Indiana's Two-Sport Bruiser Jordan Fuchs Is One of the Last of a Dying Breed

CHICAGO — It started three weeks ago, and Indiana tight end Jordan Fuchs didn't exactly show up to his first Hoosiers basketball practice in helmet, pads and cleats, but...

"I broke somebody's nose the second day," he said. "The team manager."

Broke the team manager's nose?

"Head-butt," Fuchs said. "I'm adjusting."

Turned out, it was an accident. But Fuchs had to tone it down some.

Fuchs is a dying breed. He is an Indiana freshman football player who will play for the Hoosiers in the NCAA tournament this week. Football players used to play basketball in the offseason to stay in shape. At some point, that's what people thought basketball was for. So football players popped up on basketball rosters everywhere. Now it's a rarity.

For Fuchs, it has been a transition period from one sport to the other, and the adjustment is part body, part mind. 

The thing is, I've already gotten this wrong. Fuchs isn't a football player who is playing basketball. He is both. He was a basketball player first in high school, a New York city star, as the New York Daily News once put it. He took a football scholarship to Indiana figuring he'd get a chance to play hoops, too.

Gregory Payan/Associated Press

In an era of specialization, kids are pigeonholed into one sport, one event, one motion. Over and over and over in an effort to make them the next Tiger Woods. It's not healthy. It leads to burnout and repetitive-motion injuries. And some coaches, notably Ohio State football coach Urban Meyer (a former football player and minor-league baseball player himself), are now looking for that rare kid who played multiple sports in high school.

When Pete Carroll was still coaching at USC, he once said, "I hate that kids don't play three sports in high school...I really, really don't favor kids having to specialize in one sport. I want to be the biggest proponent for two-sport athletes at the college level."

There are still examples of multisport athletes making it. Tony Gonzalez did football and basketball at Cal. It worked out pretty well for him.

And now, Fuchs should be the example to all parents. Playing multiple sports teaches multiple skill sets. It's healthier than offseason camps and year-round travel teams.

"Yeah, people are always telling me I can't do both," Fuchs said recently during the Big Ten tournament in Chicago. "It just makes me want to do it more. People don't do it in college probably because it's so hard. Some days I have football workouts and go straight from football weight-lifting and just walk across to basketball."

There is something right about Fuchs, and it's not just that he's multitalented. Years ago, Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders reached the top pro levels in football and baseball. But their stories were about freaks of talent. No one is suggesting that should be the norm at the major league level.

But in school? High schoolers, not to mention younger students, are becoming specialists because the goals have changed. Sports, even for kids, aren't about playing nearly as much as they're about being a means to an end, a scholarship or career.

So Fuchs' story is about talent, but moreso it's about a kid doing something that looked fun, and not doing it as part of the professionalizing of our kids.

At some point, if he is good enough to be a pro, he'll have to quit one to pursue the other. He has thought about that, and will give up basketball. But for now, he'll do both. And he was never groomed for the NFL. In fact, he didn't play football until his junior year in high school.

"I had zero thoughts of playing football," he said. "And one day I was just watching college football on TV and was like, 'Hey, I'm going to play football.'"

SAM RICHE/Associated Press

From the first day, he loved it. It came naturally. He got basketball scholarships from Florida and Iowa State, among others, and football offers, he said, from Connecticut, Rutgers and Indiana.

Fuchs figured if he took a basketball scholarship, coaches wouldn't want him to play football. But if he took a football offer, coaches might let him play basketball, too.

He was right: Indiana football coach Kevin Wilson approved.

"I knew football was my bread and butter," he said. "I knew I had to get a football scholarship to play both. You look at basketball and there are a lot of guys like me, my height and size (6'6", 230 lbs). You look at football, not so much."

Fuchs hasn't yet starred at the college level in either sport. He has played football for only a couple of years, so he has to develop. But he was on the field all 12 games of the season. In basketball, he's defense and muscle and has played a handful of minutes. He's been on the team for only a few weeks. 

But if the multisport athlete is a dying breed, he isn't dead yet. Basketball players seem to make good tight ends.

Last month, football recruit Noah Togiai backed out of an oral commitment to Utah and signed to play for Oregon State because, as he told The Oregonian, "I've always wanted to go to a school that would allow me to play football and basketball. They went out of their way and said I can."

That's only a good thing, except for basketball team managers. They might need to wear facemasks.

Greg Couch covers college football for Bleacher Report.