Check out these guys. They are riding trials bikes and they are bad ass. Now, I'm pretty good on my mountain bike as well as my road bike, but damn; this just looks like one of those activities that you have to start as a kid to ever be any good at or risk winding up a lifer on the battered bruised and broken thread. Focus: What do you wish you could do if you had only started or been exposed to at a younger age? Or, what do you still hope to get into?
Electric guitar. Model: Les Paul II. I have a cheery redorange starburst one at home sitting on a rack in perfect condition, and I have not yet learned to play it. It makes a very cool decoration in my living room, though. Some day.
I play golf. I've been playing golf for a very long time (relative to age). My dad always pushed me to be a good golfer, for instance when I was in middle school I played the number 1 spot on our team. Then came high school, and while other kids spent every day in the summer at the golf course, I spent mine getting drunk and laid down by the creek. While getting drunk and laid is pretty awesome, I wish I would have spent more time on golf. I still play but with school/work/lack of funds/motorcycles, I'm really awful. When I settle somewhere, I definitely plan on playing more.
I really want to learn how to play the piano. My girlfriend has a keyboard in her apartment, but she won't teach me how to play. I'd teach myself, but I'm lazy and don't even know the very basicest of things
Really?? This doesn't look hard at all. I'd be a champ. But when I was a kid, I was too busy playing kickball and capture the flag than sitting inside stacking some plastic cups.
Wrestling. Started in 7th grade and wish I had started around walking age. Rugby. I know a lot of high schools down south here are staring spring 15's rugby and summer 7's so as not to compete with football. Football coaches love the conditioning and tackling technique taught and rugby coaches love the aggression and power of football players. I wish I had that back in high school.
Skateboarding. Everyone I know that took up the sport even for a short while has much better balance than I. If you learn to skateboard at an early age it will make wakeboarding, surfing, skiing much easier to pick up later in life. When I was young, the wheels were still made of steel and you were lucky just to get them to roll correctly and there were no skateboard shops. you usually stole the wheels off of a pair of roller skates and fastened them on some wood somehow. One of my regrets is not pushing my kids to take up the sport.
Violin......I'm quite proficient on most instruments. But violin totally kicks my ass. Also, Academics. I was always the kid who never studied, never did any of his work, yet some how always made passing grades. But now that I am doing the whole academia thing again, I really wish I would have known as a child how important, and just how satisfying learning can be. Cliche I know, but what can I say.
Hockey, Football and Soccer at a AAA level. My dad is a nerd, like PhD in Artificial Intelligence kinda nerd. He never signed me up for any sports or anything so I always had to sign myself up. It would always be in house league level teams and whatnot because I barely knew better. By the time I realized that I'm good at sports and can make high level teams I was 15, and played AAA football for two years. That was it. I missed out on all the tournaments and fun sports when I was younger. I regret it everyday. I wish I played hockey the most. I can skate and play shinny now, but it's not the same.
Definitely soccer. Freshman year of college soccer quickly became my favorite sport* and unfortunately I've never played it. It is incredibly frustrating to love a sport so much and not be able to play it with even the slightest bit of skill. However, my lack of foot dexterity didn't stop me from playing intramurals where I proceeded to commit dirty challenges and score an own goal. *I say this with hesitancy, seeing as how it is march and I've already become stricken with NCAA tournament fever.
I'm the same with baseball. My parents would sign me up, but I always played in the rec league because I didn't know better. Until I was 16, then I finally started playing travel. Really wish I'd have taken a different route on that one.
Lacrosse - its a sport that isn't played everywhere, and I just wish I could have been somewhere it was played. It looks like a ton of fun, and it seems like a sport I could have been really good at. Golf - I love playing it now, but I didn't pick up a club until I was 16 or 17. That's just too late to pick the game up and come anywhere close to being good without devoting time that I don't have to the game.
I was a fat, non-athletic kid. Music was always my forte, but it doesn't exactly help with social skills and general health. If I could go back, I would force myself to have been more athletic and actually play sports instead thinking I would never be good enough. Because I thought that, I just never tried. That is one of my biggest regrets ever. Strength and athleticism as a child, if maintained, leads to healthier adulthood, imo. I'm in shape now and workout every day, but I can't reclaim those lost years and would not have had to play catch-up in the present. I also would have picked a harder major in college instead of taking the easy route. That decision would have steered me away from law school and into medical school where I really belong.
I just recently took up snowboarding, and man I wish I would have been more involved with winter sports as a kid. I spend most of my day eating snow while 5 year old kids do jumps and tricks.
Rock climbing. I've been climbing for about three years, and I'm decent, but no where near as good as I would like. I just don't have the time to go to the gym as much as you need to get really good. Whenever I'm there I see kids destroying routes that I couldn't even start.
I wish I had started playing lacrosse earlier than I did. I played my sophomore year as a midfielder, and switched to defense for my last two years. I was All-Area (not first team, but still) my senior year with only two years at the position. If I had started playing when I was in elementary, or even middle school, I probably could have played D1.
Mixed martial arts. I wasted my time on soccer and hockey as a kid and then baseball all through high school. I got into boxing when my parents finally realized I wasn't going to be a MLB pitcher and finally let me try it. I was very good at boxing (still pretty decent). MMA didn't exist then as it does now but if it had I think I would have been very successful with it.
We don't want to give the impression that lacrosse is open for the poor or middle class, or even the upper middle class. We don't want our game sullied by the underclass. Let the dirty hordes, the festering proletariat, stick to boxing or whatever it is that they watch to distract themselves from their many failures in life. (not mine, obviously) In all seriousness though, I have to call bull shit on the bolded section of your quote. A lot of my former HS teammates and close family members went on to play at top D-1 schools (Princeton, UVA, Maryland, Brown, Navy, just to name a few), and not just anyone has that athletic skill. I was a top ranked HS player in a very good region and only went to play D-3 (I could have gone to shitty D-1 schools, but that's no good). Of my former teammates I just mentioned, 3 of them never played lacrosse before high school, and 2 of them went on to play at UVA and win a National Championship (1 of them was even a 1st team All American), and 1 went on to play at West Point. You either have it as an athlete or you don't, there's no "Oh if I started earlier then I would be D-1." Focus: I wish I had got more into fishing/hunting/outdoorsy stuff at a younger age. I went camping a few times with my grandfather, but my old man was (is) a jock, and therefore all my attention was focused on sports when I was younger. If for no other reason, I just wish I had more outdoor skills. When I go fishing or hunting with friends, I'm always the guy who knows the least and needs a little tutoring along the way.
There's plenty of people for whom that holds true. Not everyone, obviously, but your friends are the exception rather than the rule. It's both athleticism AND countless hours playing the game that makes you good, not one or the other. I wish I could have played one or two sports when I was younger, rather than...everything. Really though, lacrosse is the only sport I've never played in some sort of league (fuck you if you rep this with curling). I'm no amazing athlete, but I was pretty good at most things. What sucks is that I'm not great at one thing, and I could have been had I just stuck with one sport year round. It sucks but hey, I can't really re-live my childhood.
I wasnt fat, I was short, but I agree with both of your topics. Two things about sports, one my parents were as far from sports parents as one could be so they didn't push any sports on me at all, two, I was short for my age and this dissuaded my mom from entering me into sports programs my friends where in elementary school (I'd have been placed in much younger groups she said). Thus I never experienced the team building and confidence building aspects youth sports provide. By the time I was talked into wrestling in 8th grade (less a team sport and heavy on the punishment) I couldnt have cared less about sports. I too wish I had chosen a major that I truly wanted. I took business because it was the easy route that could "lead into anything I wanted." There was a media degree at the music college at UC that was my real dream major. The music departments seemingly stringent vetting process coupled with my below average GPA lead me to not even apply for the program. A few months before I graduated I talked with some kids in the media program and they laughed when I questioned them on how hard it was to get in. Apparently they wanted the program to grow and where letting any transfers in if their entrance essays were half decent. I wanted to kick my own ass.