We had to be down early to get the best stuff for the pros we looked after and then get the rags that we were left ourselves for training. It seems very old school but it grounded me as a person and made me appreciate everything as a footballer, because all we got was a pair of boots.
Notre Dame was my dream school growing up. But in recruiting, they had some other plans, what position they wanted me to play.
That difficult start drove me on to inspire children and let them know that it is never to late to repair a bad experience at school, and once you get your head down and start to read books, you can really achieve.
I played American Legion ball starting when I was 14. But I didn't catch until I was 17. I was 75-3 as a high school pitcher, but it was like everybody knew that I was supposed to be a catcher. When the scouts would come around, and I was pitching, they'd make me take infield practice so the scouts could watch me throw.
I started working on a TV show in Australia, straight out of high school, so I missed the whole university experience.
I went to high school in Ellicott City, Maryland, and I felt pretty ambivalent about the whole thing. It just took time away from my doing things on the Internet - like creating clans in Quake II or starting a Web design nonprofit. In school, I was just a kid. Online, I had authority.
Then to have your baby playing at the school you played at and having him play well is a special treat.
I left home the day after I graduated from high school because I knew we weren't going to make any dough to pay the rent in music.
I wanted to stay in New York to pursue acting, but my dad urged me to get a four-year degree. Reading about the film school at Florida State University, he suggested I go there. I received my bachelor's degree in 2003.
Eventually, I won the right to attend school, but the prejudice was still there.
I made short films in school.
I'm not going to buy my kids an encyclopedia. Let them walk to school like I did.
When I was in school, I was always writing scripts and dressing up as characters. I'd constantly be that guy who'd get up on stage. I used to write imaginary TV shows, like soap operas, for fun.
I didn't know how capable I was until the people around me in acting school would say I was good.
Right after high school, I moved to Rio and took classes to become a technician for a manufacturing factory where you had to figure out how to produce 3,000 pairs of jeans. But in Rio, I was by myself, which was very liberating, being so young. I got to do my own thing.
I went to boarding school from the age of eight - first to prep school, then to Eton. One thing that kind of education teaches you is community living: there's little retreat. That's why people come out of it and talk about lifelong friendships forged in the furnace.
If a minister can lead the Senate in prayer every day... what is so wrong with beginning every day of school with an ecumenical prayer?
School was a very cruel environment, and I was a loner. But I learnt to get hurt, and I learnt to cope with it.
We often think about happiness as trying to increase our joy, but it's also about decreasing our worry. So what you get for paying those high taxes is, if you're a parent thinking about putting your child through school, you don't have to worry about it, because all education through college is free.
I wanted to go to acting school, and I did a few modeling jobs to pay for acting school. I never aspired to be a model. I met lots of photographers, and I learned a lot about light - as a source of love and illumination, light as a gift of love. On film, that's a massive contribution.
Then, when I got in the military, I used to host - even in high school - I hosted the talent shows, and when I was in the military I would host all of our base Christmas parties and stuff.
I just have a position that any child that's in a failing school should be able to get out, or be in a position to have that school fixed.
We mislead ourselves when we pretend we can make someone into an effective manager by putting them through a few courses in business school.
In my schooling through high school, I excelled mainly in chemistry, physics and mathematics.
I was always a bit old for my age, then suddenly I'm on set, working alongside the adults, skipping school completely for two years.
I was a girly-girl until I moved to New York. Then I got really into the androgynous look of the early-'90s club scene. I had really short hair and started blurring the line a bit. But for me, grade school was about Benetton, Esprit, and Guess jeans.
'Keep your head down at school.' Those are sage words from my dad. They kept me in check for years.
Even while in school - initially, Vineberg Allen in Mussourie, and later, a number of schools in Ludhiana - I aspired to achieve great things in life. Admittedly, I wasn't quite sure about what these great things would be.
When I was around eight, I learned how to touch-type at school, and I received a computer as a present. I started writing plays, and for many years I thought I would be a playwright.
Now that I'm taking some time off from school, I've been reading a lot to make sure I don't forget everything. It's mostly classics and nonfiction accounts from actors, directors and writers from the '40s and '50s.
Film school is a complete con, because the information is there if you want it.
Sport is and should remain a great school of life that supports young people in their personal development. It teaches respect for others and also for oneself.
If any mayor reduced school funding by 33 percent and called it the 'Strengthening Our Schools Initiative,' I think they'd be excoriated.
For the three years I was in school training to be an actor, I was told, 'It's very unlikely you'll work at all on the stage or in film', so I feel I have to take all the opportunities I can.
I've gone down several paths. I started school as an engineer, but underneath it all, I knew I wanted to use instruments, not build them.
I enjoy my relationship with straight men. It's very nurturing. It's very validating to hang out with straight guys and be accepted. So many of us, we were not accepted when we were younger by straight persons in high school.
