The town the team it's a family. That has helped. For some people who have had to deal with some of the problems I have had to deal with don't have football as an out.

But when you lose a family member or something tragic happens that stays with you forever. You never get over it. Knowing that you have to deal with that for the rest of your life... Football is important but not as important as you once thought it was.

I may be a successful football player but I feel like such a failure.

If you're out there stressing on your pro day then you're not going to perform well so I plan on having a little fun. Play a little music while we're out there throwing the football have everybody tapping their toes and bobbing their head and just go out there and make the most of the experience.

I developed a mechanism so that whatever mistakes I made I would bounce straight back. Whatever was happening off the pitch I could put it to one side and maintain my form. Call it mental resilience or a strong mind but that is what we mean when we talk about experience in a football team.

Going out and playing football or baseball with the boys when I was a tomboy was a great way to learn about winning and losing and most girls didn't have that experience.

In more than 20 years I've spent studying the issue I have yet to hear a convincing argument that college football has anything do with what is presumably the primary purpose of higher education: academics.

I would have been about seven years old when the formative years of my competitive football education began. I was playing in the local leagues around Manchester playing against lads from tough areas who had been taught they had to fight for everything.

I feel sorry sometimes for these sportsmen and women who put in just as much effort as the footballers. For example athletes train at least as hard as footballers but have to be happy if they can earn enough to finance a decent education.

I also tell them that your education can take you way farther than a football baseball track or basketball will - that's just the bottom line.