(S4) - PT #2 - Dual Sport Stars

[RedCydranth]

Marc Spector played several sports as a child and was actually a late comer to the sport of Football. As a kid he was involved in Little League Baseball, where he played shortstop. His favorite players of all time were Jimmy Rollins and Rafael Furcal. He won a championship one year and batted .289 on the season, one of the better players on the team. In the winter he went indoors and played Racquetball and Squash. His father was a Squash player by hobby with a lot of his friends from the big city, so he'd often play on another court with their children. He wasn't nearly as good at Squash as he was at baseball or football, but it helped him develop the ability to pivot fast and immensely increased his hand to eye coordination, something that immediately helped him in baseball and even still pays dividends in the NSFL. In college he dabbled in Frisbee Golf, but the preppy douchebags at Rice usually monopolized the best spots on campus and they rarely had enough room for extra players, so he spent most of his non-football life at campus watching sports on TV. Now that he is a professional football player, he doesn't have any time to play other sports. Plus you sometimes hear of players hurting themselves recreationally, and Marc never wants that to happen to him.

230 Words

[Lendoris]

New Orleans is rich for it's food and culture. Something that Calkewlated Chambers the Third had plenty exposure to growing up. One sect of New Orleans culture that has always fascinated Cal was a game that's been popular all over the world. It started when he was 9 years old. His father had taken him on a errand in the french quarter. While crossing the street he observed men sitting in the park playing a funny looking board game. Cal asked his father if they could approach the older gentlemen and see what they were doing. As they approached one of the older men knocked over a piece of the board game and walked away in defeat. Cal seeing such a reaction from a game both confused and fascinated him.

Fast forward 5 years. Cal was now sitting across from the third highest ranked chess player in the country. "How did he get this far?" he thought. From playing Chess on the street, to the classrooms, to tournament after tournament. His dad had long ago stopped playing with him when Cal had become good enough to defeat his parents in the classic strategy game. Cal was a national chess player. His path to becoming a champion was cut short when football started to take over his life. Nevertheless he was proud to be a national chess player with a national rank. Some don't consider Chess a sport, but he did.

word count : 240

[Den_Tex_Mix2]

Luke Washington has always been a lover of sports, from baseball to football, soccer, and track. Luke Washington was a true competitor. "I just loved to go up against others, the feeling of winning was always special to me since it made all the work that lead up to the victory be worth it." But one sport some may not have known that Luke had played was wrestling during his time in High School. "I didn't know a single thing about wrestling when I joined the team during 10th grade. I mostly did it because the wrestling coach was the Linebacker Coach and he wanted us to learn how to use our hands and have a better awareness of our body placement/movement." When asked about the level of his play Washington laughed and said " I wasn't really that good, I only knew a couple moves and most of the time I was just winging it, when I faced someone that actually knew what they were doing, I got my ass kicked, hahaha." In the end Luke saw his time in all of the other sports he had played as perfect preparation for his football career, teaching him how to handle winning and losing, being a great teammate, and learning how to get the most out of his coaches.

[The_Hero]

Gregory Fletcher played many sports as a youngster. From baseball to soccer, basketball and of course football. However the sport he excelled at when a child surprises most people, bowling. A ten year old Gregory was taken to his first ever bowling alley by his father Kevin Fletcher. Gregory immediately took to the sport scoring his first perfect score by the age of 12. However bowling was something he did more for fun than anything else. He never wanted to go pro and never took the sport seriously. It wasn't until middle school when Gregory decided to try out for the football team. He had come to love the sport as every Sunday him and his father would sit down to watch the game. His father was a hard working man that worked nearly 7 days a week but he always tried to take time to watch football with young Gregory. There he discovered he was a natural at the sport but most importantly he loved every minute of it. From the exhausting practices to the cheers of the crowd during game day. To this day Gregory still occasionally goes bowling with his now retired father. He doesn't score quite as high when he was a kid but he still enjoys the sport.

213 words

[Roly]

Darren Morris was always a big athlete. It was his favourite past time after school, or on weekends, or during recesses to grab some equipment and a group of friends to play different sports. Basketball was an early favourite for Morris, his quick development in height let him score more points than friends and he was always one of the fastest kids on the court. It was a dynamic duo that led to basketball being an early sport in Morris’ development.

However, basketball began to get less and less attention as other kids caught up to Morris’ height. Attention differed and landed on two sports, neither of which were football: baseball and hockey. During the winter months Morris would strap on skates and grab a stick to play in the local rinks, while during the summer it was a bat and glove to join local junior leagues as a terrific third baseman. Those two sports contributed in two very different ways to Morris’ eventual change to football: his footwork skills from endless days on the ice and his hands from long summer evenings in the baseball diamond.

It wasn’t until Morris was in the later stages of middle school that he fell in love with football. Initially starting as a receiver, it wasn’t long until he was tapped to join the defensive backs. With an intelligence for the sport, credited to hockey’s fast pace, Morris grew to develop and focus solely on the safety position within football.

Code:

247 words

[TimPest]

[Bwestfield]

Bradley Westfield played many sports before he came into football. In fact he also played a bunch of different positions trying to find his calling. He played baseball as an outfielder in high school. He did not do very well and was cut from the team. He didn't have a problem fielding the ball, he just couldn't hit the ball to save his life. He tried out for basketball. Turns out that he just couldn’t play that game for beans. The best sport besides football was volleyball. He and his team even won a state championship. His heart just wasn’t in it though. That’s when he found football. He didnt start of as a wide receiver though. He tried a few positions before he found what he was naturally gifted at. At his school he played some tight end which he was decent at but could never really get the whole blocking things down. Then he was moved to corner back. He actually did quite well there. When the team lost their star wide out he decided to give it a try and help out the team where depth was a problem. It was an instant success. He would never have made it to college on a scholarship without it. He had the grades but not the money. Football allowed him to further his career in a way he never imagined.

[toivo]

Noah Goodson used to play ice hockey back in the day. He was a formidable defender that did well in his age group. Goodson really liked playing hockey, and wanted to continue, but he had to either focus solely on hockey or other sports (soccer, football, baseball, and basketball) due to the costs. Goodson decided to give up ice hockey, but still follows the sport closely. Being a North Carolina native, Goodson cheers for the Hurricanes. He saw them win a championship, North Carolina's only professional championship. Goodson continues to skate now that he has some resources to afford all the equipment and ice time. The speed of the game made Goodson shine, he could skate quickly and dish out some big hits that made other players think twice about carrying the puck into the zone near him. Since moving to Arizona, Goodson has seen a few Coyotes games. They just started out 0-9, but Goodson goes when he can, and bought a few season ticket packages, knowing how nontraditional markets can struggle (i.e. Carolina), Goodson wanted to help out a similar situation. Goodson won't make a jump to hockey right now, but he could see it happening during a strike year in the NSFL or something similar.

[youngcricket]

Yeah, Jaylon Lee is definitely one of the best dual sport stars the NSFL will ever see. As a kid, he played basketball and messed around with baseball. When he got to high school, however, he found a passion for one sport. Volleyball. He was always one of the quickest athletes in high school and was able to do pretty much anything athletically. With his coordination and natural abilities, Lee was able to develop into a volleyball player that had offers from some small D3 colleges. He had a decent vertical, but found a home in the back row playing libero, primarily. His quickness and agility allowed him to track the ball and get to almost anything that was coming his way. He played at the highest level of club volleyball and was labeled as one of the best player in Texas before ultimately deciding to go to the University of Texas for football. If they had a volleyball team, he would have played both sports, but ultimately, there was only a club team that ran the same season and was too weird for him to join. With that said, one of Lee's biggest regrets is not going on to play volleyball and chase his true dream.

[Rabidsponge21]