Usually, when I liked athletes growing up, it was because they could hit a ball very far or they can throw a ball very fast. They can shoot a jumper, or they can dunk the ball.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I was an athlete when I was growing up.
Small players learn to be intuitive, to anticipate, to protect the ball. A guy who weighs 90 kilos doesn't move like one who weighs 60. In the playground I always played against much bigger kids and I always wanted the ball. Without it, I feel lost.
They thought that athletes that worked out with my system wouldn't be able to throw a ball because they'd be too muscle bound. Those are the misconceptions I had to go through for about 40 years.
Athletic skills are acquired over a long period of time and after countless hours of practice.
I really didn't have one particular athlete I liked growing up.
I could dunk a volleyball in high school. I didn't play football because I knew they were going to put me at a fat-guy position, and I didn't want to do that. I am athletic.
You have to be wired a certain way to be a professional basketball player, and the way my body grew, something happened genetically that allowed me to become a lot more explosive.
As an athlete, you figure you work your whole life to have what you have, and to be able to show the world what you have and how proud you are of it, that's always fun.
I grew up in a sport that didn't allow you to grow up. There was always the threat of younger competition. So you had to maintain the image of youth.
Athletes at all ages are bigger and stronger than ever before. And they are being encouraged - sometimes even incentivized, as we recently learned was the case on at least one National Football League team - to play to injure.