I could never be a sports writer, unless my assignment was to write 'sports sports sports sports sports' for three pages.
The last few years I became a lot more into sports. Growing up, the sports I liked were independent sports, like skateboarding. I was really into skateboarding, and not necessarily team televised sports.
The thing about ballet that I never knew about is that it's one of the most excruciating sports that I've ever been a part of. I say sports because they train constantly, every single day.
Sports is so hard for me to wrap my head around. I never played any sports, I don't watch any sports, I hardly know the rules to any sporting event. Really, I'm borderline mentally damaged when it comes to sports.
My dad is the reason I actually started watching wrestling. My dad was never big into sports; we were all big into sports as kids, and he'd go to our Little League games or whatever and not really know what was going on, because he didn't know about sports, but he knew about wrestling.
They wanted me to play more sports because they were acutely sensitive to their children being one hundred percent American, and they believed that all Americans played sports and loved sports.
I always felt second best. I was never the prettiest, never the skinniest, never the fastest in my sports. Never the smartest, because I have dyslexia. Then, all of a sudden, people were like, 'You're gorgeous.' And I was like, 'What?'
The one thing I've learned in sports entertainment is that nothing is for certain, and you never say never.
We decided that sports, lifestyle and fashion were three elements that could be mixed together to a very unique formula. That's what we did: make Puma a very sports-fashion brand when, at the times, everybody talked about sports and sports performance and functionality. We said, 'Well, it's about more.'
Everybody has questioned my heart, questioned my training ethics, this and that, but I never did something as cowardly as to take any sports-enhancement drug...That's one thing no one can ever say about me, you know? That I was a coward and took sports-enhancement drugs, because I was afraid I was going to get my a** kicked in front of millions of people. So anybody out there who said I never had no heart, at least I wasn't a coward.
Politics and sports are the same thing in some ways. I like sports; I don't like the sports aspect of politics. The conventions are basically the playoffs, and the election's the Super Bowl. To me, it doesn't feel important.
I grew up in a very 'Friday Night Lights,' sports-focused town. I did not play the sports. I was never bullied physically, but I was called names. I was also an overweight kid. I knew what it's like to feel like the other, to feel written off for things that were not in my control - my appearance, my interests.
It's a very competitive thing, pro sports. The hardest thing in pro sports is staying up there.
Steinberg occupies a position that is very dear to those of us who've held it over the years: sports columnist at The Post. If all he wants to do is be popular--and I think Dan is better than that--then the readers of The Washington Post sports section won't be very well served. Telling readers how great they are as sports fans was never one of my priorities. The only thing worse than people who can't stand to hear an unpopular or unflattering opinion is those that are too afraid to state one.
Never let anyone tell you sports doesn't matter. Never let them tell you it's all about the wins, the losses and the stats. Sports is so much more than that.
Sports was a great equalizer. It didn't have color. It didn't matter whether you were rich or poor, black or white. It really shaped me in many ways to be able to deal with a lot of different personalities and different cultures. Sports were the common thread.