I made the Dixie Heights High School baseball team as an 8th grader and went on to have a very successful career. I was all state both my junior and senior years leading our team 3 district championships and 1 regional championship in 2001 which hadn't happened since 1991. My number has since been retired at Dixie Heights and a banner hangs from the outfield fence with my name and number on it.
Dixie has just fallen to pieces. There are little patches of Dixie. But even in the heart of Dixie - in Alabama - Dixie is slipping. They've stopped using the word in commercial listings.
I've loved football since I was in the marching band of junior high and high school and was the water girl for my high school's team.
I've been writing since I'm five years old. I've been writing books since high school - junior high, high school. I write every single day. I never thought I'd be published.
The reason I went to an all-boys Catholic school was because they had the best football team. We won the state championship my junior year. It was super-competitive. We lost in the semifinals my senior year, and it still haunts me.
My main lucky number is 9. That was my baseball number in high school. My other lucky number is 3, because that's the one I wore before I got to high school and had to pick a different one.
When I was a kid, my big hero was the number 10 of Flamengo and not the number 10 of Santos. His name was Dida. We didn't have much knowledge about the championship in Sao Paolo or in the south of Brazil. We just knew about the championship in Rio because I am from there. But Pele played for the national team and was a hero.
First I wanted number seven since my roll number in school was seven. But, someone was already wearing jersey number seven. Then a BCCI manager said I should take 18 since my birthday is on 18 July. At that time, I didn't know that Virat Kohli also wears number 18.
I believe in myself as I look forward to graduating from Hamilton Heights High School in 1991.
I'd also made the first tennis team. I was number two player in the school at 11 years of age and that didn't sit very well with people.
I acted in junior high in the junior high school group, and then when I got into senior high I was, you know, the main actor of the senior high school.
I wish I was in de land ob cotton,
Ole times dar am not forgotten,
Look-a-way! Look-a-way! Look-a-way, Dixie Land!
* * * * *
Den I wish I was in Dixie, Hooray! Hooray!
In Dixie Land I'll take my stand
To lib and die in Dixie.
I made my first Australian senior team when I was 16, first Olympics when I was 19, and I retired. I'm 32, I retired four years ago, so a good third of my life or nearly a third of my life has been all about running.
I had never dreamed about the NBA like some guys did. I was a non-scholarship player at an NAIA college. I played on the Boys and Girls Club team in my freshman and sophomore years of high school before I made the high school team. I was our backup center in college.
It was the case for a number of years that I was doing a book a year, but that was back when I was part-time teaching - and since 1991, I've been a parent, so that cuts into the time!
I'd been singing since I was 14 and on the road since high school, and I was very independent. Then I was Miss U.S.A. and had to have a chaperone and spent a year opening supermarkets. It was all so silly, wearing a crown and banner when it was the 1970s and women's liberation was everywhere. That was quite a stigma to overcome.
I love to see a guy who keeps plugging away make the most of his chance. You look at any successful team, and there's always a player or two who seems to come out of nowhere to help lift that team to new heights.