Sports Initiation Quotes

As a little kid, I wasn't even interested in football. The first time I played, I was nine, and I volunteered to go in goal, thinking it would be exciting to save penalties. In fact, it was really boring.

I started playing full-equipment football when I was 6 years old. My mom actually got me started in it.

I started playing football when I was ten years old, and the main reason was because I wanted to make my parents proud. I didn't even like the sport at the time, but it didn't matter to me.

I started doing karate when I was 11.

A lot of people have compared being an NBA rookie to being a fraternity pledge. It's not really intense like that. It's more like being an intern.

Whereupon, at the tender age of thirteen, I set upon the path of playing nothing but hookers.

I didn't really get into golf until I was about 14. My mom and dad were taking lessons from a pro an hour and a half from our farm in Cohuna, Australia. When they got home, I'd ask my mom to explain everything they learned - drills and all.

I was not athletically inclined. I was very quiet, introverted, non-confrontational. My three older brothers were athletes - basketball, football - but I was kind of a momma's boy. Then one day, my brother Roger encouraged me to go to the boxing gym with him. I tried the gloves on, and it just felt so natural.

I remember my first practice, from Pee Wee football when I was, like, 10, and I didn't know what was going on.

I never knew what basketball was. I started playing on the playground. People used to laugh at me and joke at me because I was so tall and I didn't know the game and couldn't play it.

When I was younger, I actually stepped foot in a ring for the first time at 8 years old because of my dad.

I only went into a gym by accident. My mum couldn't get a babysitter and wanted to do aerobics, so she took me and Kurtis, my younger brother, down to the gym. There was an after-school boxing class on with some of the kids from school. There weren't any other girls there, but I didn't mind. I loved it.

I started skiing around the same time as I began playing the piano, at around four, before moving to the violin at five.

I started in Grade 2. I went with my aunt and her boyfriend to an arena, an outdoor rink which was a block away from my grandparents. My grandpa came from Oregon. He had coached his son, my uncle, in hockey, and he was happy to get me involved in it.

My question about luging is, How do you get into the luge community to begin with? Is it one day like, 'Mom, Dad, I really want to luge.' And your parents are like: 'O.K., I'll quit my job. We'll move to an Alpine community.'