When I was growing up honestly, it was the Hardy Boys.

Have you ever considered writing fantasy novels?

I’ve thought about it, but to be honest with you, they say write about what you know. And while there are a lot of fantasy writers out there, this is unique to me because the backdrop and the settings for my stories is…you know, this is what other people try to do but they don’t have the same kind of perspective that I’ve had as a professional athlete and now as a coach….But I will be honest with you, …my editor and I have talked about that and about maybe doing that one day.

My cousin and I want to write books. Do you have any advice for us?

If you want to write, you want to be a voracious reader. You want to just be hungry for books and just read and read and read. You want to read different kinds of books,…like I don’t just read sports books….because you’re going to learn a lot from different styles and things like that. And the key to writing is rewriting.

(Tim Green says that applies to essay writing for all students):

Write your essay and don’t stop there….that’s just the first draft. Writing is about getting you words and ideas, organize them, get them down on paper, and then go back once, twice, three times, four times, five times. Five times at least to rewrite. To make your writing come to life and make it shine.

How long does it take for you to write a book?

My first book I said it took four years to write, the next book I wrote in two years, and then what I did is I was writing a book a year; a suspense novel a year for many years. And then when I started to write books for middle school aged students, my publisher wants two a year. So I’m now writing a book every six months.

Why do you only write about football and baseball?

If you didn’t play football, what other sport would you play?

The other sport that I was pretty good at was wrestling. So when I was in high school, our football coach really encouraged us to only have one other sport that we did.  Because he wanted us to lift the weights two seasons out of the year. So my other sport was wrestling and I loved it. I actually had a bunch of scholarship offers. I was a state champion heavyweight wrestler of New York and I absolutely loved it.

Do you also illustrate the books?

No, I don’t. I’m only writing right now in this age range: you guys and girls in your age range.

Did you play baseball when you were a kid?

I did. I played baseball all the way up to high school when, like I said, the football coach said, “You’ve got to choose. You can’t…do wrestling and baseball. You’ve got to do one or the other and you’ve got to lift weights.” And to be honest with you, part of the other reason why I wrestled was,…I was told by a very good coach,… because I was a lineman, he said, “If you want to be the best football player you can be, if you want to go to the NFL,…he said you need to be a wrestler.” And in fact he was right because a lot of the things I learned as a wrestler served me very well as a football player. By the way, it was no loss to the world of baseball….because I wasn’t a very good player.  But I loved the sport.

What’s the biggest obstacle you’ve had to overcome?

Probably, from a football standpoint the biggest obstacle was always injuries. So, I’ll give you an example: when I was in my fourth year, and I had injuries my first, second and third year in the NFL. My fourth year, we were playing out in San Francisco and it was about the tenth game of the season. I was running down the line to make a tackle and I jumped over one of our own players and he kind of got up himself, and knocked my feet from under me, and I hit my shoulder and it popped my collarbone out at the sternum. So the bone didn’t pop through the skin, but it popped out so it wasn’t attached. It was just loose in there. I had six games until the end of the season and I was at the end of my contract and I knew that I had to finish the season. I couldn’t have four out the four seasons where I was injured, so …in the NFL you’ve got to play. You do whatever you’ve gotta do, to play. I said (to the team doctors) you’ve got to give me a shot (a painkiller like you get at the dentist). And they said, “no, we can’t it’s just too close to the heart and lungs and we just can’t mess with it.” And I said, “Alright. Then I’ve gotta play.” So I played the last six games of the season with that bone sticking out. And I’ve got to tell ya, it was excruciating.

Did you ever know or play with Michael Vick?

I knew Michael Vick because when I retired from playing I announced games for ten years in the NFL. I would do Fox NFL Sunday games every week. So I got to know him. But I’ll tell you a quarterback who in his rookie year was my roommate, was Brett Favre.