Emmitt Smith has run past legends, danced with stars and posed for the sculptor crafting his Hall of Fame bust. He's built upon his athletic talents by working hard, seizing opportunities and reaching out to others for advice when he needed it.

Michael Jordan taught me after our game of one-on-one: A loss is not a failure until you make an excuse. When excuses are no longer an option, you can focus your attention on the job you have to do, and not why it didn’t get done."

Sometimes legends find themselves remembered more for what they have not done than for their accomplishments. But those resume gaps can also help drive them to achieve even greater things in new arenas.

Tony La Russa is considered among the best in his business. Yet nearly half the time he led his organizations into competition, they were defeated - 2,728 wins, 2,365 losses.

Everybody's like, 'You're tall. You didn't play basketball?' They asked me when I was a freshman in high school, and basketball practice was the same time a lot of stuff happened with choir. And I picked choir, which, normally, people would scratch their heads at, but it worked out okay.

One afternoon when I was 9, my dad told me I'd be skipping school the next day. Then we drove 12 hours from Melbourne to Sydney for the Centenary Test, a once-in-a-lifetime commemorative cricket match. It was great fun - especially for a kid who was a massive sports fan.

People always say its an aggressive and bad sport and just like street fighting, but it's not the same thing. You go into work at the gym every day, and it takes away from being an aggressive person in public. You're training every day, and you're losing that aggression for the public.

I just wanted to play tennis. It wasn't a job. It was an ambition. I knew I could make money at it. I was 18 - old enough to think I could do it, young enough not to consider the consequences.