I grew up playing every sport.
I did every sport under the sun while growing up.
I grew up playing basketball and baseball. I've always been active because my dad played professional football, so sports and working out have always been a part of my life.
I am an arena creature - by birth, I think. Most of my life has been spent as a rink rat.
I grew up in the USTA's junior circuit.
I grew up playing everything from rugby, football, baseball, volleyball, bike races and boxing. I tried martial arts, loved to ride horses and I'm the youngest of three brothers, so it was a fiercely competitive family.
I grew up in a town with a great wrestling tradition. Then I was a team sport queen in high school; I played softball, volleyball, and soccer. Oh, and I also did ski racing.
I've always been athletic. Growing up in Puerto Rico, and being in the countryside, I was always running around. I also played volleyball, basketball, and I ran track. I was always very conscious of my body.
Before anyone ever cared where I would play basketball, I was a kid from Northeast Ohio. It’s where I walked. It’s where I ran. It’s where I cried. It’s where I bled. It holds a special place in my heart.
I'm still rough around the edges. I grew up with not a lot of money, and just played sports my whole life. So you develop the sports-mouth with all of your friends.
I was a Division III kid whose dad wasn't a coach.
I grew up in an athletic family. My dad played and my brother currently plays professional soccer, so I'm athletic.
I grew up in a football family, on the sideline. I was a waterboy. It was kinda something I was around my whole life.
I was athletic growing up and that was, of course, a big part of my household, but it wasn't something that I was necessarily passionate about.
I come from a football family which has really helped.
Both my parents were amateur badminton players. My father is a scientist and wanted me to be a doctor. But my mom was very aggressive and loved badminton. She pushed me right from the age of nine to take up the sport.
My parents put me in sports when I was 5 years old, and they put my sisters in sports. So that's what I grew up with, that mentality: "It's OK to want to be the best. Aggression is good." You have to have that little walk on the court or down the track. I love to put that into my female characters, because I don't think enough girls are taught that at a young age.
I had a very outdoorsy childhood. I was athletic and used to ride and do dressage. I could ride almost before I could walk. There is a picture of me at 18 months old sitting happily on the back of a donkey.
My whole family growing up played sports, so I'm definitely from a strong sporting background.
All my life, I have been surrounded by the track. The week I was born, Dad took me to training. I do recall at some stage being pushed around in a pram on a track. I have a lot of inspiration from him. To see him carrying the Sydney Olympic torch really ignited my dream. As a coach, he knows the in and outs of race walking and technique.
As a little kid, not only is my dad Jo-Jo White, but M. L. Carr is involved in the family, Red Auerbach is my godfather, and my stepmother was an Olympic-caliber sprinter. Athletes were all around. I happened to be a natural athlete. If I wasn't, it might have been hell. But I never got any pressure from my mom and dad to be an athlete.
We definitely have a football mentality. My dad was a football player also, so just growing up, that's how it was.
I come from a very sporty background because my mom is a gymnastics teacher. So growing up I was never sitting watching TV in the afternoons. I always played ball outside in the backyard.
