Dan O'Brien Quotes

It really means a lot that I won the gold medal - but I woke up the next morning expecting to feel different. I felt the same.

Through everything I've gone through- and I've been everywhere, at the top of the world, in jail, hung over drunk - I never gave up my dream of winning a gold medal in the Olympics.

The decathlon includes ten separate events and they all matter. You can't work on just one of them.

When first starting to work with someone you try to get them in the same mindset that you were in when you were successful, and I realized the best thing you can ever do is realize that they are not you. They have a different persona and mindset, and you have to figure out what works best within your communication with that athlete.

To me, the decathlon is its own little society and I am part of that culture.

The mythic American character is made up of the virtues of fairness, self-reliance, toughness, and honesty. Those virtues are generally stuffed into a six-foot-tall, dark-haired, can-do kind of guy who is at once a family man, attractive to strange women, carefree, stable, realistic, and whimsical. in the lore of America, that man lives on the Great Plains. he's from Texas, Dodge City, Cheyenne, the Dakotas, or somewhere in Montana. In fact, the seedbed of this American character, from the days of de Tocqueville through Andrew Jackson, Wyattt Earp, Pony Express riders, pioneers, and cowboys to modern caricatures played by actors such as Tom Mix, Gary Cooper, and John Wayne has aways been the frontier. It's a place with plenty of room to roam, great sunsets, clear lines between right and wrong, and lots of horses. It's also a place that does not exist and never has. The truth is that there has never been much fairness out here.

I was playing little league baseball when Bruce Jenner was winning the gold, but I don't think I was really paying attention at that time. It wasn't until 1980 - I think I was 12 years old - that I thought, 'Wow that's what I want to do. I want to be on the Olympic team.'

You can only look forward to a South Dakota winter if, as with childbirth, remodeling a house, or writing a novel, you're able to forget how bad it was the last time.

As a young child, I was never a crier. I never cried to get my way, or even when I was in pain.

After the failure in '92, my goal was to be a good pole vaulter. I used that as motivation.

You know why divorce costs so much? Because it is worth it!

I was a good decathlete until I got with a coach that really knew how to train specifically for the event ... I'd really describe it as like being a juggler; you have ten balls and you're trying to get them all in the air at the same time.

I got interested in decathlon because a coach that I had was a big fan of Bruce Jenner, and he just saw the ability in me - but when it came down to it, I knew my best chance at a college scholarship would be in track and field.

And there is such a thing as a decathlon high. It's like a rock rolling down hill, picking up momentum. You get better and better.

You have to be able to be a good loser. You have to be okay knowing you're going to fail every day in something without getting mad and upset.

Breaking the world record in '92 was a very special personal moment, but I'd say my favorite moment as a decathlete was winning the Olympic gold medal.

We'll probably only consider a handful of individuals. We'll bring up people who can accumulate either innings or at-bats, so we can hopefully gauge where they stand as a prospective Major Leaguer.

As athletes, we're defined by what we've accomplished. Those are what most people remember and what you get paid for. But I learned more from my failures than from all of my successes put together - failures as an athlete and as a person.

When profound questions are asked of the heart, the answers are best kept to yourself.

It took me time to realize that the men who won Olympic gold medals in the decathlon are just men, just like me.

When my world record got broken in 1999, it hurt a little bit, to say the least. But I was in a leg brace at the time and I had just had knee surgery and I couldn't do anything about it.

It's important for me to think I'm mixed-race.

Nowadays, to be a good world-ranked decathlete, you need to be good at everything.

As a young athlete, it was first about having fun; then it was about winning.

I always know where the scissors are.

Take pride in exactly what it is you do and remember it's okay to fail as long as you don't give up.