Dan O'Brien

“I didn't get a ton of interest from colleges in baseball and football, but I was outstanding in track and had the sense that this would be my meal ticket... Track was a sport where I saw immediate improvement, and I had a lot of good support behind me... and the coaches had a lot of experience and pushed me in that direction for sure.”

“You need to become more than one type of athlete. You have to be a sprinter, a weight man and a distance guy all in one.”

“I think what my parents did was perfect. They were strict, concerned about my safety and held me back just a little.”

“When my world record got broken in 1999, it hurt a little bit, to say the least. But I was in a leg brace at the time and I had just had knee surgery and I couldn't do anything about it.”

“After the failure in '92, my goal was to be a good pole vaulter. I used that as motivation.”

“I was playing little league baseball when Bruce Jenner was winning the gold but I don't think I was really paying attention at that time.”

“It's important for me to think I'm mixed-race.”

“If you never give up, you'll be successful.”

“It took me time to realize that the men who won Olympic gold medals in the decathlon are just men, just like me.”

“To me, the decathlon is its own little society and I am part of that culture.”

“Nowadays, to be a good world-ranked decathlete, you need to be good at everything.”