Growing up in the 1950s, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, boys were supposed to be athletic.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I was an athlete when I was growing up.
In every school, more boys wanted to be remembered as a star athlete than as a brilliant student.
I had two older brothers, so I was always competing with them. The guys I grew up with on the golf course, when I was 13, they were 15 or 16, and I was always trying to beat them.
I wasn't a jock in school, and by the 10th grade, when I was in boarding school I was carrying water buckets for the girls' hockey team. I was the kid with long hair and glasses and acne trying to learn how to play guitar and piano in the music center. I was not an athlete past the age of 13 or 14 when they start throwing the ball really fast.
When I was in school, there was no such thing as girls' athletics.
I played sports growing up in high school.
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.
I grew up in Michigan, so I played hockey, football and basketball. I played a little bit of lacrosse, too. My brother played more lacrosse and ran track.
All the guys called the Olympic Village a high-class Boy Scout camp.
In my neighborhood in Springfield, Ohio, there were a lot of young kids. We all played tackle football after school, but I knew very early on that I was not an athlete.