Kansas City QB Patrick Mahomes has positioned himself as one of the legendary QBs in the league, but his journey to stardom didn’t start with quarterbacking. Recently, the two-time MVP shared an interesting tidbit from his early years, revealing that he once had a brief stint as a linebacker when he was just 10 years old.
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During his interview with Chris Simms, Mahomes revealed that, while participating in the Pop Warner Football Team tryouts, he was surprisingly moved to the linebacker position. However, it didn’t end as Mahomes had imagined.
The future NFL star got ‘juked’ during his first padded practice, prompting him to quit the next day and gravitate toward either baseball or basketball.
“It’s a funny story. I actually tried out for the Pop Warner football team and they moved me to linebacker. I got juked on the first padded practice and I quit the next day,” Mahomes recalled.
During the interview, Mahomes asserted quite a few times that football wasn’t his first love. He did, however, grow into it, and those who doubted him on his first day didn’t have the last laugh. In high school, Mahomes crossed paths with them again and had his sweet revenge.
“I never was a football guy, and actually I remember the guys that I played. I beat them in high school and they were talking smacks so right, I got the laughs, got the revenge,” Mahomes recounted.
By the looks of it, Mahomes has always had that competitive-winning gene. It took him to great heights, and he undoubtedly learned from the best, considering the players he admired while growing up.
Who Were Patrick Mahomes’ Favorite Players Growing Up?
It was either baseball or basketball for Mahomes growing up, and as it turns out, he didn’t necessarily follow the crowd. During the same interview, Mahomes revealed that when it came to basketball, he chose to be a fan of Carmelo Anthony over LeBron James.
Carmelo’s collegiate tenure in 2002 and 2003 certainly swayed him, especially considering the widespread attention on LeBron, the first overall pick of the 2003 draft.
“So at that time, I was a Carmelo Anthony fan. I was going the other way. You had LeBron, everybody was LeBron’s fans, I love LeBron, but at the same time, I wanted to kind of have that guy — and it was Denver Nuggets, him shooting the Mellow, the three sign on the side of the head — he goes to the Knicks — and so I was a big Carmelo fan growing up.”
Patrick Mahomes reveals the Carmelo Anthony was his favorite basketball player growing up!
@ctrlnarrative | @PatrickMahomes | @carmeloanthony pic.twitter.com/Z6rnc9V4EQ
— Hoops Nation (@HoopsNation_1) September 3, 2023
Mahomes also revealed that Packers legend Brett Favre was his favorite football player growing up; however, as time went by, his admiration shifted toward Aaron Rodgers.
It’s quite remarkable that Mahomes found his passion for football in later life. Who knows what could have been if he followed basketball or baseball instead? Interestingly, the NFL star did get drafted by the Detroit Tigers in the 2014 MLB draft.
