How many chased their dream?

[CenTexSports]

My son is 25 years old (married with 2 kids) and he quit his job to attend a major league baseball umpiring school.

I was wondering how many of you had chased your dream. I know I couldn't (one income family) but I admire him for jumping in feet first.

[DDBooger]

Originally posted by CenTexSports
My son is 25 years old (married with 2 kids) and he quit his job to attend a major league baseball umpiring school.

I was wondering how many of you had chased your dream. I know I couldn't (one income family) but I admire him for jumping in feet first. Hey, it could have been the circus! lol

[BILLYFRED0000]

Originally posted by DDBooger
Hey, it could have been the circus! lol

Well I certainly chased my dream.




She was just a lot faster than me.....

[LoboesWT]

Everyday and enjoying every minute!

[GrTigers6]

Well At first I thought my dream was coaching and playing college football and baseball but then along came a baby girl and my dreams quickly changed to being a family man. I quit school and got a full time job and let my wife finish her school and since have added two boys and a daughter n law and a grand daughter and I wouldnt change a thing.:)

[bobcat1]

I did not. I wanted to play at A&M for Emory Ballard and go to Veterinarian school. Would up with a bum knee and lost out on college. 1st wife, kid, working for Dad until he died in 83. Divorced, went into sales, met wife 2 with 2 boys. She was a widow. We had a kid and her 2 boys and mine made 4 boys. Thought about going back to school to coach but could never find a way. Now 22 years later have 4 boys, 3 daughter in laws. Still have Wife 2 for 22 years now. We have 6 grandsons and 3 grand daughters. I fish a lot now and am still in sales at 54 years old.

She got her dream.....me!:D

[Old LB]

Originally posted by bobcat1


She got her dream.....me!:D

I think we are gonna need to hear her take on that one. :D

[Ernest T Bass]

Yep. Started coaching at a private school while in college. Went from law school to teacher development and went into coaching. Figure Ive given up around $400,000 through the years b/c of that decision, but my Friday nights sure are better.

[coach]

Originally posted by Ernest T Bass
Yep. Started coaching at a private school while in college. Went from law school to teacher development and went into coaching. Figure Ive given up around $400,000 through the years b/c of that decision, but my Friday nights sure are better.

and your soccer nights?

[coach]

Originally posted by CenTexSports
My son is 25 years old (married with 2 kids) and he quit his job to attend a major league baseball umpiring school.

I was wondering how many of you had chased your dream. I know I couldn't (one income family) but I admire him for jumping in feet first.

just tell him whatever he does, make sure he doesn't do this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvcD0Cxp7dg&feature=related

[ccmom]

I wouldn't say that I gave up my dreams, but that my dreams changed along the way. Now I chase my little dreams around all over the place...from ballparks to soccer fields to football fields, etc and I wouldn't change that for the world! :thumbsup:

[coach]

i have always wanted to be a coach and im about graduate in May, but now im having an itch to become a radio sports talks how host kinda like mike and mike in the morning

[GrTigers6]

Originally posted by Old LB
I think we are gonna need to hear her take on that one. :D I will bet its the opposite:D

[bobcat1]

Originally posted by GrTigers6
I will bet its the opposite:D Would I lie? ;)

[Ernest T Bass]

Originally posted by coach
i have always wanted to be a coach and im about graduate in May, but now im having an itch to become a radio sports talks how host kinda like mike and mike in the morning

Might wanna go after that one. Really bad time to be in education. Gonna be rough for awhile.

[coach]

Originally posted by Ernest T Bass
Might wanna go after that one. Really bad time to be in education. Gonna be rough for awhile.

i dont want to do something little, like a local job. I want to be on somewhere like the Ticket or even ESPN. I would have to go back to school and and get a few more hours. Plus im getting married in June, and this would prob not be the best time to tell my future wife this....but i still have the itch...

[Lucky2Coach]

I quit my first job within a year as a sales analyst for Airborne Express Corporate to go back and get certified to teach, so I could coach football. That was ten years ago, and I still don't make as much money as I did my first year out of college, but it was the best decision I have ever made! I sure am happy!!!

[ccmom]

Originally posted by coach
i dont want to do something little, like a local job. I want to be on somewhere like the Ticket or even ESPN. I would have to go back to school and and get a few more hours. Plus im getting married in June, and this would prob not be the best time to tell my future wife this....but i still have the itch...

This reminds me of that episode of Seinfeld where George is changing careers. :D

[slpybear the bullfan]

My dream was to work 10 hours plus, day in day out in the rat race, grinding out a living so my wife can gripe at me at about how little I am at home and my three kids can get spoiled and ignore most of what I say.

EPIC WIN!

[bobcat1]

Originally posted by slpybear the bullfan
My dream was to work 10 hours plus, day in day out in the rat race, grinding out a living so my wife can gripe at me at about how little I am at home and my three kids can get spoiled and ignore most of what I say.

EPIC WIN! :D :fnypost: Is that you Mr Bundy?

[44INAROW]

since we got married in high school and had 2 sons right away and another 12 years later - we didn't even have the time to dream, but we promised ourselves that we would put all our children through college.. Well, one graduated in 2003, another in 2005 and the last one is 3 semesters away (we hope) Might not be a big ole fancy dream but it is one thing we dreamed and stuck too! oh yea, after all that $$ - we can't afford to do anything BUT DREAM lol.......... seriously, I wouldn't have it any other way!

[SintonFan]

I wanted to be an Air Force pilot.:(

Now I get to ignite pilot lights.:D

[PPHSfan]

The important thing is that I'm living my own dream, and not my parent's dreams for me. My mom wanted me to be a Beverly Hills OBGYN. And my dad wanted me to form a band with my friend David Gilmore. Whew, I'm glad I didn't waste my time with such nonsense.

[Rabid Cougar]

State Football Championship in High School --- Check
Play football for Texas A&M - Play in Cotton Bowl --- Check
Commissioned into the U.S. Marine Corps --- (record scratch)

Had to go to Plan B.
Work for U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as a Park Ranger on Central Texas Lakes for 25 years.
Married to my A&M Bonfire Buddy for 22 years

Have two wonderful sons - One has played for State Football Championship and now plays College Football.
The other is just starting his High School career but have had a blast coaching him in baseball and football from the age of 6.

Still got my taste of the military with two tours in Iraq and one to Afghanistan coming up.

Lived in the same house for 20 years.
Wouldn't change anything .

[Matthew328]

I'm chasing the dream now...

[carter08]

My dream's always been to be a writer. So against the advice of every sane person ever, that's what I'm going to school for.

[Bullaholic]

I still LOL everytime I see this bumper sticker---"Please don't tell my folks I'm a lawyer...they think I am a piano player in a house of ill-repute." :D

[slingshot]

I did... and haven't regretted it one bit. When I was a kid I always wanted to be a Doctor but fear of failure (fear of success?) made me shoot lower. After graduating from college and marrying my high school sweetheart we did the usual--bought a nice starter home, two nice cars and got ready to start a family... until I got a wild hair and took the MCAT (admissions test) on a whim and did pretty good. No prep, no studying, 4 years out of college... much to my surprise I got in to med school. I just started my 21st year of practice. Can't really imagine myself doing anything else...

[orange machine]

I always wanted to be a police officer. After graduating high school i kinda lost my dream for about 3 years just partying and doing things guys do. Then when i turned 21 i realized my life sucked and i was going no where so i took the test to get into police academy passed sold my jeep to pay for the schooling and the rest is history been an officer for 8 years.

[lulu]

Originally posted by Ernest T Bass
Yep. Started coaching at a private school while in college. Went from law school to teacher development and went into coaching. Figure Ive given up around $400,000 through the years b/c of that decision, but my Friday nights sure are better.

Aren't you glad you did?

[lulu]

I am a bit older than most of you so my era was different. I wanted desperately to be a nurse but no school would let me in because I have no left arm. I was crushed so I got married and raised 2 girls, one school teacher and one Tx State Trooper. I worked most of my life in the medical field as it is what I love. But 13 years ago tore my rotator cuff and have not worked since. I hate being at home when the rest of the world is moving along but I stay busy with the grand sons. They are starting sports now.

So I tried to follow my dream but was only able to work close to it . God has his reasons and we are not to question . So I don't but I still feel like I missed my dream.

But I;ve had a happy life and feel very blessed.

[big daddy russ]

I have one of the most backwards stories you'll ever hear. I chased the money first, my dream second, attained both, then somehow dropped it all.

(Warning: Long-winded story...For the condensed version, see final paragraph.)

It was somewhere around third or fourth grade, I wanted to grow up to be a pro baseball player. It was that year I made my first all-star team and went out and played all the other local towns in the local All-Star tournament. And that's when I realized that even though I wasn't good enough to play baseball for a living, I could still talk about it. So I decided I'd be a sports anchor.

Fast forward to December 1998. I had just completed my first semester of college with a GPA approaching sea level and my dad said that he wouldn't foot the bill for my college anymore, but that he would hook me up with a well-paying job where he works (fabrication/oil industry). So I took the job, made tons of money, and realized that 90-100 hour work weeks got real old real quick. It's great having money, but sucks having no time to spend it.

Nine months later, I quit and went back to school on my own dime. Sure, I made twice as much money in those nine months than I've made in any given 12-month period since, but I decided that money wasn't everything.

So I went back to school and pursued my dream of being a sports anchor. My second semester back, while working at the student paper, I found out that one of the good friends I had made while at the paper was dating the sports director at the local CBS affiliate. She hooked me up with an internship paying minimum wage (which is huge in the broadcast industry--interns are typically non-paid).

A few months later, I tricked them into making me a reporter.

My first ever TV appearance was actually covering a Rockport-Calallen game (during the 2000 season) and my first interview was a Calallen RB named Jesse Pavelka...who now hosts the A&E show "DietTribe." But I digress.

Either way, a few months after that they moved me up to weekend sports anchor and made me full-time. And at 20 years, 10 months old I was the youngest professional sports anchor in the nation. Making peanuts. The exact opposite of my earlier job.

After a little while of doing that, I sent out some resumes, got some offers, but was still disappointed. There was one job that intrigued me, though, and included a bump in pay, though not by much. It was the summer before my brother's senior year in high school and the local Ingleside/Aransas Pass paper needed a sports reporter. I decided that I wanted to watch some of his full games, so I took the job, got a side job hosting a weekly TV show, won some more awards to put on my resume, and sent my newly-polished resume out a year-and-a-half later.

And the job offers rolled in. Got offered TV gigs in Lincoln, NE; Great Falls, MT; and Sacramento, CA among other places. And after seeing what Sacramento (which at the time was a top-25 market) was offering in compensation to a talented kid without a college degree, I decided to go back and get that degree. However, I needed money, which I wasn't making as a journalist.

I kept the side job with the TV show (which also paid peanuts, but it paid peanuts for a 20-hour work week instead of the 50-60 hours I was putting in at the paper) and "upgraded" my 40-hour job to waiting tables in Port Aransas. I made twice as much as I did at the paper, which allowed me to save for college.

Crazy, huh?

Fast forward through the college years of odd- and-end jobs. After getting my associate's degree in journalism, I find a passion for political science and run with that course of study, which takes me further away from my original dream. Then I find out that I have a talent for sales, enjoy being around other people, and can make a nice living in the business. A nice little compromise to my first two jobs, which took me completely away from my dream job and I had no qualms about it. In the eight-year period since quitting the newspaper, I realized that my dream isn't where I work, but what I do and who I am. I'm a beach bum at heart who fell in love with an incredible woman and my current job allows me all the travel time I want and the money to afford it.

BUT, I'm starting to get the itch to go back into the media and I've still got friends in the business. (My good friend that got me that first job is now a producer for ESPN's Sports Nation.) So we'll see if I actually do anything about it, but the money and location would have to be right for me to follow through.



----------------------------------------------




So in summary, I chased money and I chased my dream job and found both at a young age, but realized that what I wanted wasn't a dream or a place of employment, but something more tangible. My dreams are lapping up against miles of Texas sand and sitting anxiously on the couch every night as I'm driving home from work. And I gotta say, I didn't do too bad.

[SintonFan]

Originally posted by big daddy russ
I have one of the most backwards stories you'll ever hear. I chased the money first, my dream second, attained both, then somehow dropped it all.

(Warning: Long-winded story...For the condensed version, see final paragraph.)

It was somewhere around third or fourth grade, I wanted to grow up to be a pro baseball player. It was that year I made my first all-star team and went out and played all the other local towns in the local All-Star tournament. And that's when I realized that even though I wasn't good enough to play baseball for a living, I could still talk about it. So I decided I'd be a sports anchor.

Fast forward to December 1998. I had just completed my first semester of college with a GPA approaching sea level and my dad said that he wouldn't foot the bill for my college anymore, but that he would hook me up with a well-paying job where he works (fabrication/oil industry). So I took the job, made tons of money, and realized that 90-100 hour work weeks got real old real quick. It's great having money, but sucks having no time to spend it.

Nine months later, I quit and went back to school on my own dime. Sure, I made twice as much money in those nine months than I've made in any given 12-month period since, but I decided that money wasn't everything.

So I went back to school and pursued my dream of being a sports anchor. My second semester back, while working at the student paper, I found out that one of the good friends I had made while at the paper was dating the sports director at the local CBS affiliate. She hooked me up with an internship paying minimum wage (which is huge in the broadcast industry--interns are typically non-paid).

A few months later, I tricked them into making me a reporter.

My first ever TV appearance was actually covering a Rockport-Calallen game (during the 2000 season) and my first interview was a Calallen RB named Jesse Pavelka...who now hosts the A&E show "DietTribe." But I digress.

Either way, a few months after that they moved me up to weekend sports anchor and made me full-time. And at 20 years, 10 months old I was the youngest professional sports anchor in the nation. Making peanuts. The exact opposite of my earlier job.

After a little while of doing that, I sent out some resumes, got some offers, but was still disappointed. There was one job that intrigued me, though, and included a bump in pay, though not by much. It was the summer before my brother's senior year in high school and the local Ingleside/Aransas Pass paper needed a sports reporter. I decided that I wanted to watch some of his full games, so I took the job, got a side job hosting a weekly TV show, won some more awards to put on my resume, and sent my newly-polished resume out a year-and-a-half later.

And the job offers rolled in. Got offered TV gigs in Lincoln, NE; Great Falls, MT; and Sacramento, CA among other places. And after seeing what Sacramento (which at the time was a top-25 market) was offering in compensation to a talented kid without a college degree, I decided to go back and get that degree. However, I needed money, which I wasn't making as a journalist.

I kept the side job with the TV show (which also paid peanuts, but it paid peanuts for a 20-hour work week instead of the 50-60 hours I was putting in at the paper) and "upgraded" my 40-hour job to waiting tables in Port Aransas. I made twice as much as I did at the paper, which allowed me to save for college.

Crazy, huh?

Fast forward through the college years of odd- and-end jobs. After getting my associate's degree in journalism, I find a passion for political science and run with that course of study, which takes me further away from my original dream. Then I find out that I have a talent for sales, enjoy being around other people, and can make a nice living in the business. A nice little compromise to my first two jobs, which took me completely away from my dream job and I had no qualms about it. In the eight-year period since quitting the newspaper, I realized that my dream isn't where I work, but what I do and who I am. I'm a beach bum at heart who fell in love with an incredible woman and my current job allows me all the travel time I want and the money to afford it.

BUT, I'm starting to get the itch to go back into the media and I've still got friends in the business. (My good friend that got me that first job is now a producer for ESPN's Sports Nation.) So we'll see if I actually do anything about it, but the money and location would have to be right for me to follow through.



----------------------------------------------




So in summary, I chased money and I chased my dream job and found both at a young age, but realized that what I wanted wasn't a dream or a place of employment, but something more tangible. My dreams are lapping up against miles of Texas sand and sitting anxiously on the couch every night as I'm driving home from work. And I gotta say, I didn't do too bad.

I'll buy your publications, bdr.
No ifs, ands or buts.

I know you will be more fair than 95% of all writers out there.:) :cool: :clap:

[big daddy russ]

Originally posted by SintonFan
I'll buy your publications, bdr.
No ifs, ands or buts.

I know you will be more fair than 95% of all writers out there.:) :cool: :clap:
I appreciate that, Danny, but if I go back to print journalism I'd probably go to writing for the energy industry. And you'd be more than welcome to subscribe.

If I go back, I'm probably going into broadcast journalism.

[neck_06]

Chasing mine now.. :thumbsup:

[Emerson1]

Not the best market to try and be a pilot right now.

[BaseballUmp]

Originally posted by Emerson1
Not the best market to try and be a pilot right now.
I had 2 friends go into flight school...needless to say, one now has a screen printing shop, and the other makes handmade pens and other engrave-able goods