By the time I was 8 years old, sports had pretty much taken over my life.

You spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.

Character is everything. The reason people watch sports entertainment is to see people who are larger than life, but at the same time, there's something real about them.

As an athlete, that's something I always take with me. You fall every day, whether it's in a job, or you miss something else, but you learn how to do it better next time. You learn it in sports. That's a life lesson.

I liked the game, I enjoyed the game, and the game fed me enough, and gave me enough rewards to reinforce that this is something that I should spend time doing, and that I could possibly make a priority in my life, versus other sports.

My dad was disappointed in me because I was obese, and he was a sports guy. As a result, I spent a lot of time in that basement. I could go down there and escape and be whatever I wanted to be. I had a huge fantasy life. It always involved vengeance.

I'm not ashamed of my social media following, my Sports Illustrated swimsuit shoot, or the tough time I had in my LPGA debut, but these small facets of my life are easily manipulated by the Internet to get views, and they don't define me as a person.

The biggest lesson from Africa was that life's joys come mostly from relationships and friendships, not from material things. I saw time and again how much fun Africans had with their families and friends and on the sports fields; they laughed all the time.

At school I pretended I had a normal life, but I felt lonely all the time and different from everyone else. I never felt like I fit in, and I wasn't allowed to participate in after-school activities, go to sports events or parties or date boys. Many times I had to make up stories about why I couldn't do anything with my classmates.

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