I think my parents were really smart parents. I think they were, actually, pretty progressive for the time. The one thing that they really wanted me to know is what makes me tick, what I am about, how I approach life. And I think what my parents really wanted for me was for me to be who I am.
Growing up, I started developing confidence in what I felt. My parents helped me to believe in myself. I wasn't the best looking guy, I wasn't the best athlete in the world, but they made me feel good about myself.
I think when you are the parents of a gifted athlete, the best thing in the world you can do is to encourage them, in my opinion. My dad didn't push me and I didn't push my children in athletics.
When I first went to LA. Honestly, it was different for me. The whole thing, the student-athlete part, you know, where the student came before the athlete. That was totally new to me. I had down online school since fifth grade so I never really had sat in a classroom and taken a note.
I was glad I did a year abroad, because it helped me as an athlete and as a person. That took me out of my comfort zone. Watching the French athletes train in the Pyrenees made me realise what I had to do to become a top athlete.
My parents wanted me to become a national athlete.
You're not going to tell me that you're going to find a person who's not a very good athlete and he or she is going to be a great player. But anyone can play the game. That's the nice thing about the game. You don't really have to be a world-class athlete to play the sport [golf] and have fun because of handicap systems.
Football, for me, wasn't a foregone conclusion. My parents didn't force me into it, and quite the opposite happened.
You know, I had my mother and my father convincing me that he would be going back to Hollywood and he'd be back with the actresses and dating them and that he wasn't serious about me at all. So I had him saying one thing to me and my parents telling me something else.
I'm not superstitious about good luck charms and all that. I don't have any ring or any tangible thing as a charm. But I like to have at least one of my parents with me during my shows. It gives me strength to find their faces... or my brothers... in the audience. It comforts me.
I kept myself in shape, and the stuff they were doing in the South, I wouldn't go for. They wanted to whip me on TV, like they used to do with the slaves and all that. I said, 'No. I came in as an athlete, and I'll leave as an athlete.' And they respected me for that.
That's the thing with me being a former athlete: in the way I attack characters and attack poetry is from the base of being an athlete.
Growing up on an all-boys' team wasn't the easiest thing. I'd have guys come after me on the ice and just hit me because I'm a girl. I'd have parents heckling me from the stands, other parents not wanting me on the team, not making certain teams just because I was a girl.
Empowering girls is extremely important to me because, growing up, I needed those empowering women to show me the way. When my parents divorced when I was 11, my mom was a force to be reckoned with. She showed me how to be self-sufficient and independent.
As an athlete you have to think about yourself a lot. Think about your body, think about your mind, staying healthy, staying strong, your goals. So it's always about me, me, me, me.
I think sports for kids is the greatest thing in the world because it teaches you how to share, about winning and losing and pressure. But I don't think you should force your kid to become a professional athlete.