When I was little, I used to believe that American football players had really huge shoulders. I was shocked to discover they wore shoulder pads.

Peace Monkey

I used to think that volley ball was called "bally ball". I was always thinking "What makes that ball more bally than others??" I remember when I finally found out it was volley, it was a really big shock.

Betty

I used to believe that snow skiers jumped off the ski lift while it was still high in the air. I believed this until I learned to ski and realized that the ski lift ends at the top of the mountain where you just stand up on the ground to get off the chair.

Misha

When I was a kid my best friend told me that if you open up a golf ball, it would explode. So I didnt go near them until I was a teenager, I was scared to death of them.

Jenny

I was about nine and I use to think that every time the batter fouled one back that the umpire caught the fouled ball because he would always give the ball back to the catcher to throw back to the pitcher. It wasn't until I actually went to a baseball game did I notice that the fouled ball went back into the stands and the umpire pulled a new ball from his bag. I just remembered thinking "those umpires have some fast hands."

Anon

I used to believe that when I got a NEW pair of shoes that I could run faster. Man was I upset when I went to school and the gym teacher tested my running time and said that I was the same. I told her, 'But I got new shoes'. She snickered and told me that the shoes do not make you faster....

Matilda

When I was around 6 or 7 my family went on a family outing to the bowling alley. My older brother and I developed a habit of crossing the line when throwing the ball. My mother, in an effort to teach us to play the game correctly, told us that little midgets would come out of the gutters and steal us if we kept crossing the line. I imagined in my mind that little oompa loompas would come out and grab me if I crossed the line.

Stacy

Ernie Harwell was the announcer for Tiger Baseball until a few years ago. I listened to him during most of my youth.

I used to believe that Ernie Harwell actually knew the towns that people were from when they'd catch foul balls at Tiger Stadium.

A ball would be hit towards the stand and Ernie would say " There's a loooong fly ball and a young man from Constantine Michigan caught that one."

I was always intrigued as to how he was able to figure it out so quickly.

Anon

When I was a kid, there was a neighbor's house where they frequently watched wrestling matches on TV. Once the neighbor told me that the object of the wreatling match was to break through the floor of the wreatling ring. For a long time afterwards, any time I saw a wrestling match on TV, I kept waiting for someone to break through that floor into the area below, inside the box-like structure that supported the wrestling ring. For years I watched in vain to see anyone do that, and concluded for a long time that winning a wrestling match must be a quite rare event.

Greg

When we heard the announcer during the football games our father watched on TV, my brother and I believed that every yard on the football field was as big as the back yard of our house. Football fields were ENORMOUS.

Bruce L.

Once told by my sports-loving father that football games were filmed from a blimp, I believed that the games were actually played INSIDE a blimp! I used to scan the skies for stadium-sized blimps, wondering why I never saw any...

Tabby

I used to think that running cross-country meant you ran across the entire nation!

Anon

When I was growing up my grandfather loved to watch football on the television. I used to think that the players were really shaped the way they were. I didn't realize there was padding on their shoulders, so to me I thought they were monsterous people.

I also used to get freaked out everytime a television station would sign off for the evening at 11:00 or 11:30 p.m. Whenever they would start playing the national anthem, I would run into another room to get away from it. I have no idea why I was afraid.

Bob

I grew up in Atlanta and everytime I went to the Atlanta Braves games with my dad I thought they were saying "Home of the Braves" at the end of the national anthem.

Dennis - Little Rock, AR

When I was a child, and my father had first tried to explain (American) Football to me, he said how a team has "four downs to gain ten yards". In my first attempt to understand that, I got the idea that it meant a team, in advancing 10 yards, had to knock down four players of the opposing team or they would lose the ball. So at the first several football games I watched, I was counting how many players on the defensive team fell down, and trying to see if four fell down by the time the offense advanced ten yards, to see if the offensive team would retain possession of the ball. Naturally it was confusing, as often a team retained possession when I clearly thought they shouldn't have, and vice-versa.

Ron

I used to believe that College Football was a University in a place called Football. One day, I saw a football game on TV.I asked my brother what it was, and he said it was a college football game. I Thought for years that a football stadium was college.A while later, my brother showed me a picture of a football game he was going to. I said "Your'e going to college?"

Lydia

When I was young I used to believe that magicians would be perfect NFL football players because they could easily let the ball disappear and show it back up when they wanted it.
I would tell this theory to friends and parents when there was either football or magic on TV.
I had this theory from when I was 4 till when I was 6.
Then I saw a quarterback -Steve deBerg- do some play action plays and I shouted "they've listened! they've listened!"
He could just let the ball disappear in the hands of a running back and pop it back up to throw it, he got everybody fooled.
From then on, up to this day, I never abandon a theory I truly believe in.

Sjaak

When I was about 5 years old I used to think that the loud speakers you see at marathons (the cone shaped ones) which contain a bottle-shaped object in their centre actually contained the champagne that the winner of the race would receive at the end.

Bradley Funklestein

i always thought the supermarket was like the superbowl
and since my mom would always go to the supermarket on the day of the super bowl it just made me think they were linked together somehow
i even remember drawing a market with a big football on top

Anon

The first time I ever watched a Water Polo Event in the Olympics, I was seriously expected to see polo players sitting on horses splashing through the water. I'd love to say it was when I was very young...

Lisa