I was on the sideline with a knee injury and when I came back, I wanted to play at the best level I could. And that's the case for a lot of players, they want the chance to play against the best competition.
I retired because I had a knee injury, my cartilage was wearing out, it was painful and I couldn't put in the four hours of practice each day that I needed to.
I've just had some bad luck. I've had every injury known to man. I understand how people think, 'How can this be happening all the time to Gerry Cooney?' But it did.
It seems that cancer is a direct result to injury. If you smoke, you damage your lung tissue, and then lung cancer arises. If you drink, you damage your liver, and then liver cancer occurs.
The quarterback, you can play with a lot of big injuries. You get a little injury like an index finger or a thumb that most people can play with, sometimes you can't. I've stayed away from some of those.
The worst injury I have ever suffered in the ring was a torn triceps; they had to take a piece of my hamstring to repair the tear. It was brutal; I was out for 6 months.
There may sometimes be ungenerous attempts to keep a young man down; and they will succeed, too, if he allows his mind to be diverted from its true channel to brood over the attempted injury.
It's funny to me because everyone says I'm injury prone. That's hilarious to me because I've never blown a hammy or a shoulder or anything like that, knock on wood.
No greater injury can be done to any youth than to let him feel that because he belongs to this or that race he will be advanced in life regardless of his own merits or efforts.
I had a hard time at Chelsea mainly because I was injured much of the time. Every time I recovered from one injury I seemed to get a new one and it set me back again.
