When I went to high school, an all-boys' school, a Catholic school, I tried out for football, and I didn't make it. It was the first time, athletically, that I was knocked down.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Before playing football, I didn't fit in anywhere. My parents didn't have a lot of money, which they spent on our education to send us to Catholic private school in Oakland, mostly black. The other kids had more money than I did. I started school early; I was young. So I'd come back to my hood and read.
When my first semester grades came out, my mom and dad told me I wouldn't be playing football.
I played football, honestly, to get a scholarship.
In high school I was on the basketball team, but the coach did something I didn't dig and the next day he looked up and saw me practising with the football team.
Prior to high school, I played a lot of neighborhood football.
I played football all my life throughout high school and ran track.
I've always felt that people put me down, and I'd fight back. I played football 15 years, and nobody gave me any credit, and they never will do.
My parents couldn't handle my energy so they enrolled me in every sport the school was offering. I didn't resent it because I loved sports and picked them up easily.
I signed schoolboy forms for Watford when I was 12, but then my parents got divorced, and I never kicked a ball for three years. I rebelled, I left home, but getting back into football sorted me out. It was the second chance I needed.
Even when I was young, playing college football, and I injured my knee, I bounced right back.