There was a story doing the rounds, maybe spread by a fellow Black Caps' fast bowler, that Boult one winter decided to play rugby instead of soccer. On his way to his first practice he saw the players going through some hit-ups, tucked his newly bought and moulded mouthguard back into his sock and circumnavigated the field on his way back to soccer.
"Who told you that?" he laughs, before confirming the tale as largely true.
Whippet thin and armed with an easy smile, Boult looks about as menacing as the golden retriever puppy, Lou, he's brought along to this interview. He doesn't sledge, isn't one for standing arms akimbo in the middle of the pitch and it's hard to recall him engaging in a bouncer war with anyone.
Underestimate him, though, at your peril. His belief is the nastiest thing you can do to a batsman is to dismiss him and if that's to put aside personal ego and pitch the ball up and swing it, rather than trying to send it whizzing past earlobes, that's what he'll do. "There's other ways of being hostile," he says with that mile-wide smile.
There's a reason he's the third-best test and fifth-ranked ODI bowler in the world. He's got a razor-sharp bowling brain and a reservoir of ambition that remains untapped.
"Test cricket is what I'm passionate about and I'm happy to share this: I want to be the best bowler in the world."
In that one small sentence Boult has encapsulated the seachange that has taken place in our summer game. To make such a lofty ambition public a few short years ago would have been to invite derision. That goal now seems entirely plausible.
The only speed bump along that fast-track to No1 maybe his back. Boult first made the New Zealand squad as a callow 18-year-old and he would concede it was probably a step too far, too early. Until then his claim to fame was winning a national speed-gun competition as a sixth former at Otumoetai College and, anyway, his first steps into the the world of international cricket were curtailed by a stress fracture to his L3 bone.
An MRI in London after last week's second ODI against England cleared him of further damage to that vertebra "but there were a couple of other hot spots we need to get checked out".
If worst fears are confirmed and Boult faces a lengthy rest and rehab period, the reasons why are obvious. He went from the World Cup to the Indian Premier League. He arrived in England two days before the first test and bowled 73 overs that week.
"I followed it with almost 60 the next week. I was pretty fatigued and pretty stiff," he says. "I had a couple of days off and went into the ODIs and started to feel pretty tight through my lower back and glutes [buttock muscles]."
It's been that sort of year for Boult - everything, it seems, is happening at lightning speed and, apart from the injury, he's loving every minute of it.
He wasn't part of New Zealand's one-day plans until a few months before the World Cup but now he's captain Brendon McCullum's key weapon in ODI and test cricket.
"By all means, I haven't mastered the game, there's always something to learn," the 25-year-old says. "One of the positives of playing all this cricket is the opportunities you get to learn. To rub shoulders with the best bowlers in the world at the IPL was great. It's surreal, Wasim Akram and Dale Steyn were my two favourite bowlers in the world and inside six weeks in India I had coffees with both of them, had the chance to get to know them and it was just a unique experience."
Boult is home early, as is Corey Anderson, who lives a three-wood or so down the road.
They'll soon be joined by Kane Williamson, who's also just along the way. There's obviously something in the salt water, because new-ball partner in crime Tim Southee is also trying to muscle his way onto the Mt Maunganui property ladder.
It might say something about the Bay of Plenty idyll, but it also says something about the camaraderie among this team that none of them would find this cheek-by-jowl living strange. As Boult says, "everyone in the team is very good mates".
So good, in fact, that he's sharing his other great passion with Williamson - the guitar. Boult has eight axes, the latest a small Martin LX that is easy to take around the world.
He takes it around the world with him because, he says, he can't get on the team bus in the morning without having played a couple of songs first.
What songs?
"Everything. The Blues, the Eagles."
Which is not what most 25-year-olds are listening to these days.
"I just went and saw Mark Knopfler at the Royal Albert Hall. It was fantastic!"
Knopfler! It's tempting to sign off with a line about the future of macho fast bowling being in dire straits, but Boult doesn't deserve that...
