In the end, the Super Bowl is just a football game. You try to take a couple of big, deep breaths and convince yourself it's just another game. You try to, anyway.
Players like Messi and Xavi are always hungry. Whatever the game or the competition - even if it is table-tennis - they want to win. We used to play two-touch football games after training and they would always be desperate to win. It taught you about life as well as football.
Growing up in San Antonio, I was the dork at the Friday night football games with my head buried in a book - Jack Kerouac or Oscar Wilde, years before I really understood them.
My first wife is a good woman, I still can't say nothing bad about her other than the fact that we had a difference on religion. She wanted someone who was a Muslim who shared those values. And I was like a heathen. I had to stay home on Sundays and watch the football game.
My perfect first date? Maybe a concert or a football game. That would be my ideal first date, but would the girl like it? I don't know.
I did all kinds of things as a young person to try to make money. I had a chicken operation - I sold chickens. I can remember going to high school football games as a ten-year-old and gathering Coca-Cola bottles, 'cause you'd turn them in and get a nickel. I wanted not to remain idle.
I don't understand people who spend their twenties hanging out in bars and going to football game. That stuff is so boring compared to really applying yourself to what you do.
Winning football games is why we're in this business.
You want to go out there and do what's best for the team, help your team move the ball down the field, make plays, help them win football games.
I just tried to make as many plays as possible to try and show them how hard I work and how hard I prepare and that I am willing to do whatever it takes to win football games and to accept whatever role they want me to be in. I think that has helped me throughout my career.
