Even though my mother had told me growing up that, 'If you win, nobody cares what color you are,' that wasn't necessarily true in the N.F.L.

Throughout my career, I was never able to relax; I always had to go on the field with another responsibility. I felt like I was playing, not just for my team, but for my race.

When I was coming up as a kid, there were programs that kept me out of trouble and on the straight and narrow in South Central Los Angeles, and I always felt that when I got to a stage where I could provide similar opportunities to kids then I would do that.

The CFL made me a more versatile QB because of all the things you had to do once you got on the field. And if I wasn't as versatile as I was, I wouldn't have been as successful in all the different offenses that I was in, in the NFL.

In sports, you deal with disappointment often, but it's how you handle it and come back from it that shapes you. All these lessons are transferable to life and have really helped me with the adversities I've had to deal with in life.

Always stay in a happy medium in sport, because you never know what's around the corner.

Analysing games on the TV is something that appeals to me, and anything where you watch football and get paid for it is not a bad living!

When I came into the NFL, there were three things that were very important to me: money, power and prestige. I was powerful now because I was a famous athlete. I had prestige because I was doing what everybody wanted to do. And I had a lot of money.