I was an All-American in wrestling in high school was National Champion in Chinese kickboxing in 1999 and have spent a lot of time around professional athletes which includes my eight-plus years as CEO of a sports nutrition company.

As an example one of the schools I have been studying is too small to compete effectively in most sports but participates with vigor each year in the state music contests.

I always loved the way music made me feel. I did sports at school and all but when I got home it was just music. Everybody in my neighborhood loved music. I could jump the back fence and be in the park where there were ghetto blasters everywhere.

One of my first jobs was at the Boston Globe. I worked in the sports department six months a year. When I was ready to graduate the sports editor gave me a job as a schoolboy sports writer.

I was a ballplayer but only for a limited time. I grew up playing in Wisconsin. It's a very sports-centric part of the country that I grew up in and I played a lot of sports but baseball first and foremost. I played through high school. I was a middle-infielder.

I worked at my high school newspaper at Andover which came out weekly unusual for a high school paper. Then my first day at Penn I went right to the 'Daily Pennsylvanian' and pretty much spent most of my college career working both as the sports editor and then editor of the editorial page.

I played a lot of other sports at school and just one day the golf bug bit me and I started playing serious golf from when I was ten years old.

I think life is sort of like a competition whether it's in sports or it's achieving in school or it's achieving good relationships with people. And competition is a little bit of what it's all about.

We all know that girls who compete in sports perform better in school are physically healthier and have a stronger self-esteem.

I was sports editor for my high school newspaper but I think I shied away from journalism.

When you're a child no matter if you're doing show business or sports or school or anything you just want to make the adults happy.

I never really was that passionate about playing sports. But when I was at this Mt. Herman school I did have the ability to throw the frisbee. So when this sport evolved it was fun because I was good at it.

As a sophomore I wanted to play varsity in three sports. And I accomplished that. It was a great feat that year and something I held special. I wanted to bring a championship team to Oceanside High School and it happened. It was a great year that I will never forget.

I had no interest in sports so I didn't make friends in that traditional way where kids are in public school and they go and they join clubs and play sports. So I kind of had to find my own way to make friends and get attention and so I just was the class clown.

I didn't go to normal children school. I went to sports school when I was 8. So I studied martial arts.

When I was in elementary school we weren't allowed to do sports other than cheerleading. By junior high they let us play but we had to come back after 6:30 p.m. to practice because there was only one gymnasium and the boys used it first.

In any small town sports are really important to the high school and I wasn't very good at sports.

Of course in our grade school in those days there were no organized sports at all. We just went out and ran around the school yard for recess.

It sounds like a cliche but it... you do sing about what you know about. And I grew up in a small town and I grew up in a place where your whole world revolved around friends family school and church and sports.

My parents couldn't handle my energy so they enrolled me in every sport the school was offering. I didn't resent it because I loved sports and picked them up easily.

Academe n.: An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy n.: A modern school where football is taught.

And from a military school which taught me that to fit into society you can't just do anything you damn well please because it will suit you. And that it's much better to be with the winners than it is with the losers.

The conception that instead of this contemporary society is at or near a turning point is very prominent in the views of a school of social scientists who though they are still comparatively few are getting more and more of a hearing.

The public school has become the established church of secular society.