During the 2011 NBA lockout, LeBron James considered following in Michael Jordan’s footsteps and taking a break from playing basketball to go pro in another sport. But, unlike Jordan who chose to go back to baseball, James toyed with the idea of returning to play football.
Not knowing how long the lockout was going to be, James and his trainer Mike Mancias began adjusting his workout so he would be ready to make the switch to football if he wanted.
“We really started to actually train to be a football player,” James said on The Uninterrupted’s After Party show. “We started to clock our times with the 40s. We started to add a little bit more with the bench press and things of that nature. We started to add a little more sled to our agenda with our workouts.”
Though he didn’t go to college and went straight to the NBA, James was recruited by schools like Notre Dame and Ohio State out of high school where he was a first-team, all-state player at wide receiver.
Although nothing ever came of it, Jerry Jones somehow found out about James considering making the switch and even sent him a contract to play for the Dallas Cowboys. “I know he got a contract from Jerry Jones that he framed and put in his office,” James’s business partner and friend Maverick Carter said on the show.
The full interview, which also features James talking about Michael Jordan and a slew of other topics, is below:
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