10 Current Stars Who Could Play Other Pro Sports
It remains uncertain whether a certain someone qualifies for this list of athletes capable of shining in another sport.
There's no escaping Tim Tebow, who signed a minor league contract with the New York Mets. Was he a good NFL quarterback? Of course not, but the Heisman Trophy winner is still a superior athlete to the overwhelming majority of the population.
For his sake, let's hope he enjoys a smoother transition than CM Punk. After a long wait, the former WWE performer made his mixed martial arts debut at UFC 203. He was immediately taken down by Mickey Gall, who earned a swift first-round victory via submission.
Detractors will say a former professional wrestler without the proper experience had no business fighting someone with a brown belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. In all likelihood, the same disastrous results would occur if some of these athletes reversed course.
No, LeBron James wouldn't dominate another sport tomorrow if he decided today to give up basketball. But what if he had taken a different path out of high school? Would he be an NFL legend instead?
Let's take a look at 10 world-class athletes possessing the abilities to navigate another field outside of his or her speciality.
Mookie Betts
1 of 10
The rest of the list engages in what-if or what-could-have-been scenarios. Mookie Betts, however, is currently a two-sport athlete.
No, the 5'9", 180-pound Boston Red Sox outfielder isn't an NBA guard or NFL lineman. He's a bowler who competed in the PBA's World Series of Bowling last winter.
He held his own during the PBA Tour's most illustrious event. After six of nine games, the current American League MVP contender placed No. 122 among 241 of the world's top professionals. He stalled down the stretch, falling to a No. 204 finish.
“He’s one of the better [celebrity bowlers],” PBA Tour veteran Tommy Jones told Jason Mastrodonato of the Boston Herald. “I think he’s really into it. He asks all the questions. He wants to learn. If you’re not into it, if you’re just here to bowl, you’re not asking questions. He cares about it.”
Just think if he had more than two weeks to prepare.
Betts later bowled two perfect games before spring training, so don't be shocked if the 23-year-old challenges the pros again with a better outcome. But first, he'll look to make a different World Series with the Red Sox.
Rob Gronkowski
2 of 10
Tony Gonzalez, Anthony Gates, Jimmy Graham. Everyone knows the archetype of NFL tight ends emerging from college basketball backgrounds.
Once Rob Gronkowski enrolled in Arizona, he focused exclusively on carving his path to a Hall of Fame NFL career. In high school, however, he shined on the hard court as well.
Per Bleacher Report's Tyler Donohue, he averaged a double-double. Here's Gronk dunking over physically inferior teenagers.
He also injected Woodland Hills High School's baseball lineup with a middle-of-the-order slugger. Instead of imposing his will on massive NFL defenders, the New England Patriots star could have tortured pitchers as a towering power threat who swung for the fences every time.
The 6'6" touchdown machine couldn't bully NBA centers, which is why so many tight ends shied away from hoops. They have all transferred their box-out abilities to catching footballs because they lacked the height to clean the NBA glass.
Yet Gronk has the muscle to have potentially carved out a role a la Charles Barkley or Draymond Green. Then again, the odds are highly against him having found a distributor as good as Tom Brady.
LeBron James
3 of 10
Branded as the chosen one since high school, basketball greatness was inevitable for LeBron James. When such a freakishly talented athlete dominates one sport, it's only natural to wonder how he would fare elsewhere.
That caused one curious gamer to insert the NBA star as the Cleveland Browns' replacement quarterback for Robert Griffin III in Madden NFL 17. It wasn't the first time the Ohio native donned their uniform, as he switched allegiances in a commercial seven years ago.
Colleges also imagined James conquering the gridiron. According to Bleacher Report's Ben Axelrod, many football programs recruited the high school wide receiver. Slated to jump to the NBA, James laughed off prestigious pitches, including one from Urban Meyer on behalf of Notre Dame.
St. Vincent-St. Mary's head football coach Jay Brophy recalled his discussion with the future NBA icon to Axelrod:
"I went over to him and he was in the library and I said, 'LeBron, hey, let me ask you, are you really interested in playing college football? I've got a ton of schools asking about you playing that have called me.' He said, 'Well coach, I'm 99 percent sure I'm probably going to the NBA. But I wouldn’t rule it out.'
"He started laughing and he said, 'No coach, I'm kidding. I'm gonna play basketball.' I said, 'All right, I just wanted to know.'
"
James probably would have excelled at football, but it's safe to say he chose wisely.
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Colin Kaepernick
4 of 10
If Colin Kaepernick can't escape the San Francisco 49ers' bench, perhaps he can follow Tebow's path to baseball.
The Chicago Cubs—whose success steering prospects away from football will get highlighted later—drafted Kaepernick during the 2009 first-year player draft. Tim Wilken, the club's scouting director at the time, reflected on the flier and negotiation process with MLB.com's Carrie Muskat three years ago.
"There just wasn't a strong enough interest," Wilken said. "We'd had people who told our scouts they'd seen him in high school [throwing] anywhere from 89 to 92 [mph]. We thought with his athleticism and size—he was 6-4 his sophomore year—so hey, why not? It was a good spot to do it in the 43rd round."
Kaepernick, now 28, has since gained muscle, and few quarterbacks in the league can match his laser spiral. Accuracy is his bigger issue, which may carry over to the mound. In 2013, he fired a first pitch off the strike zone for the San Francisco Giants at 87 mph.
If this were to happen, he might not receive the same warm welcome as Tebow. Arizona Diamondbacks executive Tony La Russa recently questioned the sincerity of Kaepernick not standing during the national anthem. The same teams who entertained Tebow as a publicity stunt would cower away in fear of stirring a pot with the quarterback's protest against racial inequality and police brutality.
Michael Phelps
5 of 10
The sky's the limit when a world-class athlete like Michael Phelps dedicates himself to mastering a craft.
During his short-lived retirement, the record-breaking Olympic swimmer sunk his teeth into golfing. Working with professional golf instructor Hank Haney, he improved his scores from the 100s to the 80s.
Yet he still wasn't satisfied, as he explained during the American Century Championship celebrity tournament three years ago, per Swing by Swing.
“It’s been an eye-opening experience for me just because I’ve usually been able to pick everything up fairly quickly,” Phelps said during a press conference. “It’s brutal. I don’t understand how it can be that hard to hit this little, tiny white ball and hit it straight every time. But it just doesn’t happen for me.”
He said this a year after sinking the longest televised putt ever (159 feet).
Anyone who can win 23 Olympic gold medals will probably find success in any discipline he practices. Phelps' athleticism is not relegated to the water.
Ronda Rousey
6 of 10
Before becoming the first female fighter signed by UFC, Ronda Rousey was an Olympic medal winner.
During the 2008 Beijing Games, Rousey became the first United States woman to medal in judo by earning bronze. She then retired and switched disciplines, dominating MMA as a UFC headliner.
She has also dipped her feet into sport-entertainment waters, appearing at WWE's WrestleMania 31 alongside Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, a former college football player before parlaying his wrestling stardom into acting fame.
Rousey, who has similarly branched out to Hollywood, may one day compete inside Vince McMahon's brass rings. According to Forbes' Anthony DiMore, the wrestling promotion hoped allowing Brock Lesnar to compete at UFC 200 would help secure Rousey for a match at next year's WrestleMania in Orlando.
Although she hasn't fought since losing to Holly Holm last November, Rousey still brandishes an undeniable aura and imposing presence. Her empowering persona would translate perfectly into the WWE.
Jeff Samardzija
7 of 10
For most multi-sport athletes forced to eventually choose one, the decision is usually obvious. Or it at least seems so in hindsight.
Jeff Samardzija, on the other hand, was a more accomplished football player before committing to baseball.
The All-American wide receiver registered two 1,000-yard seasons at Notre Dame, snagging 28 touchdowns in 25 junior and senior games. While breaking out in one sport, his ERA bloated in each year on the Fighting Irish's pitching staff, increasing to 4.33 ERA in his final year.
Although a first-round NFL draft slot beckoned, the Chicago Cubs took a chance on the 6'6" righty in the fifth round anyway. A five-year, $10 million contract swayed him to leave football in the dust and sign.
Financially speaking, this was a savvy move. Last winter, the San Francisco Giants awarded him a $90 million deal despite posting a 4.96 ERA the previous season. According to Spotrac, Julio Jones earns the highest salary among NFL wideouts at approximately $71 million.
Still, one can't help but wonder how his NFL career would have unfolded.
Mike Trout
8 of 10
In street clothes, Mike Trout doesn't look like a five-tool outfielder. At 6'2" and 230 pounds, the Los Angeles Angels superstar instead resembles a linebacker or punishing running back.
He doesn't look like a guy who stole 49 bases during his rookie season and robs opponents of home runs when not hitting them himself. He looks more like Carolina Panthers linebacker Luke Keuchly than Betts or the 5'6" Jose Altuve, two of his top adversaries for this year's American League MVP trophy.
Yet his other passion is an even unlikelier platform for a man of his stature.
“If I was a professional athlete in another sport it would have to be golf,” Trout told Fox Sports' Abbey Mastracco in 2013.
The 2014 MVP—he won the award during the worst season of his career—has since bulked up considerably. It showed when he belted a career-high 41 home runs and .590 slugging percentage last year, but he has traded some power for speed, contact and plate discipline in 2016.
Let's hope this doesn't give him any ideas, as the 25-year-old will go down as one of the best baseball players ever if he sustains this production.
Russell Westbrook
9 of 10
Basketball is the perfect sport for Russell Westbrook, a fireball of energy who plays every second at maximum speed. The Oklahoma City Thunder point guard is impossible to stop on fast breaks, and nobody can match his unrelenting motor for a full 48 minutes.
His elite blend of drive and athleticism would translate well to any other competition.
On the baseball diamond, he could track down fly balls before dropping in the outfield while wreaking havoc on the basepaths. On the football field, he'd zoom past defensive backs downfield or cover all areas of the secondary. Good luck keeping up without any play stoppages on the soccer field.
At 6'3" with tremendous speed, strength and vertical prowess, it's easy to see an alternative universe where he excels in any of those roles. But the poor Thunder have already lost Kevin Durant, so let's not torture their fans with hypothetical scenarios of Westbrook also playing elsewhere.
Russell Wilson
10 of 10
Tebow isn't the first NFL quarterback to pick up a bat and glove. Along with his far more successful football career, Russell Wilson has also harbored dreams of playing professional baseball.
Before the Seattle Seahawks snagged him in the third round of 2012's draft, the Colorado Rockies selected him during the fourth round of 2010's MLB first-year player draft. The second baseman recorded a .354 on-base percentage in 93 low-level minor league games before turning his sights to football.
After Wilson led the Seahawks to a Super Bowl title, the Texas Rangers attained his rights in 2013's Rule 5 draft. In an HBO "Real Sports" interview last year, per the Los Angeles Times' Austin Knoblauch, the quarterback insisted it was no mere publicity stunt.
"I never want to kill the dream of playing two sports," Wilson said. "I would honestly play two sports. That's why the Texas Rangers got my rights. They want me to play. Jon Daniels, the [general manager], wants me to play. We were talking about it the other day."
Of course, a starting NFL quarterback doesn't have enough time to freelance as a minor league infielder. His intentions seem sincere, and he displayed a strong enough batting eye to possibly stick as organizational depth if he picked baseball years ago.
Going to two Super Bowls in four years is a tad better.
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