I think the part that people get confused is that when you come in National Football League at a young age, they tell you to try to look for other things to do, and be ready for everything else in your life just in case. But as soon as you have a bunch of success, they think that's the only thing you can do, that you can only be a football player. I think God has gifted me with so many other things other than just football, and that's what I want to bring to the world.
My whole life has always been football and that only. Since I was six years old, I've only really thought about football. I used to watch it on TV, play video games, and so on. I just love football. Some people joke that I am too into it, but football just sums up my life.
I wouldn't be anywhere close to where I am today without my pops. I think a lot of a football player's makeup is mental, and I've been blessed to have someone to learn from. Not just from a technical standpoint, but everything he taught me about being a hard worker, a teammate and just being a football player.
I am the only player who has been inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame and am the second-best player in my family.
I think that's awesome to have a former player in the GM role, somebody that not only understands the game of football but has played the game of football.
I'm OK with having a really good football player with a chip on his shoulder because he's going to come to prove to not only the people that didn't draft him, but himself, that I'm a pretty good football player.
Would I have been a great basketball player? No. But I think I would've been a good basketball player, one of those grinders getting eight to 10 rebounds. I would've been like Kobe and been in the gym five to seven hours a day and never missed a 10-foot jump shot. I would've been a great role player for a team.
When I was three or four, only football was in my head. I went 10 years, and nothing changed - only football, football, football. The strange thing is, nobody played football in my family before.
Having been in football all my life as a player and a coach and having been on the sideline, I think the closer we can get to bringing people what it's like standing and watching the game on the sideline, with a better view, would be the perfect situation for television football.
My dad has always been involved in football, as both a manager and a player, although only at the amateur and semi-professional level. He was quite successful in our local area and definitely had a massive influence on me and my football development growing up.
One of the best things if you are a football player is to see the faces of the kids, when they see you and are dreaming of being like you one day. That's a big responsibility, to be a good image for those kids. A football player is more than just a football player.
If you think I'm a loser, that I'm a bust, that's fine, but you don't know me. I don't have a problem with people thinking I was a bad football player. I wasn't a particularly good pro football player. But I was a great college player, and that's something.
If only someone would do for cows what Bambi did for deer. Cows have been in films, but they haven't starred. I'm still willing to eat a species that is only a supporting player.
I wish you guys would just say, 'Michael Sam, how's the football going? How's training going?' But it is what it is. And I just wish you guys would see me as Michael Sam the football player instead of Michael Sam the gay football player.
I think, when you reach the top level, it is less about the money itself; it is important only because the level of earning shows the importance of the player or the manager. I don't think people want to have the money just to spend it. It is a reflection of your importance in football.
If you'd asked me when I was six, 16, and 26, I wanted nothing more than to be a big, recognized rock star. Especially when I was six and 16, because I thought that if I was a known guitar player in a known band, only cute girls would talk to me.