I was also in love with the English language.

My writing improved the more I wrote - and the more I read good writing, from Shakespeare on down.

It's kind of ironic that the two sports with the greatest characters, boxing and horse racing, have both been on the decline. In both cases it's for the lack of a suitable hero.

I think my mistakes were kind of common - leaning on cliches and adjectives in the place of clear, vivid writing. But at least I knew how to spell, which seems to be a rarity these days.

My top three were Jim Brown, Wilt Chamberlain and Bo Jackson.

I worked with Rocky Graziano and Rocky was certainly a character.

Sugar Ray and talked about doing some articles together or writing a book together but dealing with Sugar Ray was a lot like fighting him. He would fake you in and then he'd drop you.