Were you a good athlete as a kid?

I got into sports journalism because both my parents had been in journalism (although not sports). My dad had quite a few sport-oriented books around the house, and I started reading them and picking up their style.

 

To answer the second part ... I took after my dad and read the sports section from a young age. Loved the agate page.

Probably went into sportswriting, as a good friend suggested, as a way to communicate with my dad who never communicated with me growing up.

 

I was cut from a rec-league baseball team when I was 8. I was small, slow and afraid of the ball, but other than that I loved the game.

I worked myself into being a decent basketball player, but at 5-foot-4 and 85 pounds as a high school freshman, my future in the sport was dim. I was cut in favor of the other skinny kid, who was 5-6.

So I turned my attention to cross country, where I was all-conference as a junior. I ran track, also, but my only claim to fame there was once having been lapped by a future Olympian twice in the same 3,200-meter race.

My failures in basketball led to my becoming the team’s stat guy, which put me at the scorer’s table next to the sports writer from the local paper, which led to me being hired to do phoners, which led to … here, I guess. And I’ve managed to keep myself in shape with running, biking and walking enough to get to my mid-50s and still be capable of traveling long distances and hiking up the occasional mountain and seeing cool stuff. It’s nice to be able to go back and tell that crying 8-year-old who wasn’t wanted on the baseball team that everything turned out OK.

 

Medium at best. Was born with flat feet so, eventually, anything involving running was out. Little League career ended in sixth grade after mom remarried and we moved. Not that there would have been that much demand for someone who got into the last couple of innings of the game and usually struck out. But became a good swimmer in high school and was usually our third person in the distance freestyles. Had always read the papers, though, so pursuing that as a career seemed interesting.

 

I had really good hands, but was average on the more running jumping stuff. So I was always decent and could do a few things well, but never great. I paid attention more than most kids and watched sports a ton so my wits helped me out.

In my twenties I played rugby, rising to play at a pretty high level, but I was just a guy at that level. Not even an elite drinker.

Got my golf index down to under 5 at various times which is decent.

 

Medium. Played JV baseball, didn't play varsity because I got a job, started playing again after HS and played county ball (U-19) and town team ball (open) until I was 21. My last county ball game I was 4-x4 with a homer and caught the final out in CF. So that ended well.

Played four years of HS soccer, peaked in 10th grade with four goals on JV. Tore cartilage in my knee the summer before my senior year, it locked on me all season and I did not play much. We were division champs and sectional runnerups.

In college I played every intramural possible, often on the fraternity B or C team. Our B hardyball (razzle-dazzle FB) team I QBed finished fourth, our A team won the league. I also scored 18 points in my final intramural hoops game for the C team.

Took up running in my early 20s and got down to a 35:34 10K before my body started falling apart, eventually resulting in me becoming the titanium man I am today. Now I walk and swim.

My younger brother was a D1 soccer player before wrecking his knee and having to retire.

 

I loved basketball as a kid but my shrimpy body wouldn’t cooperate. That’s when I found wrestling. I did that through high school (All-City as a senior) and my first year of college. Then I became a decent distance runner in my 40s. I’m good enough to break two hours in a half marathon, and came within a ridiculously long bathroom line of breaking 4:30 in a full.

My son has shown some real natural talent in basketball, track and field, and rock climbing. I just coached his basketball team to the league championship last month. I’ve found a niche with coaching — first with basketball and now with his track team and my daughter’s soccer team.

As for the journalism question, I only became a sports writer to get my foot in the door so I could move to news, where I spent most of my career.

 

I'm the classic guy who wasn't good enough to play, but found a way to stay in sports via the newspaper game. Loved sports.

By my 12-year-old season of little league, I was the best fielder in the league. Even our coach let me play shortstop sometimes instead of his son (best player in the league) when the son wasn't pitching. But I, too, had a frumpy body and was born a flat-foot (negative arch, actually). I slowly regressed, not being able to run or jump. Pony League I was in the minors both years and Colt League, I was the worst player on the team. Nevertheless, I tried out for baseball in high school my junior year (new coach came in). I had a good tryout. In a scrimmage, I hit one off the left-field fence (just missed a homer). The coach kept me on JV. I guess that it was because the JV coach was also the Varsity basketball coach and my History teacher. He had to look at me in class every day. My senior year, the coach kept me on Varsity, too. I don't know why. He told me I was on the team, but I would never play. Was that OK with me? I said yes, mostly for the camaraderie and being part of a team. Truth is, the field got too big for me, I wasn't strong enough. But I played softball into my 50s and always did very well.

In basketball, I had a great pull-up jumper (a la Jerry West) in junior high. We shot free throws to make teams for pick-up games so I always got to play. I had good skills, but at 5-8, I was never going to be a basketball player. Didn't even try in high school.

Surprisingly, I was in the top group in junior high volleyball despite lack of jumping ability. I could really serve, could set pretty well and could hit my spots on spikes. I had good skills, except as a blocker. Me and my partner lost in the finals on the all-school tournament. I didn't play in high school because it was concurrent with baseball season. Played a lot on the beach with friends into my 40s. My hometown was a hotbed for volleyball.

Darts? I could play with anybody. Large population of Brits in my city and we played all the time. In the summer, all the big-shots from Europe came over for the tournaments and hung out at our bars. I rarely beat them, but I never got embarrassed.

It worked out pretty well. I had a 44-year career in newspapers, all in sports.

 

I was a good athlete, and I was pretty skilled in baseball and football. I was also a late-bloomer physically, and a broken shoulder in junior high largely ruined my previously really strong throwing arm. Between my bum arm and late growth spurt, most coaches had written me off by the time I grew into my body at 16. It was too bad, because I think if I had persevered another year with my sports aspirations (I quit at age 15), I would have been damn good, relatively speaking, for my area, which is not an athletic hotbed. But even then, a 6-foot-1, 175-pound kid of my skill level wasn't the kind of player who would have drawn too much attention from the next level.

I would say I was a kid with enough raw athleticism that, if my parents could have afforded to put me in some clinics and extra training I could have been a collegiate athlete. I never held any illusions of becoming a pro athlete, although there's always been a little itch in the back of my mind that I could have been a historically great ice hockey goalie because my reflexes have always been, frankly, exceptional. Unfortunately, my parents refused to let me play hockey because the schedule horrendous (nearest rink was 45 minutes away and practices began at 5:30 a.m. to get them in before school)

Anyway, I certainly never had the single-minded focus necessary to reach elite status. I was always too interested in so many different things that I never honed any one skill enough to become great at any of them.

Writing and photography are probably the closest I've come to truly excelling at anything, but even those have been sidetracked by life circumstances.

 

Oh, by the way, this thread reminds of my son being absolutely shocked at how good I was playing adult rec league softball the first time my wife took him to one of my games. It was insulting, frankly, how stunned he was that I was actually one of the better guys out there. He was like, "Daddy, I didn't know you RUN. And that you can scoop ground balls like that!" (I had legged out a triple to the gap and gloved a lined shot up the 3rd base line during the game.)

It felt great to hear him celebrate my good plays, even if he was completely stunned that his old man was capable of them.

 

Sports I was really good at (soccer, swimming, golf) I couldn't stand playing because the practices were so boring. Never pursued any of them beyond Jr. High.
Sports I loved playing (basketball, football) I sucked at because I was short and slow. All the things you want. Never had a shot to pursue any of them beyond Jr. High.
Baseball was a perfect mix: Not many practices during the season, not as big a deal to be undersized. Made it to D1 in college. Wish now I had played D3. Probably would have gotten a better education and played a helluva lot more. Did get to play against a small handful of future MLBers, though.