I've played chess for 25+ years, but the vast majority fo that time I was either inactive or played without giving it much thought. Only very recently have I focused on improving.
The gap wasn't because I was involved in anything else productive, though. I just poured excessive amounts of time into video and computer games, as well as my interest in board/card games in general. While I'm not particularly good at any of them, I'm familiar with and competent in a very large number of them. Even now, I wouldn't necessarily identify as a chess player so much as a game player in general.
So, I'm pretty terrible at chess. Chess, however, was not my first sport, still learning the game. I was heavy into soccer and basketball growing up till my early 20's, started chess just couple years ago. Started here actually.
Anybody else have a pele or jordan shadow in them?
Or still do? Or any other sport?