I decided to create a sports club during the Soviet times. It was my dream.

I don't read a lot of the sports because I think people sometimes either build it up or you have this guy that hates sports that is going to write bad about it so I figure I'm not going to read it. Because I'm not going to let him put an idea into my head.

I did all the right things in so many tournaments. But like I said sometimes in sports it just goes the other way. Maybe you've already won so much that it evens it out a bit sometimes. I don't know.

Sports is the only entertainment where no matter how many times you go back you never know the ending.

I find interesting characters or lessons that resonate with people and sometimes I write about them in the sports pages sometimes I write them in a column sometimes in a novel sometimes a play or sometimes in nonfiction. But at the core I always say to myself 'Is there a story here? Is this something people want to read?'

Sports is a metaphor for overcoming obstacles and achieving against great odds. Athletes in times of difficulty can be important role models.

In the seventies we had to make it acceptable for people to accept girls and women as athletes. We had to make it okay for them to be active. Those were much scarier times for females in sports.

I think sometimes when it comes to sports and especially relationships between players and coaches that people lose track lose a sense of reality.

Funding for sports (and the arts) are often the first things facing the chop in difficult times.

Sometimes in football you have to score goals.