What sports did ya'll play?

With sales being competitive I'm sure a lot of us were athletes growing up and referenced that experience in our first couple BDR interviews. What did you play? At what level? And any good stories?

🎸 Hobbies
🐱 Off-Topic
108
GeneralCorp
Notable Contributor
18
General of The War Room
Played baseball in college and professionally. Was recruited to play soccer in college as well but didn’t want to play 2 sports and have no life. Grew up playing basketball and tennis in high school as well. Still play in a very competitive wood bat baseball league and I live for that shit. Oh and I’m a very average (14 handicap) golfer. 
fuzzy
Notable Contributor
2
CMO (Chief Meme Officer)
my avatar is officially relevant
MontBlanc
Notable Contributor
1
Senior Account Executive
I think I saw your baseball story before somewhere. My dad and grandfather also played professional baseball and the minor leagues seem like quite a grind. But my dad did get cut by Hank Aaron at the end of the Atlanta Braves spring training in his first season and had Bill Mazeroski teach him how to turn double plays at another point in his journey. 
HoldemCaulfield
Politicker
1
Sales Training & Enablement
@GeneralCorp I think I saw you playing golf on the Stanford course from a distance a few months back when I was there. 

I wanted to do this, but I wasn't sure if it was you or not:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xaQu3uP6VA
MrEffWord
Opinionated
0
Regional Sales Manager
@GeneralCorp, WTF you mean professionally???? Deets pls? MLB? 😱what Team? How long? Etc 😃
TheSolicitorGeneral
Politicker
3
Small Market AE
Damn, I would’ve thought there’d be more wrestling homies 
goose
Politicker
1
Sales Executive
Cutting weight was too hard when you drank beer every weekend.  
Incognito
WR Officer
3
Master of Disaster
Amateur: 

Squash, tennis, badminton, racketball, diving, swimming, hockey, soccer, curling.

pro: 

sponsored snowboarder
International Grand Prix show jumper
National Grand Prix dressage competitor 

TL;DR, I stopped being cool in 2011
Artemis
Politicker
1
Business Development Representative
Wait... So like 4* and 5* International Grand Prix's?? I am SEETHING with jealousy!!
Incognito
WR Officer
2
Master of Disaster
Yep. Was super fun, but its all "pay to play" now. Personal faves that I did:

Valkensvaard
Hickstead 
Spruce Meadows
Hampton Classic
Hippico La Silla
WEF (Wellington, FL)

Best story from Chester, England:

I was just starting at the international level, and was on my first European tour. I had qualified for the big tour grand prix (the 5*) from rankings for the week. So there was only one person ahead of me and I was going to jump one last vertical before I went. 

Some asshole dude starts yelling at his staff to lower my jump and take it from me so I couldn't do it. I politely told him that I was on deck and just needed to do one more. 

He looks at me, then says "fucking American princess. women belong in the kitchen, not the show ring". I was quite shocked (well not entirely, some countries still are pretty sexist and here I am running around with tats and a mohawk and a vagina lol). I was about to argue but I just didn't want to get in that kind of fight before one of my first big 5* classes. I let it go.

So I just went, cleared all the jumps but just had a foot in the water. Ended up like 8th or something.

Douchebag knocked down like half the course, came last or near last. 

So afterwards I went back up to him and said "hope you've got a good toothbrush, because you just ate a lot of dust from this Canadian QUEEN". 

btw - I was riding a horse that I got for free on a trade. 
Artemis
Politicker
1
Business Development Representative
Wow I love this hahaha. Hats off to you! I had a friend who dealt with a similar situation, but it wasn't a dude, it was Reed Kessler who was shitting on my friend for having 'back-yard mules' that 'didn't deserve to be competing at WEF'. 

I love how you got your horse too. I'll always have more admiration for that than for the horses bought for hundreds of thousands of dollars. There was one at my old barn that the family literally bought for $1.2m. The rider was 16 y/o and got a g-wagon for her first car...

I rode for 18 years and only managed to make my first Welcome Stakes by the time I was headed off to college. It's extremely 'pay-to-play' so I knew there was no chance I've get much further than low-high juniors. I was blessed to be able to ride at all, because so many people can't afford it, but it was still frustrating to be around people who were traveling every month to Kentucky, NY, Santa Fe, Lamplight in IL, and spending all winter down in either Ocala, or at WEF. One of my closest friends was Brian Moggre, who's now on the Olympic shortlist at 18 years old. So happy for him, but it's hard not to be a little bitter haha. 
Incognito
WR Officer
1
Master of Disaster
Ok so you obviously know all the peeps too lolz 

Kentucky was nice but mostly just to go do the XC jumps on the down low haha. I did do my first ranking class there though. 

and guess who used to tune up Reeds mounts in the morning —> 🙋🏻‍♀️

Also, hundreds of thousands of dollars doesn’t buy you much. Now you need at least 5M Euro to get anything decent that will jump a 5*. My best one I bought from a video in Argentina and broke it myself. It used to be a viable business model to buy a good 6 year old and resell at 8-9, but even that isn’t possible now. Best bet is to buy something some rich asshole fucked up for $50-100k and see if you can fix it. 

And we’re not even getting into what it costs to compete now. It’s $2M to do the LGCT, and $9-15k per horse for any Masters event. So you can’t even really get in the classes with ranking points without paying. WEF was like $7k per week to do the FEI back in 2011 so 🤷‍♀️. 
Incognito
WR Officer
1
Master of Disaster
Also, don’t get bitter about Brian. He’s a dude. They always get the opportunity because of alllllll the lonely ladies willing to part with a lot of money for male attention and you know it.
Artemis
Politicker
1
Business Development Representative
Too bad for them he's about as straight as a circle. He is adorable though. And a super sweet kid. 

That's crazy that you tuned up Reed's horses! I heard some storiiiies about her and Hunter Holloway. 

And Yeah I remember 4 years ago talking to Brian's mom and she said that a week at WEF was at least 10k! I did not realize how much it was to compete at LGCT and Masters wow. I thought my 2-3k shows at Lamplight were crazy haha.

I feel like prices have skyrocketed just in the past 4 years that I've been kind of away from that world. I mean, Brian's horse, MTM Flutterby, was one of those kinda messed-up horses and they bought her for 30k. About 5 years ago, well before he retired her, he told me her value had gone up to 800k. And she was barely 16hh. I can't imagine what he's paid for his current string...
Incognito
WR Officer
1
Master of Disaster
I've sold to Tracy and Mike before. They're the best at taking in the shit and putting a bit of polish on it to flip for double. Those two are *really* slick trainers/dealers. That can be taken in both a positive and negative context, depending on your position in a particular situation. Is he even buying his own horses? I doubt it, but I don't know his background. 

I know the Kessler family very, very well. All of them. And they're all separate entities now hahaha. 

Pro-tip: USE THOSE HORSE CONNECTIONS TO GET AT C SUITES. IF they're rich, they ride. If they ride, you can slide in their DMs so fast and sell them anything. 
Artemis
Politicker
1
Business Development Representative
Oh yeah? I'll hit up Mike Bloomberg, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and hell maybe even Bruce Springsteen! haha no, but I get what you're saying. My first college internship was with Brian's dad's company, Freeman. I'll definitely be reaching out to them, but you know, event planning company + pandemic = not the best org to reach out to lol

I've met Mike a Tracy quite a few times. I really liked Tracy, Mike honestly just didn't talk much. When my parents were looking at getting me a level-up horse, they spoke with MTM. Needless to say, we evaluated other options haha.
Incognito
WR Officer
1
Master of Disaster
Currently pitching Perrigo......
Artemis
Politicker
1
Business Development Representative
Damn, nice! Tuning up Reed's horses was definitely worth it haha. Did you ever work with Cylana? Or did she come along later? Cause damn I loved that horse. Big fan of KS Stakki too.
Incognito
WR Officer
1
Master of Disaster
I rode her, but after the Olympics. I was helping Reed before she moved to Katie full time. They tried to get me back after Katie but I already had a billionaire sponsor whom I actually liked and thought I would retire with. Well he quit so now I'm in the WR hahaha.
Artemis
Politicker
1
Business Development Representative
Holy shit that's amazing. Sorry to hear about your guy quitting though. That must have been a real downer :/
Rallier
Politicker
3
SDR Manager and Consultant
Soccer and I was big into skateboarding if that counts
Badabingbadabom
Good Citizen
0
Account Manager at Software Vendor
It counts. Same here, skateboarding was a big thing over years
CoorsKing
WR Officer
2
Retired King of the Coors Knights
Football, lacrosse and beach volleyball in high school, volleyball in college.  
JuicyKlay
Celebrated Contributor
0
AM
Same here and basketball!
softwaresails
Politicker
2
Sales Manager
Soccer. Basketball. 

Just high school. But continue to play in adult leagues for fun. 
Smithy
Politicker
2
Director of Sales
Football(soccer) played at elite level until I was injured 
privateryan
Politicker
2
Director of Sales
I know it’s silly…but paintball. Not clowning around in the woods; a national event circuit where we’d play 5-6 tournaments a year all around the US. 

and basketball since I was 6’ by 6th grade 
HoldemCaulfield
Politicker
2
Sales Training & Enablement
Grew up in the Deep South, so the big three: football, baseball, basketball.

When I got to high school, I found that football kind of took the place of everything else because once you finish the season in late November, you're lifting weights from January to July, so it became a full-time gig. I ended up laying from 5th grade to 12th grade and was never really any good.

Most of my stories would involve small anecdotes about playing in high school in the early 2000's when things like concussion protocol didn't really exist and getting my ass handed to me on scout team. I think I was 5'10, 139 pounds at my heaviest playing a combination of WR/DE/TE.

First Story:

I remember one time we were doing the Oklahoma drill (which as I just found out from googling is banned in the NFL:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_drill). I was playing the running back position, and there was a small crease that I was trying to get through up the gut. One of the d-lineman was trying to do a swim move and simultaneous slapped the bejesus out of my helmet. It basically clotheslined me, and then one of the o-lineman fell on me with his 250+ pound frame.

I got the "wind knocked out of me" as the coaches used to say and had to "walk it off." I remember that I couldn't really do math for a week.

Second story:

We had a really good linebacker (2 years older than me when I was a sophomore), and he was crazy as hell. Our practice field had particularly poor drainage, and after a rain storm, we were standing around waiting for practice to start and could just smell the nasty water mixed with goose shit (they would fly over all the time, and drop some big loads). 

He yells, "Hey guys. Watch this!" and proceeds to take a running start from the parking lot and do a running sprint towards that muddy field. He turned it into his own personal slip and slide. No one envied getting tackled by him that day. He also used to keep pickle juice in his locker and would drink it during half-time to cut his cramps. Finally, one time he tackled someone so hard during a game that he actually shit his own pants. God bless that dude. One of a kind.


HarryCaray
Notable Contributor
2
HMFIC
played everything growing up, but played football in college.
1nbatopshotfan
Politicker
1
Sales
O nice! Saw you asked on my comment. Where’d you play! I was a guard. 
HarryCaray
Notable Contributor
1
HMFIC
I played defensive end for Navy
1nbatopshotfan
Politicker
1
Sales
Ahh. Nice! I played at Brown. 
SheWOLF
Opinionated
1
TC Sales
Basketball, power forward and center. Track & Field, 100m, 200m and 400m. 
sugardaddy
Politicker
1
Head of Sales
Soccer and Judo. Still playing soccer with the firm! :o) 
MitchandMurray
Politicker
1
Business Development Director
Ice hockey and lacrosse, played them both growing up and at the collegiate level. Miss the competitiveness of both. 
hauru.sales
Celebrated Contributor
1
Sales Enthusiast
Football, Table tennis, basketball
HappyGilmore
Politicker
1
Account Executive
Baseball all the way through end of high school, football & basketball through 7th grade then traded those in to play golf 7th grade all the way through Club Golf in college
MontBlanc
Notable Contributor
1
Senior Account Executive
I played soccer growing up and in college, my position was goalkeeper. I've found that working in sales is like being on offense in a team sport and personally enjoy being in attack mode in life. I probably would have had more fun playing striker if I could do it again.
1nbatopshotfan
Politicker
1
Sales
College football 
HarryCaray
Notable Contributor
0
HMFIC
where?
1nbatopshotfan
Politicker
1
Sales
IAA not the SEC or anything ha! 
TeamNZbattler
Opinionated
1
Account Manager
Swimming and Water polo, mainly played waterpolo to cause carnage and get the shit beat out me. Made national trials once, but was cut due to lack of skill and too much aggression.

Swimming was extremely technical and you spent a lot of time looking at that line on the bottom of the pool. Found alcohol before I got any good and decided to chase the bottle for a few years.
BCD
Politicker
0
BDR
was hoping there would be one other swimmer and water polo player in the mix. hell ya
FiresideChads
Good Citizen
0
Account Executive
where did you play water polo?
CuriousFox
WR Officer
1
🦊
Ran track in high school. Then intramural sports in college. 
fuzzy
Notable Contributor
1
CMO (Chief Meme Officer)
grew up playing soccer and baseball. Started the lacrosse team at my hs. Played football in hs and practice squad in college.
poweredbycaffeine
WR Lieutenant
1
☕️
Football, hockey, lacrosse (through college) Olympic weightlifting (still competing), enduro mountain bike racing (newest sport).
neversettle
Politicker
1
SDR
Sailing!
antiASKHOLE
Tycoon
1
Bravado's Resident Asshole
Played Soccer through Highschool and into college. Also played basketball, baseball, track, and then I wrestled as well. I tried to do as much as I could to get out of the house and it worked. Thankful for the competition that allowed me to see what it meant to win. 
Accidental_Sales_Guy
Politicker
1
Account Executive
Cross Country! It's the most similar sport to a sales team: each person runs their own race (has their own quota) that rolls up to a team time/quota. The best individual contributor can win the race, even if his/her team loses the competition. 
NorthernSalesGuru
Politicker
1
Manager, Outbound Sales
Played baseball in college (high ranked D1), internationally and a very short professional stint before injuries ended the dream. 

I was also a competitive Olympic weight lifter (up to college level).

I golf and still plays men’s league ice hockey but no where near as competitive as before.
HarryCaray
Notable Contributor
0
HMFIC
what school?? Was watching the regionals all weekend.
thedart
1
Regional VIce President
Ski raced as a kid up through college. Probably prepped me for a life in Sales. While it is a team sport, you really compete as an individual against everyone, including your team. Also 80% of the time you crash and it sucks, the other 20% you win and it's AMAZING!
MontBlanc
Notable Contributor
0
Senior Account Executive
I love skiing but that’s a lot of crashing!!
Ryanpeach
Good Citizen
1
SMB Account Executive
Played D2 college golf (now scratch). Definitely got shit for playing it growing up but now that every male 20-something year old and beyond is sure to dabble in it at some point I think I now have the last laugh. Don't get me wrong, still self-aware the physical demand is nowhere as near as high as the other sports y'all have played. Wish I could be using it more to sell right now but I sell to IT nerds and they hate golf :/. Just shot 69 over the weekend (nice).
MontBlanc
Notable Contributor
0
Senior Account Executive
Golf is such a great sport to play as a kid, you’ll use it for the rest of your life, I rarely play soccer at the moment...
Tex18
1
Advisor
Played D3 soccer. Great experience. I played everything from Centerback, Mid-field, and Striker. Definitely used that shit in an interview
MaoMao
Fire Starter
1
SDR
Disc Golf at the Pro level
SoldMySoul
Opinionated
1
VP of Sales
Club Rugby for a few years up until my body was too broken to go on. 

I’ll never forget the day that two ambulances had to be called: one for my teammate who had lost a few teeth by colliding with the opposition, and the other ambulance for the opposition with my teammate’s teeth still stuck in her head!
10

Any AF, soccer, baseball or Hockey fans keeping track of England in the Euros? If not, who?

Question
18
35
Members only

Retro Games 🚀🚀🚀

Discussion
138
19

Anybody In Here Play In A Company Sponsored Sports League?

Question
20
I've participated in a company sponsored sports league
39% Yes, loved it
9% Yes, wasn't for me
52% No
166 people voted