Quotes from Nnamdi Asomugha

My favorite piece of clothing as a boy was a purple Magic Johnson jersey from the Los Angeles Lakers.

I don't think you can ever get bored or lose focus as a competitor.

I didn't have the luxury of going to the four year school for acting.

You always want that as a player, to have that guy on the other side of you that's equally as talented and can make plays. It fuels you a little bit.

I think any time you get a boost of confidence, it fuels you to do more, and that kept happening for me.

I get a different pronunciation at least every week. I think the worst one, or the funniest one I got, somebody called me, 'Oh-gooz-man.'

As far as acting, I just went in and just started training. It was the first thing I did right when I retired. I just went in and found class, and found people, found the right coaches that could sort of just train me along.

The leadership qualities that you have to have to be a producer on a film is something I learned being a captain on the team.

When you go into free agency and have options, any team is up for you to be on - and the Raiders, obviously with me having been there for so long, have a great shot at it.

Everything in life is about confidence. The more you have, the further you'll go usually.

When I was a kid, I thought good acting was fascinating, and I could tell the difference. I could see that at like 9 years old.

For all of the achievements and awards, to be able to retire as a Raider ranks highest among all of those.

Months after I retired, the Kings won the Stanley Cup and I was there for that game... I happened to be there with a buddy of mine and I was like, 'Oh, I miss this.'

Luckily enough for me I reached a level in the game where no one questioned my work ethic or my ability and then I was like, I don't care. Every off-season I might do a scene in a TV show or something just to keep that going.

I don't learn as well, I think, in like a structured way. I kind of have to be thrown into it.

As far as producing, I was thrown into it on a film called Beasts of No Nation when we were in Ghana three months after I retired.

There are a handful of guys that are really good at what they're doing from the receiver position, which is the easiest position in the NFL. There are a handful of guys that are good at it. There's not one particular guy that would concern me when I'm going into a game, but there are guys that you have to take notice of in the league.

In high school, my dream was to go to the NBA. But when recruiting came around, the letters for football compared to basketball were like 25 to one, and my one wasn't from Duke.

Oh man, you miss it so much when you finish playing, especially when you play for most of your life. You miss just being a part of a team and being a part of the guys. So I definitely think producing brought that back for me. A bunch of people working together for a common goal.

Even when we were little, we were always helping, going to feed the homeless, community drives, that type of stuff.

When I was a kid, my aunt snuck us into see 'Boyz n the Hood.'

There's a drive, there's a hunger inside of me that says, 'I know what I can do and I'm going to get it done.'

I'll be relentless in my efforts to be great, but I'm realistic. I know I can't be perfect because I've seen it. But at the same time, nobody wants to fail, nobody wants to fail.

Ultimately, the Niners just felt at the end of the day like the right place to be. I was really impressed with the way they run their organization, impressed with the winning, impressed with coaches and players. Everything felt like it was in line.