A Quote by Adebayo Akinfenwa
I was raised on an estate in an inner city school where people had a go about my size, people saying I am too big to play football - which still happens today - and I used that to inspire me.
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My whole life has always been football and that only. Since I was six years old, I've only really thought about football. I used to watch it on TV, play video games, and so on. I just love football. Some people joke that I am too into it, but football just sums up my life.
I went to Catholic school my entire life. Elementary school was probably my worst time - those are the years when you're figurin' out who you are, and then you've got the added pressure of being on the light-skinned side of things. I've been around - excuse me saying - predominantly white people in Catholic school, who sit around and just talk about black people because they thought they were in the presence of themselves, and they used to talk cool. I felt firsthand the racial prejudice that is still alive today.
Everything I did to get back, if it wasnt for my team, it was for my city. Thats one thing that I bought into from Day One. Im not just here in this city to play football, Im here to actually create real change in this city. If my effort can give you hope, faith or love, then so be it. Ill give everything I have, and today was about me giving everything that I had, showing people that no matter the circumstances that you may be going through, just push through it. If you can push through it, you will encourage somebody. Today, hopefully through what I did today, somebody was uplifted.
I can care less what people say about me. If I can go to the facility, work out, play football, and go home, that's what I would do. I'm a big-time football guy. I could care less about the outside.
My parents are the ones who really help me be grounded. I still go to school, I still do fun stuff with my friends; for the most part, I am a normal kid. It just so happens that I do some acting too!
I lived in lower-income neighborhoods in the inner city. Across the street were dark parts of the world. I've experienced the gamut, from third world to inner city to my parents working their way out of being secretaries and janitors to professors and real-estate people. They've shown me a path of perseverance and hard work in a peaceable way.
I used to play football all the time. In the U.S., people don't play football, so I had to learn basketball. Looking back, that's what I like about my life - doing new things, having a new perspective.
People said: 'You're too big to play football,' but I kept playing and it just happened that people have caught on to me and taken to me. The nicest thing I get from it is that I can be myself and people seem to like it.
In New York City, it's popular. I used to think to myself, 'Man, there's a lot of gay people out here.' And it had me comfortable: it was like, I can be myself! I used to still try to hide it, until it was really overwhelming - there were just too much girls attracted to me!
My dad had a spell when he came out of coaching doing some work with underprivileged children on quite a rough council estate in Southampton to help the kids and take them out to places. I used to go along with him. I used to play football with them, mess about with them. I was only 13 or 14 and became good friends with them.
Something happens in school sometimes where you're like, 'Oh, I'm not an expert, and I have to defer to people who are.' And it happens not just in school: it happens in religion, too. Defer to the experts. A printing press is a big deal - they got the Bible, and all of a sudden they could read it for themselves.
I don't size up their grades or their board scores. Because in America today, that's just an advantage certain people have. I size up the give and take, the speed of thinking, what I perceive as ambition. I say, 'Tell me about your high school jobs.' And I love people who worked in coffee shops who were waiters and waitresses.
I am from a city (Glasgow) that is not unlike Liverpool. I am joining the people's football club. The majority of people you meet on the street are Everton fans. It is a fantastic opportunity, something you dream about. I said 'yes' right away as it is such a big club.
Football leads to a crime rate among people that play in the NFL that is less than the gen pop, the general population. The numbers have been run. It's just that people who play football are stars and, as such, what they do occurs with greater media scrutiny. So when one of them happens to engage in some sort of questionable behavior, it happens to (in a lot of it people's minds) speak for the whole sport and everybody that plays it.
In terms of trying to inspire other people with faith to play and stuff I am very proud of that. I remember seeing Muslim athletes or guys with other faiths performing and still carrying the label of being a religious person and it does inspire people.
I understood I had to be good at school so I could play football in my free time. Usually, by the time I came home from school, I already had all my things ready for the next day, so I could put my bag on the side and go straight out to play football with my friends!
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