In baseball, it's tough to get up for every single game, every single moment. In football, you have 90,000 fans screaming and the band's playing. I do miss that adrenaline rush.
There is a lot of luck in football. Following England is like following Wycombe Wanders or Leyton Orient. You hope for the best and hope you are lucky.
To borrow a simile from the football field, we believe that men must play fair, but that there must be no shirking, and that the success can only come to the player who hits the line hard.
Everybody is entitled to believe. Churches have exactly the same right to exist as a football club, a trade union or a political party. But if you and I set up the Church of the Fairies of the Garden, then I don't think we should automatically be meeting the queen, be entitled to seats in the House of Lords or get public money for our fairy schools.
The way to be successful is through preparation. It doesn't just happen. You don't wake up one day and discover you're a lawyer any more than you wake up as a pro football player. It takes time.
I saw greatness in John and he lived up to it. I also saw a tremendous competitor who loved to win. John is a standard bearer, someone that players, coaches, fans and the Raider Nation can all look up to. One of his great virtues, the fire that burned brightest in him, was his love and passion for football, which was seldom ever equaled.
I'm in pro football to win, to have the Raiders dominate, to have the Raiders global, and we're not going to be able to do that with a half-filled stadium.