10 Athletes We'd Want to See Play Other Pro Sports

Given the talent and drive required to become a professional athlete, it's no surprise that many standouts also starred in another sport.

In some cases, we merely imagine a hypothetical. For example, Harry Kane is a world-class striker who's scored hundreds of goals for England and some of the biggest clubs. He recently floated the possibility of eventually kicking in the NFL.

For plenty of star athletes, we already have evidence of second-sport excellence, but we're left wondering what might have been.

We've highlighted 10 of the best examples here.

Without a doubt, Tom Glavine made the correct choice. He was a star pitcher for the Atlanta Braves, winning two Cy Young Awards and an MLB title—as the World Series MVP—en route to being a first-ballot Hall of Famer.

Glavine also could have chased a career on the ice.

As a senior in high school, he racked up 47 goals and 47 assists for a state-high 94 points, per David Pevear of the Lowell Sun . Glavine, who totaled 229 points in his Massachusetts high school career, then heard his name called as a fourth-round selection of the Los Angeles Kings in the 1984 NHL draft.

Glavine chose to sign with Atlanta, which helped develop the southpaw into the legendary 300-game winner whom we remember on the mound.

Tony Gonzalez's basketball career solidified his NFL future.

Back in 1997, Kansas City Chiefs coach Marty Schottenheimer and general manager Carl Peterson went to scout Gonzalez at the University of California. The star tight end doubled as a forward who averaged 6.4 points and 4.3 rebounds over three seasons.

"Any time he went up for a rebound in traffic, he would come down with the ball," Peterson later said of Gonzalez. "We thought that ability would be useful playing for the Chiefs, and it was."

Gonzalez pulled in 1,325 receptions for 15,127 yards and 111 touchdowns, all of which were NFL records for a tight end at the time of his retirement. Each one also remains a top-10 mark in NFL history regardless of position.

Julius Peppers is a member of both the College and Pro Football Halls of Fame. He starred for North Carolina, then entered the NFL as the No. 2 pick of the 2002 draft and dazzled with the Carolina Panthers, Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers.

Before he committed to flying off the edge, though, Peppers was a valuable piece of the iconic UNC basketball program.

As a freshman, he was a regular contributor on a Final Four team. Peppers averaged 7.1 points and 4.0 rebounds in his sophomore year—the last season he played prior to focusing on football.

"I'll tell you this, I do believe if Pep would've just focused on basketball, he could've played in the NBA," said Matt Doherty, who coached Peppers at UNC and later worked for the Indiana Pacers.

Peppers settled for registering the fifth-most sacks (159.5) in NFL history.

Ranking 10 Best Bills Players of All Time

NBA Players with the All-Time Most Career Earnings💰

Joe Mauer was just awesome at everything, huh?

While in high school, he earned a 5-star recruiting billing and committed to Florida State for football, twice earned Minnesota all-state recognition in basketball and shattered records on the diamond.

Mauer averaged 20-plus points for the basketball team, but he straight-up dominated as a quarterback. He threw for 3,022 yards with 41 touchdowns in his senior year, landing the USA Today National Player of the Year honors.

Oh, and the Minnesota Twins used the No. 1 pick of the 2001 MLB draft on Mauer.

Highlighted by the 2009 AL MVP, he further stuffed that impressive trophy case with three Gold Gloves and five Silver Sluggers. Mauer is only the third catcher in MLB history to become a first-ballot Hall of Fame selection.

When you're in the conversation for the greatest player of all time in your sport, any regrets about not playing a different sport are entirely unnecessary.

That's a common question for LeBron James, who collected 103 catches for 2,065 yards and 23 touchdowns in two years of high school football. He was an Ohio all-state selection in both seasons.

LeBron hung up his cleats as a senior to focus on basketball. Still, he shared that during the 2011 NBA lockout, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll both contacted him about playing football.

If nothing else, it's fun to envision 6'8" LeBron constantly soaring over defenders in the end zone.

The comparison is not like-for-like, but NFL icon Antonio Gates provides an ideal transition from NBA legend LeBron.

During the same draft year (2003), Gates made the switch to football. He'd exclusively played basketball in college and was a key scorer for Kent State during its surprise run to the 2002 Elite Eight. Gates wrapped up his basketball career with 20.6 points, 7.7 rebounds and 4.1 assists per game as a senior.

The decision to focus on football worked out for him beautifully.

Gates joined the San Diego Chargers and quickly rose to stardom, securing first-team AP All-Pro honors in his second, third and fourth NFL seasons.

Gates stayed with the Chargers for 16 years, amassing 955 catches for 11,841 yards and 116 touchdowns—the last of which is still a top-10 all-time total.

The fork in the profession road led Jeff Samardzija to baseball.

Ultimately, he put together a 13-year MLB career that included an All-Star nod in 2014. Samardzija posted an 80-106 record with a 4.15 ERA and notched 1,449 strikeouts. Even though he didn't meet the expectations of a $90 million contract later in his career, Samardzija was a quality pitcher.

After retiring, he made it abundantly clear that baseball was the correct choice for him. Nevertheless, we can daydream about the former Notre Dame receiver taking the NFL route instead.

Samardzija made 77 receptions for 1,249 yards and 15 scores and was a second-team AP All-American (alongside a guy named Calvin Johnson) in 2005. He followed with 78 catches for 1,017 yards and 13 total touchdowns in 2006, leaving Notre Dame as the program's career leader in all three categories.

The most notable piece of Russell Wilson's story is how flirting with baseball directly altered his football career.

After the Colorado Rockies chose him in the fourth round of the 2010 MLB draft, Wilson totaled 3,998 offensive yards and 37 touchdowns as North Carolina State's quarterback that season. He wanted to play minor league ball the next summer—and did—which led to NC State moving on and Wisconsin swooping in.

Wilson parlayed a strong year at Wisconsin into a third-round selection by the Seattle Seahawks in the 2012 NFL draft. Nearly 47,000 passing yards and a Super Bowl ring later, Wilson had a terrific career at QB.

As with the others, there's no guarantee he would have flourished in the secondary sport. Wilson hit .228 in that summer with low-A Asheville.

But if Wilson had elected to focus solely on baseball, who knows?

The highest-profile case in recent memory, Kyler Murray holds the distinction of being a first-round selection in the MLB and NFL drafts.

In the summer of 2018, the Oakland Athletics picked him No. 9 overall. Months later, Murray threw for 4,000 yards and rushed for 1,000 more—making him only the second college QB to achieve that in a season—while leading Oklahoma to a Big 12 title and trip to the College Football Playoff.

Murray had said he planned to chase the NFL, and that fantastic year cemented his path to football. He went to the Arizona Cardinals at No. 1 overall, won Offensive Rookie of the Year and has surpassed $200 million in career earnings.

Still, in his final baseball season at OU, Murray hit .296 with 10 homers, 47 RBI, 16 more extra-base hits and 10 steals. He had serious upside on the diamond.

Russell Wilson appeared in the minors. Kyler Murray kept playing in college. A.J. Brown, on the other hand, essentially saw his baseball career end in high school.

Because he signed with the San Diego Padres as their 19th-round selection in 2016, Brown—an Under Armour All-American in two sports, as Murray was—could not suit up for Ole Miss baseball. He made a couple of brief stops at San Diego's extended spring training, but that was it.

However, those who watched him at the ballpark left impressed.

"The ball-hawking skill, the way he can go up and make a catch—he was like that in center field," Padres scout Stephen Moritz said . "His first steps might not have always been perfect. But he had this innate ability to track a ball down."

Brown has showcased that talent for eight seasons in the NFL, recording six 1,000-yard campaigns and counting. He also won a Super Bowl ring with the Philadelphia Eagles in 2024.