Quotes About Adversity

Smaller markets teams, when you hit bottom, you hit with a thud.

It's funny because everybody has injuries, and different teams handle them differently.

I was recruited by every school in the country for football and basketball. And an incident happened in high school, and all that was taken away. No other teams, no other schools were recruiting me anymore.

A couple teams will grind the shot clock down. Most of the time coaches do that, it's usually a talent deficit. They can't compete against the better teams.

The first time I played against Seattle was the only time I felt destroyed. Vin Baker just manhandled me. The whole thing, their double teams, their movement, everything. I must've had eight turnovers. Which isn't a big deal for me because I turn the ball over a lot.

It sounds kind of cliche when teams say, 'Us against the world,' but that's the mentality you have to have. There are so many opinions out there that come from media, that come from your family or come from people on TV.

A lesson learned, both in the SEAL teams and as an entrepreneur, is that failure is sometimes a critical component of success.

It's always tough to play against teams that bunker or 'park the bus' inside the 18-yard box, but we always try to focus on our game and how we can overcome the obstacles that the game presents to continue to get better and score goals.

Being passed up by teams because of my size made me hungry. I've seen a lot of first-round guys who come in and never really do nothing because they may not appreciate the opportunity because everything has been given to them. I think guys who come from the bottom understand how hard it is, so they appreciate the opportunities more.

The league is crazy. It's hard to win in this league, and you have teams coming at you every week with players just as good as you.

It is good to play strong teams.

The Champions League is very difficult - there are so many big teams in Europe, and one bad day, and you can be out.

It is always tough, always difficult playing against Klopp's teams.

Playing big teams is something I really enjoy - the bigger the team the better.

In Europe, being fast, being strong, playing only with your quality, you are going to struggle against teams that prepare.

If we play defense the way we're supposed to and we play defense the way we do here in practice, we should have no problems against most of the teams in the league, and other teams, it'll be a great fight.

When you play against Barcelona and other great teams in the world, you can lose. It happens.

The people that you think are supposed to be there for you and be happy for you - instead they want to tear you down.

People like to tear you down. People are always going to take shots. You've just got to go for it.

You think about when I went to Miami. I played as a freshman, I go in and compete to be a starter, I tear my ACL. Come back, I start, I get off to a good couple of games and I get hurt again. You hear everybody saying, 'Oh, he's done.' I get drafted in the third round. People still said I got drafted too high, saying I'll only play three years.

Being in the public eye, there will always be negatives. Those dark aspects will always be there and, so too, those things that will try and tear you down, but I have made the choice not to engage with them. I'm not going to let them affect me or destroy me.

I guess it is ironical that I have a chance to say to Jesse Jackson, 'You need to be mature. You need to be positive. You need to be bigger than the folks who are trying to tear you down.'

People are looking for a way to tear down anyone who is successful in any arena. That's the way fans are.

Getting a tear in my ACL in 2012 puts a lot of things in perspective about being able to play the game.