Gale Sayers

“You need somebody just to say, 'Hey, I'm here for you. Do you need anything?' If you can get somebody like that, you can make it, no question about it. You can make it.”

“Our young people look up to us. Let us not let them down. Our young people need us. Saving them will make heroes of us all.”

“I learned through his death that, hey, life is short. You think you're going to live to be 75 years of age, and Brian proved that you're not going to live that long.”

“We had no preconceived ideas. We were on this football team to go out and win ballgames and try to win a championship, that's all. To Brian and me, it was no big deal.”

“You must prepare to quit, and they should start doing that from day one because the average life of a pro-football player is only three and a half years. It's not five. It's not seven. It's not 10.”

“I know with my knee injury, I didn't have the type of medical technology we have today. If I could've had what we had now, I probably could've been back out in three months. I didn't have that.”

“I learned that if you want to make it bad enough, no matter how bad it is, you can make it.”

“My knee was torn up. I tore every ligament in my knee. It was a very, very bad injury. I had to do what the doctors told me to do, and I did that. The next year, I came back and led the league in rushing.”

“We have about 4 million people who have voted for who they want to see in the Hall of Fame. There are some people they put down that are pretty good players. You have Ray Guy, Jim Plunkett, Lester Hayes and Donnie Shell.”

“I was playing in the league when Ray Guy was playing in the league. He was the best kicker I've ever seen. He could bullet that ball 70 yards.”

“This is not a football film. It's about two individuals - two good friends telling their story.”

“I ran back punt returns and kickoff returns, and I played a pretty good game.”

“When I had my injury, I had gotten hit, and it hurt like hell.”

“Athletes as role models and heroes is a hoax, a sick hoax. The men and women who are fighting in Iraq, they are the true heroes.”

“What happens also is that a lot of those people and reporters who vote for Hall of Famers, some of the people who were around when Ray Guy was around, are deceased. And some of the reporters don't remember Ray Guy. He should have been in the Hall of Fame 15 years ago.”

“You have to prepare to quit, and this is what I did. I prepared to quit, so on the day that came when I had to walk away from the game, I walked away and didn't look back.”

“I don't care to be remembered as the man who scored six touchdowns in a game. I want to be remembered as a winner in life.”

“There comes a time when you have to stand up and be counted.”

“I learned more of how to appreciate what I had then - my family, my kids, the talent that God gives you - because He can take it away at any time. He took it away from Brian through death. He took it away from me through my knees.”

“Jay Cutler, he's a fine quarterback, but I think at times he gets a little nicked up.”