What sports do you play/have played/would like to play?

So, with more and more of the OT'ers confessing to being couch potatoes, I'm wondering who are the athletes around here.

I did TaeKwonDo for several years, won all championships I participated in, and always felt like a badass afterwards =P I worked my ass off with practicing, was really proud of my martial arts skills and thoroughly enjoyed it (minus the injuries =P). Also done some Jiu-jitsu but not nearly as extensively as TKD.

Since I moved to the Netherlands I am not as active in sports, mostly just cycling everywhere and I run some times. Need to find me something to do.

Lately I've been a bit obsessed with basketball but I'm probably too old (29yo) and too short (182cm/6f...I can dunk but I won't be at risk of headbutting the rim anytime soon XD) to start practicing.

How about you? What have you done in the past, what are you doing now, and what would you like to do? Also, how old are you?

In the past I've played basketball and tried out for football in high school until a knee injury took me out of the game.

Now, I lift about 4 days a week. My bad knees stop me from playing any kind of sport and I can't even jog (which I loved). So, I stick to free weights and walks about 2 hours a day. That keeps my mind off the fact that I'm jobless and the stress involved with that.

On a daily basis? I bike ride close to 70 miles on most days and play basketball with a group of strangers whenever I'm out on one of those bike rides...

I've played Football, tried out for track, and tried out for Baseball back in High School...

@jasean79: Yeah, being jobless sucks...just for that I won't make a "took an injury to the knee" joke. Seriously though, I've had my share of injuries in TKD, some quite bad, but other than some leftover pain and spasms (mostly on my shoulder blades) I have no permanent damage.

@tocool340@jasean79: So you both play(ed) basketball...how tall are you guys? =)

@korvus: I'm about 6 feet tall. I was never that good at basketball, so I didn't stick with it.

And yeah, having bad knees really sucks. I'm not looking forward to getting older when arthritis becomes a major problem. Ugh.

@jasean79: Yeah, my knees aren't in mint condition anymore either with all the jumping, the kicking (and being kicked) and the sometimes messed up landings...

@korvus:

I know you mentioned you won multiple karate tournaments in the past. Do you have any footage of that?

@jasean79: My school probably does, but nothing online. The master always recorded the tournaments so we could review the tapes afterwards. My family never showed any interest in being there so I never had anyone to film it for me. Even the trophies were stored in the school.

Actually, now that I think of it, I do have one trophy at home and I did not win every tournament...there was this one time where the final round was me and a girl that broke her ankle 2 rounds before...that thing was purple, swollen to hell and she could barely stand on it but she wanted to keep going, so I stepped down, and got 2nd place...the master said I could keep that one...guess anything under 1st place did not deserve his attention XD

I've tried a lot of things, but I played hockey for about 10 years and I skied a bunch in college (before that too, but not much in the way of formal training until college). I've been playing a bunch of soccer over the past few years but only pickup games.

I do want to get back into hockey though. I'd just have to rebuy a lot of the equipment (hockey has a shit load of gear) and the decent leagues for my age group would be a big commute.

The 3 main sports I played in middle school were basketball, baseball, and volleyball. Volleyball was my favorite. In high school I ran Cross Country and did Track & Field. Wish I would have continued with volleyball and basketball, but I was too much of a lame ass.

I was on a football team in middle school. I started practicing martial arts in high school and have been doing it ever since. I know mixed martial arts comprised of Muay Thai, boxing, and Tae Kwon Do as well as Brazilian jiujitsu. I also know some Karate. When classes start next month, I will be joining my school's Karate club and enrolling in a course for it. It will be Isshinryu Karate if you are curious. Wrestling is also an interest of mine.

I am 24 years old.

Played soccer from the age of 8-10 as center back and keeper. Played football (american) all through high school as a Mike, strong side Defensive End and a 5 on the kickoff team <- that was fun-.

Used to play basketball every Wednesday with a bunch of friends late at night, but that's kind of petered out for some reason which sucks because that was really the only real exercise I got during the week. Was going strong for almost 2 years.

I played organized soccer when I was young, but I still play some in the school yard with friends from time to time. I did Karate and reached Yellow Belt.

I've also played ice hockey for the last 6 years but I think I'm going to have to stop this year since I'm starting CEGEP (equivalent of college here in quebec) which is going to require more studying, and I've heard from friends that starting at my age group the practices start at 11:30 PM and finish at 1:00 AM. The last thing I need is to be a zombie at school!

I played baseball growing up when I was younger, but enjoyed it much though I wanted to, it was the same thing every year, new team I didn't like, coaches son was a douche, I did okay I just didn't like the experience. Did that from 1st grade up until 6th grade.

I liked basketball more, mainly because I played for a small private school team at the church my parents were members of, we were a good team and I liked the kids on the team, and we were the same team year after year so we worked good together and new what to expect from each other and we also had the same coaches and we turned out to be a really good team. I ended up going to school their for my middle school years. I was best as a forward. I didn't play any more sports after basketball. Played from 3rd to 8th grade.

In high school the only competitive anything I did was chess for the junior and senior years.

Till college i used to play soccer on defense, after passing college just gym.

I don't like playing sports.

Everybody seems to have played basketball at one point or another...where are you guys from? All from the US?

I played football(the real one, the european) throughout most of my 12 years of school and some table tennis in high-school. I'm pretty mediocre, nothing to be proud of, at least not good enough for the "cool" guys to want me to play with them... Have also tried basketball in middle-school but I wasn't good at it. Haven't really played any sports these past 3 years in university.

Currently I'm in the countryside so I ride my bicycle every day and do some swimming but I'll be back home soon. I've been wanting to play tennis for some years now, should really find time for it at some point. I'm 21 years old(and I just realized that I'm not athletic enough to have made this reasonably big post lol).

@johnd13: I might start tennis with the wife, or something else we can do together. I really want to try basketball but I'm kind of at a loss on the "how". There are outdoors basketball courts everywhere (have one in front of my house and about 5 more in a 1km range around my house)...but only kids/teens play...I feel a bit awkward approaching a group of 15yo and say "hey, can I join?". Also searched for some basketball clubs in the area but their "seniors" teams only takes people up to 20yo....

@korvus: Your best bet would be grouping with some friends. At least for some time in order to get in the spirit of playing basketball. It's true that mostly teens can be seen in courts but I'm sure there are people of your age(no offense :P) as well. You'll just need to look a little harder. Try asking people and friends, someone has to know.

@johnd13: Why would I take offense at being close to my 30's? XD But yeah, don't really have all that many friends that are interested in sports...everybody cycles everywhere here, so they don't care to get extra exercise in XD

I'm from the UK, but in the passed I was a mean Football/Soccer player, messed around as a kid and was pretty good, played for a couple of teams in my late teens, also played alot of Cricket which is boring as hell at times, but what other sport do you sit down half way through and have food and drinks lol, also had a couple of years of boxing never thought but I trained hard, now I went through a rough patch of drink and drugs, come out the other side to not drinking or doing anything my only guilty pleasure is a cigarette one a day if that, trying to get back into shape but god dam once you've got into lazy mode I can honestly tell you it's so hard to get motivated again, I've never had this problem but now i do, honestly feel like i'm passed it and will never be fit again even tho i'm only 26, silly mind set i know but that's what being out of shape does for you.

Did karate for a couple of months (I was like 8 or 9) but the schedule was too messy for my parents so I had to give it up. Took basketball clinics for a couple of years when I was like 11-12 and played in a tournament but not much basketball after that. When 15-16 took some table tennis training and until my table died I played all the time with my brother.

Now it is the gym and I'm thinking about taking up cycling.

i love playing soccer... ;)

I apologise for bringing this thread from almost-page-3 (=P) but I thought I should give it a follow-up. Since everybody seems to have played basketball and I really wanted to try, I found myself a team, talked to the coach, and I'm going to start playing basketball with them. He gave me a choice between recreational team or competition team, so I said competition, obviously =P Season starts at the end of August and I'll be doing the training with them (but not the actual games yet); coach said that if I pick it up quickly I'll be allowed to stay in the competition team, if not I'll have to join the recreational team.Guess I have a lot of work to do (if any basketball players have suggestions, please let me know).

Also, thank you to everyone who replied...nice to see that there's still physically active people in OT.

I actually did Tae-Kwon-Do as well. Got my black belt before my family and I had to stop (it costs lots of money...).

Now that I am following baseball I really would LOVE to play baseball. I worry though that at 25 it is kind of too late to jump into a sport like that...

Still like hitting the batting cage though!

@LostProphetFLCL: Nice. I quite enjoyed my TKD time =)

As for baseball, might be a bit late to play professionally but as an amateur, I don't see why it would be too late. (like I said in my post, I'm 29 and I'm going to start basketball)

I used to play a lot of basketball, football baseball/softball and other stuff growing up. 2006 was the last time I really played often and it seems since 2008, softball during the summer seems the only thing I been playing.

So for the people who replied so far; what made you give up the sports that you played? Was it a "school thing" and you didn't pick it back up after you graduated, or was it something else??

For me in the old days, it was easy to just go out and play. 2008-present I got to seek it.

I used to play a lot of futbol from my elementary school years right up to a few years ago. Because of my right knee, I now do only short indoor soccer scrimmage or just juggle the soccer ball.

I also play basketball although again, because of my right knee, I play mostly half court scrimmage or games such as 21 and H-O-R-S-E. Ha Ha!

Edit:

Oh. I also did some track and field (100m and 200m dash/relay). But, that was only during intramurals back in HS. I also did a lot of swimming after all the above. But, that's just to cool off.

Yeah TKD is a lot of fun. Unfortunately not the most practical martial art for self defense though.

Still does wonders to develop your balance and reflexes though!

@jun_aka_pekto:

What happen to your knee? What is short indoor soccer scrimmages? And half court can be just as an intense as full court.

@jun_aka_pekto: Sorry to hear about your knee...that sucks...with all the jumping and kicking and whatnot from my martial arts days, my knees aren't all that great either...hopefully that won't affect my ability to play basketball much.

Yep, TKD is mostly a "show" martial art....although in the streets what you want (for safety reasons) is a one-hit KO...a lot of people find grappling martial arts to have the edge (and they wouldn't be wrong) but the longer you struggle with someone,the more chance there is for you to get hurt, especially since in a lot of jiu-jitsu dojos and especially "self defense classes" the aggressor just stands there and be grappled...in real life as soon as you grab someone you get punched in the face so fast and precise is the way to go for me, and in that light TKD is not so useless...you'd be surprised how many people get knocked out with a swift kick to the jaw before they even have time to realise what's going on since they think you're "out of range".

Still, it's hard to get proper defense training that applies in the real world...a neighbor of mine joined the army last year and they had disarm lessons (which means a guy just pointed a rubber knife at them and waited for them to take it from him...very realistic) so when he got a knife pointed at him he thought "I got this shit" so when he reached for it he got stabbed in the arm, then a crap ton of times while his brain was screaming "What the ****? I got stabbed...I don't know what to do now!!!". In my opinion, the safest bet is to avoid trouble to begin with...

He He. Age. My right knee is simply weaker than my left knee. That plus my right knee has taken more hits during my soccer days. At the gym I go to, we have small moveable goals (similar to hockey) and felt-covered indoor soccer balls. We place the goals across the width (50 feet) of the basketball court rather than its length and scrimmage, usually 3v3 or 5v5. It's non-contact, so it isn't too hard on my right knee. My right knee now has problems with long sustained sprints but not short ones....yet.

As for half court basketball, most of the action takes place inside the 3-point line. There's no long sprints like a full court fast break. Driving in for a layup from the perimeter isn't too bad.

Indoor soccer ball. It feels like a huge tennis ball:

Played high school Football (US) as Running Back. Wanted to play college football, but a neck and back injury from snowboarding hindered my progress.

@VERTIGO47: Ouch, sorry to hear that. Any permanent damage?

Fencing, got the second place in my nation as best, and i've gotten some 3rd and 4th places in some international tournaments. Handball regional champion(i, didn't do it national because there wasn't one), semi-proffesional football player before i got injured and things didn't go right. Also i did some karate and basketball

I am more a soccer player. I play a lot of futsal, thats also bad for you knee's. Anyway i would kick everyone's ass with futsal.

@The_Last_Ride: Impressive! =D Sad to see that injuries take so many people out of the picture =/ Hope you're ok now.

Just a little tingling and sharp pain that comes and goes. I've been taking pain killers for that. I'm 37 and I still get physical therapy every month. I've already had back surgery 4 times for my lower vertebrae to relieve pressure from my spinal disc. It was risky because the accident nearly paralyzed me.

@VERTIGO47: Still sucks, but considering what might have happened you were lucky. Can you still play low impact sports?

yeah i am alright, but schlatters and ancle injuries kept me on the sideline. I don't have any issues with it now, but breaking my collarbone didn't help either

@The_Last_Ride: Yeah, I had my shares of badly healed tears and broken bones (I was always too eager to get back on the horse)...for most part I don't notice it, but sometimes a little movement that is too sudden, or too much extra effort on cold muscles and it starts hurting (sneezes are the most painful thing I ever experienced...think I have a nerve that gets pinched between my vertebrae when I sneeze)

yeah got a fucked up nerve in my elbow after been fouled by a keeper on to gravel, needless to say he got red card. But i couldn't feel my fingers for about a week. And also military intervened by getting drafted. So life just happend

I wrestled and played baseball competitively from elementary school through HS. I wrestled (folkstyle) from 5th grade until 12th. I walked on at a Division I university's baseball team as a freshman...baseball was the sport I took most seriously by far.

I played a bunch of other sports, mostly recreationally. I grew up in Indiana, so naturally I played a good deal of basketball. I also played some American Football (which I didn't really enjoy), dabbled with boxing, track and field, and cross country running.

These days I just lift weights, play golf, and alpine ski.

@The_Last_Ride: Oh well, we do the best we can with what we're given, right?

Yup, pretty much