By Lucas

I have been a huge sports fan all of my life. Members of the NPP community can attest to this; I love sports so much that sometimes I can’t pick only one team per sport to root for (GO METS SOX!). Well, there was a period of my life where I was quite anti-social and the closest thing to a sport I was into was wrestling, not the best of times, but that’s not why I’m here.

As well as watching a lot of sports like your average couch potato, I’ve played a few in my life. Despite struggles with weight and conditioning, never being in great shape since the later stages of my childhood and all of that … I’ve had my fair share of sports experiences. Here are my success stories:

Growing up in Uruguay, South America, I was a Soccer fan, like everybody else. I have fond memories of playing in the yard at school with my friends, getting into fights over games at recess (Yes, I had an attitude problem when I was a kid), and that led me to joining a team when I was 9 years old. We trained 2 days a week and played every Sunday. For a fat kid like me, this was the only workout I’d ever get. I tried to make the most of my playing days; obviously, since I couldn’t run a lot and my stamina was awful, I wasn’t a starter. I made up for that by being versatile, really versatile; I played every position in that team, including goalie. I’ve always been a decent goalie, although I dislike the position; too much responsibility. My biggest game of my young soccer career I guess would be the time that I scored twice against a team and we won 4-2. The first goal was me bullying my way to the inside after a rebound and getting a shot off, the second one was on a penalty kick that I wanted to place softly on the left side but I ended up kicking violently, high and to the middle. I only remember a few games like that where I scored and how I did it, but I don’t remember much else. The only thing I know for sure is that I sucked due to lack of conditioning among other things.

After this came my move to New York and my anti-social period where all I did was masturbate to porn videos found on KaZaA and watch wrestling, you could say I was an Ormberg in training back then. Fortunately, I made friends, and they introduced me to playing my favorite sport: Basketball.

I love Basketball. Anybody could play it. Man, if you’ve got a shot and some basketball IQ, you got a chance. I regret never playing in a league or anything, all of my b-ball playing was done at the park or a gym. I was heavy into basketball the first time I started losing weight and it sure helped. The only bad thing about it was that I sprained my ankle three times in about 6 months, and, I’m no doctor, but I’m sure there’s some permanent damage there. I feel like I could sprain that ankle any time now.

The large majority of my basketball experiences have been in New York. I played in Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn … anywhere. In Spain and Uruguay I barely played, mostly because I don’t have any friends that play basketball (they’d rather rent out an indoor soccer pitch and play than go to the park and shoot ball. Go figure). Most of the time, when not playing 1 on 1, I’d play either point guard or forward, depending on the game. I’m only 5′11, but due to my weight I’ve been able to  play forward, set picks, box out, basically the dirty work. This is a sport I want to try again in the future definitely, I feel like I can get hooked on playing it, and really, that’s the most important part. You got to like what you’re doing. Besides, I really miss playing it. My basketball life still can turn into an NPP success story!

I’d rather not go into indoor soccer since it’s more of a hobby. I play about twice a month with friends, sometimes more. It’s fun.

Baseball , I’ve barely played. Like the sport. My only memory of it is the time I was at a local park playing baseball with some instructors from a school (Not too sure), and I batting. Pitcher threw the ball, I swung … and released the bat, hitting a female instructor behind me in her groin area. Needless to say, I left. That was my introduction and exit to playing baseball.

Football I played a couple of times when it snowed. Tackle football, no two touch shit. That’s for girls. It was pretty fun. There’s actually a football league here in Uruguay and I went to try out for a team. After exchanging hits for a couple of hours, coming home and not being able to sleep because my neck and back hurt so damn bad, I decided that maybe football is not for me.

I trained in Boxing for about 2-3 months earlier this year. I liked it; the exercise, punching bags … the training was good. The actual boxing? Not so enjoyable. I wasn’t good at defending, so while I was able to dish out some punishment, I took a lot as well. The thing that I did learn is how to throw a punch. Now, every time I see a street fight or an incident on TV or whatever, I laugh at how the punches are thrown. Every man should know how to throw a punch the right way, no excuses.

Now, onto my latest passion: Running . I never liked running before; I thought, why run? It’s silly. It has no purpose. I never thought I’d get a thrill out of running. I figured that I could do running in soccer or basketball or whatever, but just running for the sake of it? Uh … lame as hell. That was me back then. Now? I love it.

I started, honestly, because of the aforementioned weight issues. I had done diets before, I had done exercise before, but I’d never combined the two. One day after finding myself about 23 pounds heavier than I’d like to be, I decided to take up running. The first time I went out, I jogged a mile without stopping then decided to lay on the grass before continuing. That day, I never did. Thankfully, I kept at it. I started going with friends. At first, the goal was to do 2 miles. Not only jogging, with walking in there and everything. Quickly, I started to gain endurance and stamina, not to mention confidence. It all escalates. To "feel" like a runner, I bought tights, running sneakers (Instead of running with old basketball ones), some Nike socks, and a tight dry-fit shirt. I started running less than 2 months ago, and in 6 days, I’m going to run my first 10km race (6.2 miles).  I’ll let you know how I do – it may be my first NPP Success story.