Teammates tell me to bring it down a notch in practice or that their hands are hurting. Randy Moss told me I was the first person to ever dislocate one of his fingers. – Colin Kaepernick
Jim Tomsula is going to be great coach for us. Players’ coach. Always around the guys. Someone that’s willing to listen to what the players say and has their intake. – Colin Kaepernick
I think I’m very good at reading coverage and knowing where I want to go with the ball before the ball is snapped. – Colin Kaepernick
All my tattoos, they’ve been thought out, thought over, been a work in progress for at least a year before I’ve got them. So I’m not walking into a tattoo shop, picking tattoos off a wall. It’s something that means something to me. It’s something that I believe in. – Colin Kaepernick
My parents told me from the time I can remember that, ‘Yeah, you’re adopted. But this is your family.’ I can remember my mom, she tells me this story: when I was little, I was looking at her, and I was like, ‘Why isn’t my skin the same color as yours?’ She was like, ‘Oh, you’re adopted, but I wish I had pretty brown skin like you.’ – Colin Kaepernick
People are dying in vain because this country isn’t holding their end of the bargain up as far as, you know, giving freedom and justice and liberty to everybody. – Colin Kaepernick
Once I get into the locker room, I turn on stuff to get me hyped up. Mainly, it’s a lot of rap music. – Colin Kaepernick
When I’m actually getting off the bus, I still have my gospel playing. That’s the way-to-the-game kind of music. – Colin Kaepernick
We have a presidential candidate who’s deleted emails and done things illegally and is a presidential candidate. That doesn’t make sense to me, because if that was any other person, you’d be in prison. So what is this country really standing for? – Colin Kaepernick
We have a lot of people that are oppressed. We have a lot of people that aren’t treated equally, aren’t given equal opportunities. Police brutality is a huge thing that needs to be addressed. There are a lot of issues that need to be talked about, need to be brought to life, and we need to fix those. – Colin Kaepernick
I have great respect for the men and women that have fought for this country. I have family, I have friends that have gone and fought for this country. And they fight for freedom, they fight for the people, they fight for liberty and justice, for everyone. – Colin Kaepernick
Most people don’t want to change. They’re comfortable and set in their ways. But in order to change, you have to be able to agitate people at times. And I think that’s something that’s very necessary for us to improve as a country. – Colin Kaepernick
You have to be able to do everything as a quarterback, and that’s not necessarily taking care of your job but making sure you’re preparing everyone else to go out and play well. And make sure you have them in the right mindset when they step on the field. – Colin Kaepernick
I realize that men and women of the military go out and sacrifice their lives and put their selves in harm’s way for my freedom of speech and my freedoms in this country, and my freedom to take a seat or take a knee, so I have the utmost respect for them, and I think what I did was taken out of context and spun a different way. – Colin Kaepernick
You have full-field view when you’re watching the film. Eye in the sky, it’s a lot easier to look at it that way than when you’re back behind center. – Colin Kaepernick
In the heat of the battle, it’s always different than when you go back and look at it on film. – Colin Kaepernick
I do want to be a representative of the African community, and I want to hold myself and dress myself in a way that reflects that. I want black kids to see me and think, ‘Okay, he’s carrying himself as a black man, and that’s how a black man should carry himself.’ – Colin Kaepernick
Once you’re on the field, you’re playing. You’re not worried about anything other than doing your job to help your team. – Colin Kaepernick
Whatever the offense dictates to allow me doing what I or this offense needs to do to win games, I’m going to do it. – Colin Kaepernick
To me, when people say, ‘Oh, you’re a freak athlete,’ it’s bittersweet. It’s a huge compliment to say, ‘O.K., you have physical abilities that are kind of above and beyond.’ But at the same time, I feel like it diminishes the mental side of the game. – Colin Kaepernick
I think the biggest part of my game that’s underestimated is the mental part of it. – Colin Kaepernick
