Shannon Sharpe

“I felt like I always had to fight to prove my worth.”

“Racism is a disease. Go to your doctor with an ailment, and let the doctor tell you, 'Well, look, I'm not going to treat you; we're just not going to talk about it. It's going to go away.' You would look at him like he's crazy. By not talking about racism, it's not going to go away.”

“Talent is what wins games.”

“I was born in the 1960s. I came up in the 1970s. I know how race relations were. The thing is, I want to advance the ball and never return to those days again. I want to keep the topic going. I'm going to discuss it. And we're going to make America better. It's my job as a citizen, and I demand it.”

“If you only vote with your back pocket in mind or your own best interest in mind, I believe, it is my belief that's a terrible, terrible way of thinking.”

“My grandmother raised her nine kids and raised my mom's three.”

“I tell you what: I bet Jerry Jones would not trade places with a 75-year black man in Chicago. I bet Joel Klatt would not trade places with a 30-year old black guy from Chicago or Watts. I bet he wouldn't do that. You know why? It's great to know that I'm white and a male in America.”

“What I tell people all the time is that bodies are made in the kitchen, not in the gym. You cannot exercise a bad diet. It's just impossible. Unless you want to be the ultra-marathoner or someone like a Michael Phelps that's swimming 70 or 80,000 meters in a week, you cannot exercise a bad diet.”

“Guys would always start by saying, 'You ain't going to get nothing today, Sharpe!' And I'd say, 'Know what? Don't be surprised if your name is on the waiver wire tomorrow. It could have been prevented. But you wanted to go there. So now when you see your name on the wire, you'll know who put it there.'”

“President Trump wouldn't stick to politics, so he got to jump into sports. So I feel very comfortable now, moving forward, jumping back and forth. Sports to politics, politics to sports.”

“Don't hope someone gives you an opportunity: create one for yourself.”

“Of all the four major sports, whether you like Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski, maybe you like Bobby Orr, or you like Larry Bird or Tom Brady - Bill Russell is the greatest athlete to play in Boston.”

“I don't want to live in a society where we ask sporting leagues or place of employment to dole out harsher punishment than what the criminal justice system would.”

“I tell people, when I train, I don't do a Hansel and Gretel workout. I don't drop breadcrumbs. I saved nothing for the trip home.”

“My grandmother was a very simple woman. She didn't want a whole lot. My grandmother wanted to go to church and Sunday school every Sunday. She wanted to be in Bible study every Wednesday. The other days, she wanted to be on a fishing creek.”

“No one in my family graduated from college until my brother did, and then I did.”

“Some people think all I did was trash talk. But ask my teammates, coaches - they saw how hard I worked, how hard I prepared.”

“I was a talker back in elementary school. I used to get A's and B's in everything, but I got an F in conduct.”

“I don't know if Rush Limbaugh knows the difference between a screen porch and a screen play.”

“In my 14 years, catching 200 yards or scoring 3 touchdowns in a game, breaking a record - none of those compared to winning the Super Bowl for the first time.”