Gale Sayers Quotations

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

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

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.

We must stop the trend of closing schools and building prisons.

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.

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.

I had a career that was very short, but it had a lot of thrills.

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.

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.

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.

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

There are some people that probably should be in the Hall of Fame, but they're not for some reason.

He says he won't sign anything because he knows what they're doing with the stuff, and I don't disagree with him. It's a tough deal. Athletes get bad names because adults see us not signing kids' autographs, and they don't know the reason. But I know the reason. It's because they're being sold.

Half these people out here who are getting autographs are getting it for somebody else -- a dealer or somebody, or to put it on eBay or whatever,

Both Ray and I are racing fans. Also, we both have the same goals and desire to succeed, to win and to help others. With S&L Racing, we will be able to give people a chance to show what they can do at the highest level of sports.

There's no way I would have made the Hall of Fame or set any of the records I did by myself. No matter how many yards I gained, whether it was three or 300, someone had to be there to make the block. Well, I played football, but you guys are out here giving a lot to make lives and to save lives. You need each other as much as we need you. Please continue to do what you're doing.

These dealers in the memorabilia business, they made it bad for everybody.

I'm 62 years old. You can't tell me that some little kid coming up to me -- he doesn't know me. These guys will ask their sons to come out here and get these autographs, and then they'll take them back and sell them in their stores, or they'll sell them to dealers. The bad thing about the whole thing is when an adult sees Gale Sayers turn away a kid and says, 'Well, Gale Sayers is a so-and-so because he wouldn't sign an autograph for a little kid.' But I know what he's doing.

People think I played 10 years. I played 68 ball games.

I have no idea what I did. I heard people talk about dead leg, shake, change of pace and all that, but I did things without thinking about them.

When you step onto that field, you cannot concede a thing.

Football is a very short-term proposition. Football really prepares you for nothing. The only thing I got out of football was the ability to work hard, and that's it.

The Lord is first, my friends are second, and I am third.