When I played Little League, I looked up to the big leaguers, too, and collected their baseball cards.
I was a pitcher, shortstop and outfielder, and the Yankees tried to sign me out of high school as a first-round draft pick in 1981. I turned them down to go to college.
I did three winters at BBC Radio Leicester while playing cricket in the summers.
Here, I have an opportunity to affect the lives of a lot of young people - and not just on my football team. I'm not kidding myself that that would be true at the professional level.
I'm more of a hands-on person. I like working with young people from the standpoint of providing support for the grassroots programs. State, national and Olympic champions begin at a grassroots level.
Sport must be amateur or it is not sport. Sports played professionally are entertainment.
A mere forty years ago, beach volleyball was just beginning. No bureaucrat would have invented it, and that's what freedom is all about.
I played my first game of adult cricket at about eight or nine when the fifth team were short and picked me to field and bat at No 11. From then I just got the bug and wanted to play as often as possible.
I would encourage people to participate in sports. You don't have to dream of being an Olympic or a professional athlete.
I don't think I ever played any sports recreationally for my own pleasure. I was bad at them from the start.
I played Little League and in high school. I played more over the years whenever there was a pick-up game... usually softball.
I grew up in Brixton as a young teenager playing basketball for the Brixton Topcats, which marked the beginning of my career.
I have always liked sport and only played or run races for the fun of the thing.
It's different today than it was then. In those days we were strictly amateurs. If I had wanted to stay in for the '80 Olympics, my parents couldn't have afforded it.
Too many kids today are playing major league ball and don't belong there.
Even though I play a professional sport now, I love college baseball.
It's ridiculous having the pros in an amateur sport, but at the same time, there's a lot of pros who are going to struggle over three rounds.
It's different in the NFL because you're getting paid to get hit. In college, you're taking hits for someone else to make money.
I never thought that shoes would be the reason that you recruit players, but it's a factor. I think we need to get the shoe companies out of the lives of the athletes. I think we need to get it back to where parents and coaches have more of a say than peripheral people, but that's easier said than done.
I was never able to be a part of U.S.A. Basketball in high school or college. So for me, it's a privilege.
Whenever I wasn't watching the planes, I was playing community baseball, football, or something like that.
There are great amateur bodies that have good programs right from the grassroots level to professionals.
Today's Little Leaguers, and there are millions of them each year, pick up how to hit and throw and field just by watching games on TV. By the time they're out of high school, the good ones are almost ready to play professional ball.
Even now I want to keep my amateur spirit, to spend my time, to be in the sport with all my heart.
I haven't been an athlete in school or college, though I have played basketball and football.
