A Quote by Louis Gossett, Jr.

I didn't know anything about acting, I didn't know anything about theater, but I was just an exceptional student at high school. I wanted to play ball; I'm going after a basketball scholarship and be a doctor. I got injured and my marks began to drop.
When I got into high school, I got really into basketball. I had this itch that I wanted to just move. I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I knew that if basketball became a scholarship or something, it would be a means to that. It turned out I couldn't jump that high.
I got a new 4-track cassette recorder a year or so after high school. For a while I would just stare at it thinking, how am I going to do this if I don't play guitar or keyboards? How am I going to write and record a song if I don't know how to play any instruments? I mean, I played the violin, but I didn't know anything about how to work a 4-track.
Do you mean ter tell me," he growled at the Dursleys, "that this boy—this boy!—knows nothin' abou'—about ANYTHING?" Harry thought this was going a bit far. He had been to school, after all, and his marks weren't bad. I know some things," he said. "I can, you know, do math and stuff.
My high school class was the first one to know, during the college recruiting process, to know there was the option to play professional basketball, to know that the WNBA was there, and to know I better pick a school that is going to help me get to the next level.
I went to the University of San Francisco on an athletic scholarship. I didn't study in high school. I was just there to get by and to play basketball. But a funny thing happened to me when I got to college. I got challenged by the work and the professors.
There wasn't really anything I wanted to do other than acting, which is ridiculous because there were no actors in my family, and we didn't know anything about acting.
I got into acting in high school mainly because I wasn't doing anything else and started to hit a few bumps in the road. And there was a conference with my parents who said either you find something to do with your time or we will. And so, I don't know why I thought this was the thing to do, but I went to audition for the school play.
I was always interested in acting, but in my high school sports was the cool thing to be part of, and I was still very into being cool. So I played a lot of basketball and football. But I always had that want to be in theater and to be a part of theater arts. But in my school, it was just a really nerdy thing to be a part of. Everyone in my school wore bowler hats - they were always on, always acting, and all so big. I was like, "I can't be that", even though I wanted to be.
For me, 9/11, it was my last year in college and I didn't know anything about Al Qaeda, I didn't know anything about bin Laden, I had no idea. I think probably after a few years when I started seeing how the country and the policy was shifting due to terrorism, I wanted to know: Why are these people terrorizing us, and who are they?
I think a lot of directors, they come out of film school, they don't know anything about acting. Or they're writers that don't know anything about the process. And I think they're afraid sometimes to talk to actors and be honest with actors.
By the time I got to high school, I didn't play anything but baseball because I was on a mission. I really wanted to get a scholarship. I really wanted to focus all my time and efforts on baseball. When I got up to Florida State, God spoke to me very clearly and called me out of that and called me into music, which up until that point had just been a hobby.
Acting was something I did growing up. I never it took it too seriously; it was just one of those things I got into high school and was like, 'Nah, I don't want to continue acting.' Cause I got into it professionally by local theater, and from there, I just decided to do sports and be more a high school kid and have my fun.
My whole life, I've felt like I can do anything on the basketball court, from playing point guard in high school to having to play center one year in high school, doing everything in college and going through different roles in Philadelphia.
I play basketball; I actually like the triangle. It opens things up if you know how to move without the ball and know how to cut. That's the game you learn in high school and younger - pass, cut - basically the fundamentals of basketball, which makes it extremely difficult to guard.
When I was a sophomore, a friend asked me to go to a local acting seminar with him. Two guys were very interested in me and wanted me to come out to L.A. I wanted to finish high school before doing anything like that. I figured they’d just forget about me, but they kept after me for two years.
Basketball wasn't going particularly well, but in my senior year, I did a play and got a wonderful card from a professor that said, 'I don't know what your plans are after school or if acting is a part of it, but you have something special.' Hearing that from someone who I had so much respect for pointed me in that direction.
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