One thing that many sports fans forget is that some of the biggest stars, past and present, once excelled at sports other than the ones that they play professionally.
Observe the unusual: Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders are excluded from the possibilities because they actually played two different professional sports.
Imagine a Los Angeles Kings team with Wayne Gretzky, Luc Robitaille, and Tom Glavine on their electrifying front line during their 1993 run toward the Finals. Remember Tom Glavine, the Mets pitcher? Yes, I said that right. The Billerica, MA native was a hockey star in high school and was drafted in the fourth round by the Kings in ’84. Fellow pitcher Kirk McCaskill also got drafted three years earlier.
Baseball and hockey. One could not think of a more unusual sport pairing, but one could pull it off. The seasons have virtually no overlap except for Spring Training and early October.
The only athlete with as much multi-sport potential as Bo Jackson that I can think of is Baseball Hall of Famer Dave Winfield. At the University of Minnesota, he was the star pitcher and outfielder for the baseball team, which won the College World Series in 1973. He also excelled as a forward for the Gophers’ basketball team. He was drafted by four teams in three different sports.
Four teams in three sports? Yup, and he is still the only man to ever do so.
Well, the San Diego Padres took Winfield with the fourth pick in the ’73 draft, while the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks and the ABA’s Utah Stars each used one of their draft picks on him. The Minnesota Vikings took Winfield in the 17th round of the NFL draft. They apparently thought he was such an outstanding natural athlete that he could star in football despite not playing a single down while at Minnesota.
Winfield in the end put together a Hall of Fame career in baseball, jumping from college to the San Diego Padres.
But what if he stayed in hoops and completely abandoned the national pastime? I don’t know enough about NBA history to say whether Winfield’s presence would have guaranteed championships for the Hawks, but I do know that the Utah Stars reached the ABA Finals in 1974, so maybe they would have gotten the title with Winfield on the floor. In the NBA, the question remains unanswered.
We’re assuming players don’t get hurt and don’t become prima donnas. For all we know, Winfield’s choice of baseball saved him from dying in a plane crash in 1982. Glavine could’ve been paralyzed after receiving a random check from Ray Bourque in 1991 if he picked hockey. Even Bo Jackson could have been affected. If he played only football, for example, he may not have had his hip torn out of its socket, and he might still be playing today. Then again, maybe not.
How about Charlie Ward, the Heisman-winning quarterback of the 1993 NCAA Champion Florida State Seminoles, where is he now? Riding the bench of the New York Knicks. Why on Earth did he choose a sport in which he had inferior skills? Staying with football would have at least most likely guaranteed him to be a top pick and to receive a fat contract as a prospect of every team in the league. At least the NBA doesn’t force him to have big men wrap their arms around his waist in an effort to legally kill him. No, wait…Shaquille O’Neal still plays for the Lakers, doesn’t he?
How many of you have seen the outrageous moves of Allen Iverson? In high school, The Answer was the man at QB. Who cares about moves on the hardwood when you can throw a football 40 yards with guys twice your side an inch from your jockstrap?
Now if those ten-year-olds in the year-round traveling sports leagues just learned to multi-task…
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