LeBron James, the greatest basketball player of his generation, has often openly wondered whether he should have played another sport altogether. Sure, the whole basketball thing worked out OK, but King James wasn’t too shabby at football in high school and had the physique, at 6'9" and 250 pounds that would give any Division 1 defensive coordinator nightmares trying to figure out how to scheme against it.
‘Bron’s almost 40 now and can’t be more than a few years from an NBA retirement, so ain’t no way he’ll be anywhere near a college football field, right? Eh, maybe not. The Los Angeles Lakers’ superstar has spent the last few days on Twitter flirting with the idea of playing college football, which, as it turns out, is actually possible, at least from an eligibility standpoint.
That tweet was from Saturday, and to answer the question, NCAA rules would allow for a professional athlete to go back and play at the collegiate level as long as it was in a different sport than the one they played professionally. LeBron might want to holla at his former Cleveland Cavaliers teammate J.R. Smith about the process, since Smith last year retired from the NBA and enrolled at an HBCU, North Carolina A&T University and took up varsity golf.
LeBron, though, doesn’t seem to be thinking about going the HBCU route; he seemed to be all in on the Ohio State Buckeyes, the biggest college football program in his home state.
The real question, though, is what kind of NIL deal could you give to a dude who just signed a $97 million contract extension?