Sports: How far did you go?

[Forbin]

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I was an all-american in swimming (distance freestyle) in college. It was D3, but all-american nonetheless.

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I played D3 soccer in college and was on the all-regional team my senior year (step below all-america), even though i only played 12 games before blowing out my knee. I probably could have walked on and played D1 somewhere, but I was one of those nerds who picked my school based on academics.

Now I dominate the LA park district leagues...

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You actually get some pretty good players in D3 sports. Not everyone wants the added pressure and time commitment of a D1 team.

Personally I was starting to get burned out on swimming at the end of high school. I quit my club team before my senior year in HS and just swam for my school. It was much more fun. Then I picked a college that had good academics, but wasn't *that* hard. I turned down some swimming scholarships elsewhere and took an academic one. Managed to squeek out a meager 3.4 while attending less than 50% of my classes and sporting a heavy drinking/partying habit.

I was a walkon on the swim team (wasn't sure if I was going to swim or not, so I just decided once I was there), and surprisingly enough there were several others like me that freshman year. We wound up with a team that was half freshman, and in one intrasquad exibhition the freshman team barely lost to the rest of the team. I think going with the more relaxed D3 school was a much, much better choice, at least for me.

[prohornblower]

Not far (in baseball). I didn't make my HS baseball squad (class size of about 650), basically because of my size. Only 5'5" 115 at Frosh tryout. All those who made it were 5'9" or taller. Interesting strategy by our moronic coach. One of those who got cut for being little now has a WS ring. Yes, THAT WS. So that helps alleviate some of the pain. Soph year I tried out for 2nd base again and didn't make it. I think it was pretty hard to break in at that point considering they already had a 2nd baseman for a whole season.

Junior year I moved to a bigger school with a better team so I didn't even try out. Same for Senior year. Even though at this point I'm 6'0" 175.

After a 10 year break I got back into playing at age 24 in a local Men's hardball league. I've been playing on and off for 3 years now and really enjoy it. The league is full of former HS ballers, college ballers, and even minor leaguers. And the occassional player like myself who played none of those.

I'd say my greatest accomplishment in this league to-date occured this summer when, in a 4 game span, I went yard from both sides of the plate. The first was left-handed on a 2-1 curveball right over the plate, and the 2nd was right-handed on an 0-2 fastball up and out over the plate versus a former STL Cardinals minor leaguer, and fellow player on my Winter team. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

I consider myself a multi-tool player who can play 2nd, 3rd, and pitcher, and catcher in an emergency situation, and who has a good combo of speed, power, and versatility being a switch-hitter. I've never been thrown out stealing and probably have around 30 steals in this league. I don't bunt and probably suck at it anyway.

Over my last 106 AB's, I'm hitting .377 with a SLG% of .585
That includes about 10 doubles, a few triples, and two bombs.

I plan on playing in this league for years and years. I want my kids to be able to watch their daddy play ball since I only ever got to watch my dad play beer-league softball. lol.

[M2d]

lol @ park and rec leaguers who know all of their stats

[Boris]

Senior HS varsity track and X-country.

[SoCalRugger]

Played varsity tennis in high school all 4 years. Didn't play football, which I really regret now.

College, played DII rugby for 3 years, going to Nationals each year. Haven't played in grad school, even though Oregon State has a pretty good team. Not enough time. Once I figure out where I'm going to be living after this, I'll join a club team.

[terrapin314]

Ahh, just HS Football with minimal honors.

My one story: After watching a game film where I stomped on the back of this kid's knee after a play (the kid was running his mouth all game). The coach stopped the film and stands up and points his finger at me and says, "You, son - are the dirtiest player I have seen in 30 years of football."

All the guys started snickering and really got the coach really pissed off. Running ensued.

[helloimcdog]

soccered for 4 years of high school and now i'm a coach because my lazy butt quit even though i had a spot on my college team. however, 7 freshmen were shaven and covered in tabasco sauce for hazing, so i win

[Chicago]

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But ultimately the next step led me to coaching. I always was good with coaches and the players and worked my tail off and that realy helped in landing me a job. I got a job as an assistant on both the men's and woman's team for the same college team I played for the year before.


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What exactly do golf coaches do? Do they actually instruct? I imagine it's different for college than high school, but my high school coach was pretty much just the organizer. He could play, and could help JV with some basic issues, but other than that, he wasn't doing much swing instructing. Seemed like a sweet way to earn a few more thousand a year for a high school teacher.

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I handled a lot of things actually. The head coach had a few girls that were on the LPGA tour at the time and I think one still is so I had a lot of responsbility. As far as full swing mechanics I didn't do much. I did work a lot with players on there short game that is my speciality. And actually saw a lot of flawed mechanics and more importantly flawed mindsets when it came to the game around the greens.

Recruting was key part of my job, maintaining the budget, co-ordinating different trips with the athletic department, fundraising, and I did a lot with academics because that was what I was interested in... making sure the bastards are going to class, doing what they are supposed to be doing, and holding study sessions.

All together it was a crap load of work but I had the best head coach ever, very laid back and there was hardly ever any stress involved.

Chicago

[DirtyDiggs]

7 years of Crew. 4 at a very competitive high school program and 3 in College.

Made finals at Stotesbury and twice at nationals in High school; Made finals at Dadvail one year of College. We had the #1 high school program in the country in our immediate division, so it was a lesson in humility at times (Finised 3rd in the City and 7th in the country one year)
College wasn't relatively as hard core a program, but was great for two reasons: 1)My Coach for the majority of the time was a Grad student and decided to have practice from 4-7:30 pm, so you could still have a life. THis also attracted alot more "normal" guys that were alot of fun. 2.) The south sucks at rowing. It was fun to be able to finally beat up on the competition for once. Plus it was quite an ego boost to have our ragtag group win over all these guys that look like greek statues.

[mason55]

My HS class was wicked athletic. I couldn't keep up in most sports, although I was varsity goalie in Ice Hockey for two years. We were alright for a team in the midwest but we could never keep up with the private catholic schools.

I didn't bother with football, soccer, swimming, tennis, or lacrosse in high school although I did them all at one point in my life. We sent so many kids to D1 schools on full scholarships for those sports it was ridiculous. We won Ohio state football championship D1 my senior year and in the USA Today top 10 in the country, swimming/water polo 3 or 4 of my years, lacrosse we went to the east coast and were in top 5 nationally for a long time, etc.