When I won the Golden Gloves in 1960, that made me realize I had a chance. And when I won at the Olympics, that sealed it: I was the champ.
I've been playing semi-professional football since I was 14, really.
My first club was FT Gern. I joined through my parents and friends. My father played for them and a friend from nursery school took me to training once. I was five at the time.
I once played amateur tournament tennis six months without double-faulting.
As a lad growing up in the Fifties and Sixties, I played both Gaelic football and soccer and loved them both.
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.
It wasn't until '79 I won my first amateur championship, and then, by '81, I was 14, and I won my first world championship, which was amazing to me, and in a very real sense, that was the first real victory I had.
I was an amateur wrestler, which I loved. It was my passion, but I started really late; I was a junior in high school when I began.
I played rugby in the winter, cricket in the summer, and for a brief period was on the books at Cardiff City. Athletics was only sports day for me. In fact, I never really liked it. I was never too keen on a sport that didn't have a ball at your feet.
I had my own youth. I had fun playing in the amateurs, going out with my friends on the weekend, drinking a beer, that sort of thing.
I had 12 years under my belt of baseball at the amateur level before I got to the big leagues.
In the summertime, I played Little League baseball; football in the fall; basketball in the winter.
The world is filled with great sporting events.
Johnny was an athlete who didn't play sport. His first love was baseball, but he didn't think he had it in him to be a professional.
I had no experience with broadcasting basketball games, so I took a tape recorder and went to a playground where there was a summer league, and I stood up in the top of the stands and I called the game.
The NBA and college are two totally different games.
This illuminates not only fans' interest in major league teams but also the minors and even Little League.
I started playing at six. I was at a school always playing football with my friends. But I was always bored at home. I asked my father if he could start me in a football team. He took me to a team called Rupel Boom, who were playing in the fourth division in Belgium, and I stayed there for four years.
I did choir, soccer, some theater. The only weird thing about my life was that I was playing honky-tonks on the weekends.
I grew up in baseball stadiums. It was my two brothers and baseball around me all the time. I knew nothing about film or acting or theater when I was young!
I get paid to practice. I play the game for free.
I knew I was never going to play professional sport, but I loved playing and I went to all the games I could afford to.
I started playing for a team called Cosmos in the Tandridge League before I went for a two-week trial with Palace. They must have liked what they saw.
I've played more park games than NBA games, and I had a 10-year NBA career.
I'm just a poor boy from the cornfields of Richmond, Virginia. I'm proud because I loved baseball and played with the best.
