I was a sports nut. I stayed after school probably three hours every day - from fall, to winter, to spring. I went from football to basketball to track, and it started all over again. I loved all of it. I just loved being an athlete and all that it entailed. It really accounts for who I am today and even how I think today.
I was a sports nut. I stayed after school probably three hours every day - from fall, to winter, to spring. I went from football to basketball to track and it started all over again. I loved all of it. I just loved being an athlete and all that it entailed. It really accounts for who I am.
I've been engulfed in sports since I was a 2-year-old; I picked up any kind of ball - a basketball, baseball, football - I just loved to play something. I loved the energy of being in arenas and watching the game on TV.
I am the sort of athlete who participates in a lot of winter sports - basketball, for example, is an activity that I'll spend many hours a week watching.
I think when I was young, let's call it high school, and even before that, I just loved comedy, and I loved comedians. I grew up watching Laurel and Hardy. That's really a long time ago. I loved Jerry Lewis. I just loved comedians.
I really loved crunk. I loved the extreme nature of it, how repetitious it was, and how these basic, angry chants would just be repeated over and over again.
With 'Love & Basketball,' I played ball my whole life and did track at UCLA. So, I'm an athlete. And it was very important for me to get it right. I started with casting: As an athlete, there's nothing worse for me than watching a sports movie and the woman that they hire can't run or can't shoot. It sets women's sports back years.
I played football first. I love football. I'm a die-hard Broncos fan. I loved football, but in the offseason, I started playing basketball, and I just fell in love with the game. I've been playing basketball ever since 5th grade.
I think that in school I was really shy. And even today when people meet me they are shock to see just how not-crazy I am.
Ronaldo is the best of the best, I mean not only as a football player but also as a human being. You can see how he developed and how devoted he is to really staying on top every year to excel. I think that is something unbelievable, and I said it before and will say it again: he is an athlete, and an athlete is a positive thing.
Every day, have a little bird on your shoulder that asks, 'Is today the day? Am I ready? Am I doing all I need to do? Am I being the person i want to be? Is today the day I die?
I wanted to be a pilot. I loved flying and I loved all the technology and the equipment and the sense of adventure that came with it. I think that feeling still bleeds over into everything I do today.
No one runs fast without an extreme amount of training. Like today, you see kids walking around dribbling a basketball. I had a bag with track shoes in it, and I used to go to the track every day.
I never really loved school through junior high, but then I started running track my freshman year, and I was just like, 'Wow, this is cool!'
I never really loved school through junior high, but then I started running track my freshman year, and I was just like, 'Wow, this is cool!
I started singing before I started talking. And that's the God's honest truth. I think it was something that I've always loved to do, even if I wasn't good at it. I just loved ballads.
You have to have that dog-eat-dog kind of mentality. I think me playing football all my life and having that chip on my shoulder, not really getting the opportunities that I wanted, really carried over to track and field. It allowed me to use all that energy and put it in the direction of being the best track athlete that I could be.