Today I Found Out's video: Liam Neeson The Boxer

At the age of nine years old, actor Liam Neeson joined the All Saints Boxing Club put together by his parish priest, Father Darragh. He continued boxing until 17, according to Neeson becoming "juvenile champion of Northern Ireland three times and Irish runner-up a couple times in my weight division." However, after one of his final fights, when he came out of the ring, Neeson later stated, "...my trainer said to go downstairs and take my clothes off and stuff, and I couldn't figure out what downstairs meant. It kind of freaked me out a bit." This, combined with the training time taking away from his schooling and amateur drama resulted in him quitting boxing. After dropping out of college, he took a variety of odd jobs before ultimately devoting his time to acting, something he first started at the age of 11 when he got a role in a school play that he took simply because a girl he had a crush on was also in the play. Later, while studying at Queen's University Belfast, he also got into soccer, and even played in one game as a substitute for the Shamrock Rovers professional football club. In the end, he credits his time boxing teaching him "something about having a sense of discipline, no matter what your chosen profession is going to be, kind of never saying die, always getting up and going... I know I got that determination from those early days boxing." Image Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cinemayian-20160801-0001.jpg