From baseball to cycling via the Super Bowl: former NFL player Luke Willson aims for the Olympic Games in a new sport
Willson represented Canada at the World Junior Baseball Championship in 2008 before becoming a Super Bowl-winning tight end. Now the 33-year-old is on his bike, aiming for an unlikely qualifying spot at Paris 2024.
Cycling Track 
"Strike three. You're out!" That's a refrain Luke Willson heard often as a young baseball player growing up in Canada.
But now, years later, Willson is hoping his third strike at playing top-level sport will pay off.
Willson, who became a National Football League (NFL) tight end after picking American football over baseball, has his sights set on qualifying for the Olympic Games Paris 2024 – in track cycling.
The 33-year-old ended his NFL career two years ago over health concerns and took up cycling with his parents after moving home.
It has turned into much more than a hobby with Willson proving as adept on two wheels as he was in ball sports.
"It was somewhat of an abrupt retirement, and I still felt young and I want to have another shot at being pro, the Olympics or whatever," he told CBC.
Luke Willson on representing Canada
Having not been able to represent his country during his American football days, Willson said he is driven by memories of wearing the Maple Leaf on his uniform.
Willson played first base for Canada at the 2008 World Junior Baseball Championship (now known as the U-18 Baseball World Cup) on home soil, counting future Major League Baseball stars among his teammates.
"To be in Edmonton, wearing 'Canada' across your chest and playing against the best 18-and-under kids from Planet Earth was a special experience," he said of his memories from that tournament.
And that is what is pushing him to fulfil his dreams of Paris 2024 and the Olympic Games, even if there is work to be done given his relative newcomer status to the sport.
"To be able to be like, 'OK, we're at the Olympics, I've got Canada across my chest and I'm ripping this bike around the velodrome,' I think that'd be something really cool," he told CBC.
From American football to cycling
Willson played in the NFL for eight years, making it to the Super Bowl twice and winning a championship ring in his rookie 2013–14 season with the Seattle Seahawks.
After retiring, he started cycling with his parents frequent bike riders in their Ontario community.
"I'm seeing all sorts of nature, avoiding things on the road, biking around feeling air, getting a little lighter, not lifting weights," he recalled of the switch from the football field to a bike.
However, his weight of 109kg (240lb) and bulk does not particularly suit the prototype of a track or road cyclist.
Willson began riding on the roads, but chose to switch indoors to the velodrome although he admits he has a long way to go.
The Canadian is still focusing on sharpening his beginner skills as a racer, such as finding the right aerodynamic body position, something that is not easy with his size.
He does, however, have expert help in the form of Olympic champion Kelsey Mitchell.
Mitchell, who won the women's sprint event at Tokyo 2020, also made a late switch into cycling from her original sport, football (soccer).
"She had to learn all of those bike skills that I'm trying to learn and then be the best in the world […] it's kind of been fun for me to pick her brain," Willson said.
That said, Mitchell switched when she was 24, and did so in 2017 with three years to prepare for the Olympic Games (eventually getting an extra year due to the pandemic).
Willson has far less time and, even by his own account, is not quick enough to make the Canadian team for Paris 2024 at the moment.
NFL Olympians: Past history
If Willson does make it to the Olympic Games, be it in 2024 or further down the line, he would be the 44th man to play in the NFL and be an Olympian.
Of the 43 who have come before him, just three have won Super Bowl rings during their career – and two of them also secured Olympic medals.
The Tokyo 1964 men's 100m (and men's 4x100m) champion Bob Hayes played American football with the Dallas Cowboys and won Super Bowl VI.
Three-time Super Bowl champion Michael Carter, who played for the San Francisco 49ers, took silver in the shot put at Los Angeles 1984.
Most recently, fellow triple Super Bowl ring winner Nate Ebner played for Team USA's rugby sevens squad at Rio 2016 as the sport returned to the Olympic programme.