A religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time, at all times, who suffers harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair.

Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go.

I did all the right things in so many tournaments. But like I said, sometimes in sports it just goes the other way. Maybe you've already won so much that it evens it out a bit sometimes. I don't know.

I think sometimes when it comes to sports, and especially relationships between players and coaches, that people lose track, lose a sense of reality.

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?'

In the seventies we had to make it acceptable for people to accept girls and women as athletes. We had to make it okay for them to be active. Those were much scarier times for females in sports.

I decided to create a sports club during the Soviet times. It was my dream.

It's long been a problem. But I'm not just talking about the UFC - I mean homophobia in sports in general and athletes sometimes say really stupid things.

Some of the authorities would like to remove rhythmic gymnastics from the list of Olympic sports and turn it into art. I think this would be wrong, as rhythmic gymnastics is a true sport - we train around six hours per day and sometimes spend entire days in the gym.

What's more important than who's going to be the first black manager is who's going to be the first black sports editor of the New York Times.

Funding for sports (and the arts) are often the first things facing the chop in difficult times.

I'm pretty quiet. But I love to play sports. I like playing all sports. I'll act goofy at times around my wife and my son, around my own family. I like to have fun in general.

I'd like to run a professional football team. I'd love to run the USTA, be the sports editor of the 'New York Times.'

I don't read a lot of the sports, because I think people sometimes either build it up, or you have this guy that hates sports that is going to write bad about it, so I figure I'm not going to read it. Because I'm not going to let him put an idea into my head.

There have been times - and not just on 'The Newsroom,' but on 'The West Wing,' 'Sports Night,' 'Studio 60'... - where it was hard to look the cast and crew in the eye, when I put a script on the table that I knew just wasn't good enough.

When I was at the 'Philadelphia Inquirer,' I was promoted nine times in my first 13 years. I ultimately went from general assignment to beats on St. Joe's and Temple, to backup writer, to NBA writer, to NBA columnist, to, ultimately, in 2003, to general sports columns.

Sometimes emotions can win fights. Sometimes letting your feelings out in a fight can win you the fight. When it means the world to you, it's not just a sports contest - a boxing match for money or belts.

At school I pretended I had a normal life, but I felt lonely all the time and different from everyone else. I never felt like I fit in, and I wasn't allowed to participate in after-school activities, go to sports events or parties or date boys. Many times I had to make up stories about why I couldn't do anything with my classmates.

Sports is the only entertainment where, no matter how many times you go back, you never know the ending.

When a sports team is doing well in a city that's going through tough times like New Orleans, like Detroit, it bolsters this real sentiment of 'we can get through this.' And when you have that sentiment, it becomes more than feelings: It's transported into action.

Sports is a metaphor for overcoming obstacles and achieving against great odds. Athletes, in times of difficulty, can be important role models.

It's one of those things, like in sports and other situations in life, you're going to have some adversities and some challenges that are similar to the race. You go uphill one moment and then you go downhill, but that's life too. You've got to be willing to sometimes take it slow but keep going.

Sometimes in football you have to score goals.

Football is an incredible game. Sometimes it's so incredible, it's unbelievable.