A Division I college wrestling team has so many guys at such a high level it'd be like having every single guy in the gym being a top 10 UFC guy, and that's who you're competing against every single day. Most everyone has been wrestling since they were 5 years old. It's been their dream to wrestle in college. There's such a high level of intensity.
I'm tired of thinking about playoffs, playoffs, six, seven, eighth spot. I want to think about championship. That's something that we always thought when I came to Denver. That's what I felt as soon as I came to Denver coming from New York where we were not winning.
I think if I wasn't in very high level, I never will be in the team. Cause I was high, in very high level.
In high school, some of the guys were really into music. When I first joined the team as a sophomore, I was blown away when we came out for our first home match?I'm getting goose bumps just thinking about it. The seniors would bring their whole stereo system. We started by yelling and stuff inside this little room just off the gym; then the coaches said, "Ready. Go!" We threw open the door and came running out. Even when I hear the songs now I get all jacked up.
My energy level is very high ... how ambitious it all is depends on lots of different things. But pretty high energy level. I take on a lot of projects at the same time.
I'm so absolutely pro-Denver. I wrote a fake hip-hop song about Denver. I've been claiming Denver. Part of the joke of the song is nobody was really claiming Denver - no rappers, no comedians.
When you think about the guys who started Twitter, and the Google guys, and the Facebook guys and the Napster guys, and the Microsoft guys, and the Dell guys and the Instagram guys, it's all guys. The girls, they're being left behind.
Winning teams at the NBA level, the college level, and the high school level all play team basketball. Championship teams have five players on the same page at all times.
I'm used to playing for a high level team that expects to win, to be competing at this level.
Being able to play at club level at a high level and then getting called into the national team, it's amazing.
I started Rooney in high school. These were guys I went to high school with and guys I knew from L.A.
When I was in high school I was a really huge 'SNL' fan. I remember the cast around the time I started watching it - Will Ferrell, Ana Gasteyer, Molly Shannon, Cheri O'Teri, Tracy Morgan. I did research to find out how people got on the show. Their bios always said they came from an improv team, so I started taking classes.
I won't have to do any major changes to continue my career a long way, hopefully. Just hopefully stay healthy and be able to help a team out as I go through and still play at a pretty high level.
In eighth grade, I pretty much didn't want to pass. I was 6'8'.' I was always bigger and stronger. I was getting triple-teamed, and the results weren't good. I wasn't helping my team. I was forcing shots. Then I started passing it out to my team, and they started hitting shots and slashing, and that's when things opened up for me.
When you like the coach and the guys in the locker room, and you know you can still play at a high level, and you feel like you can help take a team to a Super Bowl, and you know you're job's not gonna be as hard as it may have been before - it's just fun.
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.