Barry Sanders

I really love peace and quiet.

I want to thank all of the fans and media who made playing in the NFL such a wonderful experience. I have had the pleasure of meeting many of them.

Happiness does not come from football awards. It's terrible to correlate happiness with football. Happiness comes from a good job, being able to feed your wife and kids. I don't dream football, I dream the American dream - two cars in a garage, be a happy father.

It's hard to win in the NFL. You have to maintain a very delicate balance putting together the right team to be able to win and have any amount of success.

I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do in school, but I definitely didn't have adequate time to reach my full potential as a student.

In all the time that people have known me, has anyone ever heard me talk about the importance of rushing records or finishing with the most touchdowns? So if that's never been important to me, then why would that be a motivation to keep playing?

Shortly after the end of last season, I felt that I probably would not return for the 1999-2000 season. I also felt that I should take as much time as possible to sort through my feelings and make sure that my feelings were backed with conviction.