would. This time he would get his ass kicked by a woman.
I have been running since I was 7. I was trying to restructure the way my body was made instead of trying to master the way I ran. I would get so frustrated with my starts in practices that I would just cry. When I ran, I wouldn't even try to get out of the blocks, I would just run.
At the finish line of the 1967 Boston Marathon, one crabby journalist said it was just a one-off deal and women weren't going to run. Only a 20-year-old who had just run a marathon and was shot full of endorphin would say this but I said that there's going to come a day in our lives when women's running is as popular and as men's.
He ran as he'd never run before, with neither hope nor despair. He ran because the world was divided into opposites and his side had already been chosen for him, his only choice being whether or not to play his part with heart and courage. He ran because fate had placed him in a position of responsibility and he had accepted the burden. He ran because his self-respect required it. He ran because he loved his friends and this was the only thing he could do to end the madness that was killing and maiming them.
We were brothers off the field, but there was no love lost on it. We fought like cats and dogs. Wes was always trying to strike me out, and meantime, I was always trying to hit a home run off him.
I would need a book to describe Jamal Miles. He can do it all. We line him up in the slot. We bring him into the backfield. We hand the ball to him. We send him in motion and get him the ball. He throws the football. He might be the best athlete I've ever been around in my life.