Lights, camera, sports action?
Who knew that Bradley Walsh was a professional footballer? You will, if you read on, writes
Some people are good at everything. George Clooney is one of those people, it seems. So are Gordon Ramsay, Geena Davis, and even unlikely characters such Labour politician Louisa Wall and quiz host/actor Bradley Walsh.
All have the right to say ‘‘I coulda’ been a contender. I could’ve been somebody’’ as an athlete, but it all turned out OK in the end, with fewer injuries and longer careers than had they stayed in sport.
Let’s do a quick sprint through the coulda-beens. Get into the blocks and sprint into our sporting hall of other fame.
Jason Statham (diver, actor)
You might have actually seen Statham before he was an action movie antihero and not realised it. He competed for England at the 1990 Commonwealth Games as a diver, after dabbling in martial arts, swimming and football.
Statham contested the 10-metre (10th), 3-metre (11th) and 1-metre (eighth) diving competitions in Auckland. Soon after, he moved into modelling, then to acting.
He credited sports for giving him the structure and work ethic to succeed in movies, where he’s garnered a reputation for cheeky and tough leading performances.
‘‘I never really achieved what I wanted to achieve. But I think what I didn’t achieve has probably helped me focusmore and take my acting career more seriously,’’ he told the BBC.
‘‘It was a great experience, you know, to travel the world and compete at a certain level. It teaches you discipline, focus, and certainly keeps you out of trouble.’’
George Clooney (baseballer, actor)
Before Clooney was a charismatic actor and coffee pusher, he was a sports jock.
Growing up in Ohio he played basketball and baseball at Augusta High School, and loved baseball’s Cincinnati Reds andnfl side the Cincinnati Bengals.
He was so good at baseball that in 1977 the Reds invited him to a try out. It didn’t go how Clooney planned.
He stood there slogging warm-up balls, thinking hewas pretty good until the pitcher wound up and sat him on his smart arse.
He found he could belt a straight pitch just fine but curveballs had him flailing, so his story goes.
‘‘I could catch anything. I was a great outfielder in high school. But I couldn’t throw well,’’ he told The Enquirer in 1990. ‘‘I wanted to play pro baseball. I thought that would be it.’’
Clooney failed to make the cut. He graduated in 1979, went to college, but dropped out to pursue acting. No great loss for the Reds, it seems.
Geena Davis (archer, actor)
Oscar nominated actor Geena Davis – Thelma in the acclaimed Thelma& Louise – took up archery at 41 (near the peak of her acting career) and made the US Olympic trials just before the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney.
‘‘I did it on awhim and became obsessedwith it,’’ the 64-year-old actress once said.
‘‘I trained and trained and trained like crazy and, 2- years later, I was a semifinalist for the Olympic trials. Archery is something that I took up later and didn’t know I had a natural aptitude for.’’
Davis found she was good at sport by appearing in sports movies.
‘‘I had learned sports for a number of movies: I had to learn how to play baseball, and then I had to learn fencing, and taekwondo, and horseback riding, and ice skating and all kinds of stuff,’’ she told People.
‘‘And I never thought of myself as athletic, but I was actually really good at everything.’’
Bradleywalsh (footballer, actor, host of The Chase)
In 1978, a teenaged Walsh became a professional football player for west London club Brentford. He never made the first team but was a regular in the reserves.
He was sent out to Barnet on loan, where he made five appearances in the Southern Football League.
An ankle fracture brought his footballing career to an end.
Walsh went on to appear in Coronation Street and Doctor Who, and is the wisecracking host of quiz game The Chase.
Tommy Lee Jones (quarterback, actor)
A brooding actor, Jones was guard on Harvard University’s undefeated 1968 football team. He made the first team in the All-ivy League (that’s good, take our word for it).
Jones brought his characteristic
Men in Black intensity to American football, former team-mates said.
After football sessions, Jones would change into a costume in the locker room and head to theatre practice: ‘‘The violence of the football field to the elegance of a theatrical production.’’
Sheryl Crow (track star, singer)
American musician Crow has won nine Grammy Awards, sold more than 50 million albums, and for a time was engaged to Lance Armstrong (before his admission he was a drugs cheat). While at Kennett High School, Crow was amajorette (a baton twirler) and was amissouri representative track athlete, medalling in the 75-metre low hurdles.
Matthew Perry (tennis player, actor)
Friends star Perry was a hotshot tennis player growing up in Canada.
He was a top-ranked junior player, practising about 10 hours a day.
‘‘I needed to succeed at whatever I was doing, so I could feel better about myself. I had this incredible drive on the tennis court, and that translated into acting.’’
Perry told Men’s Health magazine the choice about a tennis career never had to be made.
‘‘I moved to Los Angeles when I was 15, and everyone in LA just killed me. I was pretty great in Canada. Not so much in Los Angeles. It was insane. I realised I wouldn’t be playing tennis for a living, so I went for acting.’’
Julio Iglesias (footballer, singer)
During his youth, the most successful continental European singer was a goalkeeper for Realmadrid Castilla, in the second division.
His football career was ended in 1963 by a car crash that stopped him from walking for two years.
He didn’t think he was all that great as a keeper anyway, he said.
‘‘I had more courage and attitude than talent.’’
Given a guitar to revive the feeling in his hands, he discovered he had a talent for music.
In learning to play, he discovered his musical talent.
So out the window went football, and his law studies. In came music and an eventual Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
Jenny-may Clarkson (netballer, TV presenter)
Clarkson was a Silver Fern netballer from 1997 to 2003, at one stage vicecaptain of the national side.
She has since worked as a police officer, for TV1 Sport news presenter on the One News sport desk, and on Breakfast.
She regarded being dropped from the Silver Ferns as a defining moment. ‘‘It taught me that work and sport is what I do, it’s not who I am.’’
Gordon Ramsay (footballer, chef)
Stories vary on this one, but it has been said the celebrity chef was monitored by Glasgow Rangers as a youth. As a promising schoolboy Rangers watched him for a three-year period during his school holidays, and he was in their Youth Policy.
He played non-league matches on trial but a knee injury ended further hopes of being signed.
Louisawall (rugby player, athlete, netballer, MP)
Labourmp Wall, who has Nga¯ti Tu¯wharetoa, Ngati Hineuru and Waikato ancestry, was an outstanding young athlete growing up in Taupo. She was national class in track and field, netball and rugby.
In 1997, Wall was named New Zealandwomen’s Rugby Player of the Year, after being banned from playing at five because she was a girl.
In 2019, she was inducted into the Ma¯ori Sports Hall of Fame.
Wallmade the Silver Ferns netball team in 1989, aged 17.
She made the Black Ferns rugby side in 1995, later saying she loved ‘‘the intellectual part of the game. Rugby’s quite intellectual. Did you know that?’’
She brought a serious edge to her play. Not for her celebrating tries or wins.
‘‘I didn’t relax. I wasn’t a player who was relaxed and if we scored a try I’d just run back to halfway.’’
A strong advocate for women’s rights, she has led work to address issues of sexism, harassment and bullying in the workplace.