Your own involvement in sports

[Alphabet Man]

Theres enough talk here about professional leagues and athletes.... but not enough talk about our own sports. I figured this could be a place where you can let people know how well you played/performed etc...

As for me, I run, cycle (road/mtb), swim, kayak, adventure race and compete in triathlons. I'm not great, but I like to challenge myself. My highlight is running a marathon in 2008, something I hope to do again one day.

[Magnus]

I shoot hoops in summer and sled in winter. Occasionally I will go on hiking trails in all seasons.

Nothing resembling 'organized' sports for me, though.

[SFCOM1]

I am a High School and Jr College official for Football and Baseball. I am also a contract Umpire for the SF Giants for extended Spring Training.

[Ez Street]

I played/sat on the sidelines for two years of High School football. But that was 15 years ago.

I helped run a Summer Collegiate Baseball team last year and will still be involved with them this upcoming season. I do graphic work for our local Junior A hockey team here and have helped out on a few occasions with our Indoor Football team. I used to write a weekly article in the local newspaper about our hockey team. I currently blog for the same newspaper about Sporting Kansas City.

So, yeah. Not much to do with sports in my household.....

[charger77]

I play league hockey (ice) and lift weights 5-6 days a week.

Back in the day...

Football 8th-12th grade.

Wrestling 11th & 12th grade.

[Lee.]

I tried to buy an ABA franchise with boardmembers' money.

[Panhead1]

I played city league basketball from ages 10-15. I was only good at rebounding, defense, and strategic fouling.

I played church league soccer for three years until I was 12. Over those three seasons I scored 8 goals and had 7 assists in 17 games, including 1 goal and 3 assists in one game in my second season.

I also used to play city league football. Aged out when I was 15. Played free safety. Along with many bonecrushing hits I had 16 interceptions in four years. I returned three of them for touchdowns. Also played some wide reciever before my coach realized that I have terrible hands.

[FiddySicks]

I played college rugby for two years, one of which was at the D1 level, untill I got hurt in a car accident back in December of 2008. Now I'm out of organized sports, but I snowboard nearly every day.

[infrared41]

Excellent. A chance for me to brag about playing baseball. From age 10 through high school I played baseball. I was a catcher. Great defense, good left handed hitter, moderate power at best. My throwing arm was accurate but I did not have a cannon. I was actually scouted by the Reds and the Phillies. Nothing ever came of it but they did take a good look at me. My defense and batting average got their attention. My guess is my arm probably cost me a shot.

After high school there were no baseball leagues to play in so I was stuck with playing softball in Toledo for the next 10 years. I stopped playing softball when I moved to Syracuse in 1990. In July of 1994 one of the guys I worked with told me about an adult baseball league team that was looking for players. So at age 33 I started playing baseball again. (This is where the real bragging begins ) The team I joined was already about 5 games into their season. I had no chance to practice with them and I had not seen an overhand pitch since 1979.

After one trip to the batting cage I showed up to play my first baseball game in 15 years. I got ten pitches of BP before the game and that along with a half hour in a batting cage was the entirety of my preparation for my first baseball game in 15 years. I must have shown them something in BP because they put me at first base and had me batting clean-up. In my first at-bat I struck out looking. Some 19 year old dropped a curve ball over the outside corner on me. My next at-bat as I was getting into the box I said to the catcher "God I hope he doesn't throw that curve again." So what does the catcher do? Like a dumbass he calls for the curve. Well I'm looking for it this time so I drilled that to left center for a double. To make a long story short... In what was literally my first baseball game in 15 years I went 2-4 with a double and three RBI.

I ended up hitting .360 and leading the league in RBI. Not bad for a guy who hadn't played in 15 years. (hey I warned you all that I was going to brag about this)

The baseball league lasted that season and half of the 1995 season before it fell apart. After that I played softball for one season in Syracuse and for one last season here in Ohio in 2003. Now the only sports I play take place on the TV screen through my PS3. I hit .328 with 34 HR and 103 RBI for the MLB 10 The Show Giants last season.

[Gothamite]

Very cool.

I played a lot of organized sports as a kid. Soccer and baseball throughout my childhood, tennis (mostly doubles) in high school. As an adult, I'm strictly a solo act. I cycle, run (I'm in the NYC half-marathon next spring), and hike. My highlight was climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro last October.

I'd love to play organized sports again, but just don't have the time.

[Sport]

Played football from fifth grade through 9th grade. Hated 90% of it. The only thing I enjoyed was playing in the games and by 9th grade I wasn't even doing that.

Played hockey fro the age of 8 up until the present. I actually spent the weekend on a pond. In high school I played varsity ice hockey for 4 years. Blue Jackets cup champions, and allconference honorable mention my senior year. Loved every minute of it. Still play in pickup games and I just joined a men's league. I honestly feel sorry for those of you who have never played hockey. From an actual participation standpoint it blows every other sport out of the water.

I played baseball from tee-ball age through high school. I managed to play varsity baseball my last 2 years without ever playing school ball before and without ever playing on a travel team as a kid. I'm somewhat proud of that. I hated every minute of high school ball, but I started enough games at shortstop to get "baseball" along with "hockey" put on the back of my letterman's jacket. Some losers only had one sport, I had two. Oh yes, I had a letterman's jacket and I'm not going to apologize, that thing was awesome. Crazy warm too.

[slapshot]

Never played any high school sports. PLayed softball in a few adult leagues over the next few years.

Currently I officiate 3 sports: baseball, basketball and football. I work all levels of football except college, including semi-pro. I work high school and youth basketball, and various amateur levels of baseball.

I love being involved in sports. You can still be a fan of the game while being an unbiased arbiter of its rules, and it's great to be paid to do something you enjoy.

[charger77]

Played football from fifth grade through 9th grade. Hated 90% of it. The only thing I enjoyed was playing in the games and by 9th grade I wasn't even doing that.

Played varsity ice hockey for 4 years. Blue Jackets cup champions, and allconference honorable mention my senior year. Loved every minute of it. Still play in pickup games and I just joined a men's league. I honestly feel sorry for those of you who have never played hockey. From an actual participation standpoint it blows every other sport out of the water.

Played varsity baseball my last 2 years. Hated every minute of it, but I started enough games at shortstop to get "baseball" along with "hockey" put on the back of my letterman's jacket. Some losers only had one sport, I had two. Oh yes, I had a letterman's jacket and I'm not going to apologize, that thing was awesome. Crazy warm too.

I had one too in the late 1990s are those thing out of style now?

[nash61]

I'm my college's mascot, so I'm at every varsity game.

I'm also part of an 8 person relay team that is running to raise $100,000 for an orphanage and feeding centre in Haiti.

Other than that, I play pick-up hockey and basketball.

[Sport]

Oh yes, I had a letterman's jacket and I'm not going to apologize, that thing was awesome. Crazy warm too.

I had one too in the late 1990s are those thing out of style now?

I wouldn't say so, they were big in my high school (I graduated in 06) and everyone on the hockey team had one, but occasionally people will tell me that they hated the jocks in their varsity jackets without knowing that I was one of those jocks with the varsity jacket.

[Jer15]

great topic.

I play beer league softball in the summer, indoor co-ed soccer all year, and hockey during the winter, both pick up and league.

I also bike every year in the MS Bike so I start training for that in June. My building has a small gym in it which I go to a couple times a week just to keep the cardio up and lift a little. I spend anywhere from 2 to 4 hours a week doing that.

[charger77]

Oh yes, I had a letterman's jacket and I'm not going to apologize, that thing was awesome. Crazy warm too.

I had one too in the late 1990s are those thing out of style now?

I wouldn't say so, they were big in my high school (I graduated in 06) and everyone on the hockey team had one, but occasionally people will tell me that they hated the jocks in their varsity jackets without knowing that I was one of those jocks with the varsity jacket.

Ah the people that were jealous of you!

[crashcarson15]

Well, currently I play JV basketball as a forward for my school, and in springs I start at third base for our baseball team. On the bragging front, last year our Varsity team was overbooked with games, so one of their games (against a Varsity team) was given to us JVs. I scored 20 points in that game, including going 7/8 from the line (I shot 30% from the line last year ), but we still lost like 95-63.

However, baseball is definitely the sport that I'm better at. My batting average was actually up around .500 last year for a good chunk of the season, however a late-season slump brought me down into the high .300s (something like .383 on the year sounds right. I might edit this once I look and find the actual numbers). For whatever reason, my BABIP seems to be unusually high, and I've never hit a true home run in my life. I started every game for my team at 3rd base last year, and was undoubtedly our best fielder (as a freshman). I also pitch a bit, but quite frankly I'm not that good at it.

[wildwing64]

I played for my university's American Football team, the Anglia Ruskin Phantoms, in the first semester of my first year there. Only reason I joined the team was because a friend was doing the same, so I thought "Why not" (Bear in mind that this sort of thing in the UK is run like a society rather than however it's done in the NCAA).

In the four games that I dressed for, I played for about 20 seconds in three of them, while spending the remainder of those games along with the entirety of the fourth doing nothing and freezing my arse off. My most memorable moment was somebody on another team slamming into me, sending me into a cartwheel that had me balancing on my helmet for a brief moment before I fell on my back. It didn't hurt much if at all, and was actually quite funny. If only someone there shot a video of it

At some point after quietly leaving the team, I along with the aforementioned friend of mine helped to develop their website, even chucking together a nice wordmark for them and making their upside down Photoshop flame shape logo look a bit more presentable. But alas, they got rid of that in favour of a bland white outlined version of their upside down Photoshop flame shape logo and replacing the wordmark with freaking ARIAL.

Then so-and-so left the team, a full-of-himself coach (who claims to have been a walk-off for the South Carolina Gamecocks) effectively took over and made an attempt to change the Phantoms from the "play for fun" society that they were to more of a "SRS BSNS" winning team. That failed, because nobody wants to play for them anymore, one of their few remaining players broke his arm and now the team has forfeited the season.

[infrared41]

Oh yes, I had a letterman's jacket and I'm not going to apologize, that thing was awesome. Crazy warm too.

I had one too in the late 1990s are those thing out of style now?

I wouldn't say so, they were big in my high school (I graduated in 06) and everyone on the hockey team had one, but occasionally people will tell me that they hated the jocks in their varsity jackets without knowing that I was one of those jocks with the varsity jacket.

Ah the people that were jealous of you!

No. I think they just hated him on principal. It probably had something to do with that "some losers only had one sport" comment. (Just kidding McCarthy)

On varsity jackets, our TV station does a lot of high school sports and we're around the students a lot but I don't recall seeing more than maybe one or two jackets in the three years we've been doing games. The team we cover is in a suburb of Cleveland. However, I live in a rural part of Ohio and out this way I see a lot of varsity jackets. I'm wondering if it's just a big city/small town thing. The city kids don't wear them but the small town kids do.