What Sport did you play growing up?

[Hunt&FishCO]

Biathlon/Nordic skiing - through 10th grade was the only school sanctioned “sport”

Bass fishing (Jr Bassmasters), Ice Fishing (Commerial-Yellow Perch), and Waterfowl took up a majority of my free time when I wasn’t working through Middle/High School

 

[noharleyyet]

Every Interscholastic Sport except tennis and golf. Track slow & football fast…a gym rat. Boxed for the Boys Club & took private Kenpo Karate lessons but football was king in our little town. I could run, throw, and didn’t mind contact. Backs and ends were considered skill positions so you had to play basketball and run track…otherwise you were relegated to an inauspicious offseason regimen called the ragnots. High Scholl was a blast, College, with Vietnam blowing up, was serious.

 

[Big Fin]

Football was my main sports interest, though it cramped my hunting and trapping. Thankfully in northern MN, FB seasons were done by mid-October, about the time trapping opened and the grouse hunting got really good.

Physics was on my side when it came to 9-man football. As a Junior I was 6'1" and pushing 185 lean pounds, so being a running back with a ten yard approach against 140# DBs resulted in an incorrect impression of my limited talents. By my senior year I had grown another inch and gained 15 additional pounds of muscle. In my sophomore year I got to start at MLB due to some injuries, in an otherwise stacked lineup of seniors. Lost one game that year, in the state tournament. My junior year we had no seniors and the opponents took out their revenge from the prior year beatings we administered. My senior year, with a more experienced lineup, we again lost one game.

I played basketball, not because I was any good at it, rather for the social aspects. If we had budget for a hockey team at our school, I would have surely went that route. I was lucky to have a coach who understood my propensity for contact sports. I was expected to use all of my fouls, which I usually did. I was expected to have the most rebounds on our team, which I usually did. And any points I scored were considered pure bonus.

I was so bad when I started BB that I was voted "Most Improved Player" two years in a row. You have to start from a really bad spot for that to happen.

My junior year we had no seniors. We lost three games, getting upset in the 16-team District tournament. A lesson learned for the next year.

My senior year we had lost one game going into the tournaments. We won the 16-team District tournament that sent us to the Regional tournament. We won Regions in a 5-OT thriller, that gave us the Region 8 Championship. The state was split into 2 classes, A (ours) and AA (mostly cake eaters). If you won a Class A Regional tournament, you had emerged as the winner out of 64 teams. Then, after winning the 64-team Region, you got to go to MSP and play in Williams Arena, home of the U of M Gophers. We got beat at state in our first game after leading most of the game. Our starting point guard was sick as a dog and missed most of the game. We also got beat in the consolation bracket, with all of us being sick with whatever Jack (PG) has come down with. I got knocked out cold in the 2nd quarter of that game, got a few stitches, and watched from the bench. Such injury in my final HS sporting game might have been some karma for the way I approached BB as a contact sport.

The coaches wanted me to sign up for track, but that was right in the middle of spring beaver trapping, so not a chance I was going to do that.

I never again lifted weights or played another minute of organized sports, but I had a great time doing so.

As General Douglas MacArthur wrote, and with which I agree, "Upon the fields of friendly strife are sown the seeds that, on other fields, on other days, will bear the fruits of victory."

 

[Rainer]

I was able to play Baseball, Rugby and Archery in High School. I was also awarded a duel scholarship for Baseball and Rugby until my body couldn't take it anymore.

 

[LopeHunter]

Baseball, basketball, golf and track for school sports. Fished before kindergarten age in ponds and small lakes, mostly from the shore. Hunted rabbits and squirrels with a 20 gauge double and a .22 rifle on my own by 3rd grade. Hunted whitetail deer with a 6mm starting in 7th grade then with a recurve starting in 9th grade. Trapped muskrats and coons by 8th grade. Shot trap at an actual trap shooting range starting in 7th grade but shot at hand thrown clays by 4th grade.

Of all those activities I enjoyed top-water plug fishing for bass and bluegill a lot. Always enjoyed pass shooting ducks along the river levees. Basketball was my most enjoyable school sport.

Was after graduate school when had the opportunity to go on big game hunts other than for whitetails. My dream hunt since grade school was to go after a Cape buffalo and that took me until I was 63.

If I woke up tomorrow and was 16 again then I would dribble a basketball towards the basketball gym. I was a gym rat for 6 months each autumn/winter from age 12 until headed to college. Good times.

 

[TX Trophy Hunter]

Im beginning to wonder about all you guys who enjoy grappling with some sweaty dude.
I decided in 8th grade I'd rather roll around with girls.

I remember one day at the end of a baseball practice some of the coaches and dads were reminiscing about their high school sports days and the conversation turned to wrestling. My buddy’s dad famously said “I never did wrestle. I figure you gotta be a touch queer to be a wrestler.”

 

[Islander]

Varsity wrestler sophomore year (my first year ever trying it). I was naturally pretty good. But I had to hitchhike home after practice. Parents never attended a single match. Undefeated right up until I quite. It was a great lesson in terrible parenting.

 

[Hem]

I remember one day at the end of a baseball practice some of the coaches and dads were reminiscing about their high school sports days and the conversation turned to wrestling. My buddy’s dad famously said “I never did wrestle. I figure you gotta be a touch queer to be a wrestler.”

I have to say i never was comfortable in junior high wrapping my arm around a guy in the starting mode.

 

[hank4elk]

Survival.
Surfing, open water swimming, backpacking, rock climbing. Solo sailing.
Boxing & street fighting.

Parents both WWII vets, mom did not allow weapons in house. 2 uncles made sure I knew weapons.
Dad made sure I could fish & swim. 1 way older brother & 4 sisters.
Survival.

PHS...1st day was forced busing & race riots. Largest HS in country with 5700+ students.
Walking home from last day of hell week I was jumped by 6 gang guys & wound up in hospital. Black teammates found all of them & retribution happened.
Kicked off water polo team after 1st day of tryouts...2 fights.
Focused on academics and set the bell curve in science...10th grade. For the whole district...Flunked second semester of algebra after B+ 1st,so summer school. Councelors. Was going to quit school when I was told of alternative night school starting. I graduated with honors a year early. 16.
Survival.

Joined Navy after I was about to be drafted. Made it through 2 combat tours.
Got my official HS diploma in 1975 when I got home. 18.
Journeyman carpenter to iron worker. 19.
Survival.

Sports?
Survival.
I have papers from schools from mom. One note states vivid imagination, another says "Does not play well with others."
Became a crew member. Leader.

71 this years and a survivor. Still does not play well with others. LOL!

 

[The_Coloradoboy]

Grew up in a small town and small school so I was a three sport athlete. Football, Wrestling and Baseball.
Wrestling was always my love. Dad had me on the mat as soon as I could walk and started wrestling pee-wees at 4 years old all the way through high school. Probably should have continued on after high school but I was burnt out by the time I was 18. Still love watching and help coaching the younger generation of kids whenever I get the chance though.

 

[The_Coloradoboy]

Im beginning to wonder about all you guys who enjoy grappling with some sweaty dude.
I decided in 8th grade I'd rather roll around with girls.

It’s all fun and games until you try and roll around with a guy with cauliflower ears, girl….

 

[MaddH]

Played football,basketball and baseball in HS. Played baseball in college I was a catcher. Totally destroyed my knees

 

[adoc65]

I have told young dads to put their kids in wrestling at a young age instead of football. They learn a lot about leverage and will understand tackling more than other kids that didn’t wrestle.

 

[Salmonchaser]

Football wrestling and track through Highschool. 165 lbs football player didn’t have a lot of future, running only during track season and hitting 4:25 in the mile got me some D2 and D3 attention. Ended up wrestling D1 at 149. Picked up Rugby in college and played until i was in my early 30s. Spent 20 years as a Defensive Tactics instructor in my Law Enforcement career.
Wrestling in all that mattered. I’ve a number of stories during my career of being attacked at beer bottle baseball bat range where wrestling experience literally saved my life.
If you really want to give your kid tools to survive in a dangerous world get them into wrestling.
Only owned one car in my life, 1969 Mach 1. Lost it in a head on collision with an Oregon State Trooper when I was a sophomore in College. Nothing more than bumps and bruises but the car was totaled.

 

[Nuts]

Lettered in 3 sports 9-11 grade. Soccer, basketball and baseball. Senior year I was asked to join track. Best part. Had meets beside a beautiful trout stream. 27 caught was my record during a meet. The coach gave up on telling me no and would send someone to find me prior to my events.

 

[Frequently Banned Troll]

Cross country basketball and track. Not enough kids in my school for a football team, and barely enough for basketball. We often finished BB games with 2 or 3 players on the court. I did track in college but took 1 season to realize I wasn’t fast enough.

 

[MNElkNut]

Football, basketball, and baseball through 9th grade, then Football and Baseball through HS. Was All Conf QB my senior year and had a sniff of D2 college ball, and soon realized I wasn't big enough, strong enough, fast enough, and didnt have a strong enough arm. Quit before I got hurt.
Senior year. down by 2. Homecoming. Less than a minute to play. Called the play that always worked. Yep, TE is wide open! Don't get fancy! Was going to make a good throw....just lay it up and let him get it....then the defensive tackle, whom somehow we just forgot to block, blew me up big time. That one still hurts.