At last, someone came to tell me I'd been selected as commissioner, which gave rise to the line that I took the job with clean hands. I was then taken downstairs to a press conference, and the reporters were as surprised as I was.

At least I'm going into the job with clean hands.

But I haven't met a player or a coach whose goal isn't to win the Super Bowl.

Squabbling in public will eventually ruin football; there's no doubt it's hurting us already. Polls taken by Louis Harris - polls as valid as any political polls - indicate that very clearly.

I like fighting, man. I didn't get into this sport not to fight. I enjoy fighting; I actually enjoy getting in the cage.

There's nothing like having a football coach yelling at you at homecoming in front of a bunch of people. You do kind of get used to being inflappable in front of all that heated emotion. At times, that's very useful in business.

I hate divers, like Cristiano Ronaldo, who might be the greatest athlete in the sport, but he's a big baby. If things are going well he's great, but when things are going badly it's the ref's fault, it's his teammates' fault.

I was an eccentric teenager in suburban New Jersey, in a town mostly interested in sports, popularity, and clothes. A fan of Jorge Luis Borges, I found a group of Borges scholars from Aarhus, Denmark - perfect strangers - whom I connected to online and immediately became enthralled by the idea of virtual communities.