Early Life
Shamrock experienced hardships as a child. He came from a broken family and was often left to fend for himself without the supervision or guidance of his parents. Shamrock was eventually abandoned by his parents and placed in a foster home at 10 years old. He bounced around between several group homes before being placed in Bob Shamrock's Boys' Home at age 14, where he turned his life around. Bob Shamrock legally adopted Ken as his son, and Ken changed his last name to Shamrock in Bob's honor.
In High School, Shamrock excelled in both American football and wrestling. As a senior, Shamrock qualified for the state championships in wrestling, but broke his neck in practice days before the competition and underwent neck surgery. Shamrock would no longer be getting wrestling scholarship offers from big league colleges, and doctors told him his sports career was likely over. Against doctors orders, Shamrock rehabbed to get himself back to 100 percent and months later, he joined the Shasta Junior College football team, where he was voted team captain in his final season. The San Diego Chargers of the National Football League later offered Shamrock a tryout, but Shamrock declined in order to pursue a career in professional wrestling, where he debuted in 1989 in the South Atlantic Pro Wrestling promotion. Shamrock's professional wrestling career eventually brought him to Japan, where he met professional wrestlers Masakatsu Funaki and Minoru Suzuki and set the stage for his mixed martial arts carer to begin.
Read more about this topic: Ken Shamrock
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early and/or life:
“... business training in early life should not be regarded solely as insurance against destitution in the case of an emergency. For from business experience women can gain, too, knowledge of the world and of human beings, which should be of immeasurable value to their marriage careers. Self-discipline, co-operation, adaptability, efficiency, economic management,—if she learns these in her business life she is liable for many less heartbreaks and disappointments in her married life.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)
“Humanity has passed through a long history of one-sidedness and of a social condition that has always contained the potential of destruction, despite its creative achievements in technology. The great project of our time must be to open the other eye: to see all-sidedly and wholly, to heal and transcend the cleavage between humanity and nature that came with early wisdom.”
—Murray Bookchin (b. 1941)
“I favor the policy of economy, not because I wish to save money, but because I wish to save people. The men and women of this country who toil are the ones who bear the cost of the Government. Every dollar that we carelessly waste means that their life will be so much the more meager. Every dollar that we prudently save means that their life will be so much the more abundant. Economy is idealism in its most practical terms.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)