33 Athletes Who Were Drafted in Two Completely Different Sports
There’s something almost stubborn about elite athleticism — it refuses to stay in one lane. Most people who make it to a professional draft have spent years, sometimes decades, narrowing their entire existence down to a single sport.
And then there are the ones who get drafted twice, in completely different sports, as if the universe couldn’t decide what to do with them either. Some of these athletes became legends in one sport while the other exists only as a footnote.
Others played both. A few walked away from guaranteed money in one league to chase something else entirely.
What all of them share is a kind of physical fluency that most people can’t even imagine — the kind that makes scouts in entirely different sports look up from their clipboards and write down a name.
Bo Jackson
Bo Jackson is the only athlete in history to be named an All-Star in both Major League Baseball and the NFL, and that fact still hasn’t lost its weight. The Kansas City Royals drafted him in 1986, the Los Angeles Raiders took him as a running back that same year, and he played both — not as a novelty, but as a legitimate star in each.
A hip injury ended it all before anyone got to see where the ceiling actually was.
Deion Sanders
Deion Sanders didn’t just get drafted in two sports — he actually played outfield in MLB and cornerback in the NFL simultaneously, which is the kind of schedule that makes most people tired just reading about it. The Atlanta Braves selected him in the 1988 MLB Draft, and the Atlanta Falcons took him fifth overall in the 1989 NFL Draft, and for several years he was suiting up for both franchises in the same calendar year.
He even scored an NFL touchdown and hit an MLB home run in the same week in 1992, which feels like something someone would make up if it weren’t documented.
John Elway
John Elway was selected by the New York Yankees in the second round of the 1981 MLB Draft as an outfielder before the Indianapolis Colts took him first overall in the 1983 NFL Draft. He played one summer of minor league baseball — batting .318 for the Oneonta Yankees — and reportedly used the Yankees’ interest as leverage to force a trade away from the Colts to the Denver Broncos.
The NFL got the better deal, turns out.
Michael Jordan
Michael Jordan walked away from the Chicago Bulls at the peak of his career to pursue professional baseball, which is either the most human thing he ever did or the most baffling, depending on your perspective. The Chicago White Sox drafted him in 1994, and he spent a season in Double-A with the Birmingham Barons, hitting .202 with 30 stolen bases.
He returned to basketball the following year and won three more championships, so the baseball detour didn’t exactly derail anything.
Tom Glavine
Tom Glavine — the Hall of Fame pitcher who won 305 major league games and two Cy Young Awards — was also drafted as a center in the fourth round of the 1984 NHL Draft by the Los Angeles Kings, selected 69th overall ahead of future Hockey Hall of Famers Brett Hull and Luc Robitaille. He chose baseball, was inducted into Cooperstown in 2014, and has described the decision as straightforward given how aggressively the Braves pursued him.
Whether he could have made the NHL is a question that died on a draft card in a league office somewhere, though his high school stats — 47 goals and 47 assists in 23 games as a senior — suggest it wasn’t a frivolous pick.
Russell Wilson
Russell Wilson was drafted by the Colorado Rockies as a second baseman in the fourth round of the 2010 MLB Draft, played two seasons in Class A, and then somehow also became a starting NFL quarterback for the Seattle Seahawks by 2012. He actually continued to report to Rockies spring training early in his NFL career, which is not how most people picture Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks spending their off-seasons.
The Rockies eventually traded his rights to the Texas Rangers in a deal that also sent him a check — a transaction that felt more symbolic than practical.
Kyler Murray
Kyler Murray was the ninth overall pick in the 2018 MLB Draft by the Oakland Athletics and signed for $4.66 million — then won the Heisman Trophy at Oklahoma, declared for the NFL Draft, and went first overall to the Arizona Cardinals in 2019. The Athletics watched a first overall NFL pick walk out the door, and there’s really no graceful way to describe that.
He repaid their bonus money and never looked back.
Dave Winfield
Dave Winfield is the only athlete ever drafted in three professional sports in the same year — the San Diego Padres in MLB, the Utah Stars in the ABA, and the Atlanta Hawks in the NBA, all in 1973. The Minnesota Vikings also selected him in the NFL Draft that year despite the fact that he hadn’t played college football.
He chose baseball, spent 22 years in the majors, and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2001.
Brian Jordan
Brian Jordan played cornerback for the Atlanta Falcons while simultaneously playing outfield in the St. Louis Cardinals organization, which requires a level of logistical flexibility that most professional athletes never have to consider. He eventually chose baseball full-time after the 1991 season, went on to hit .282 over a 15-year MLB career, and made the All-Star team in 1998.
The Falcons lost a starting defensive back; baseball gained a solid corner outfielder.
Mark Hendrickson
Mark Hendrickson played power forward in the NBA for five seasons before becoming a starting pitcher in MLB — not a minor leaguer, a legitimate rotation arm who pitched in the big leagues for ten years. The Philadelphia 76ers drafted him in 1996, and he played professionally for four NBA teams before the Toronto Blue Jays signed him as a pitcher in 1997.
He stands at 6 feet 9 inches, which apparently translates reasonably well between basketball courts and pitcher’s mounds.
Charlie Ward
Charlie Ward won the Heisman Trophy at Florida State in 1993 and was universally expected to be a high NFL Draft pick — but he went undrafted entirely because teams questioned his size, and the New York Knicks grabbed him in the first round of the 1994 NBA Draft instead. He played 11 seasons in the NBA, mostly as a backup point guard, while NFL scouts presumably spent years quietly reconsidering their evaluations.
The Knicks, to their credit, weren’t wrong.
Steve Hamilton
Steve Hamilton pitched in MLB for 12 seasons — including stints with the Cleveland Indians, Washington Senators, and New York Yankees — but he was also drafted by and played for the NBA’s Minneapolis Lakers in the late 1950s. He stood 6 feet 6 inches and averaged around 4 points per game in the NBA before baseball became his primary occupation.
Two professional sports careers in an era before multi-sport athletes were considered a marketable commodity — he just quietly did both.
Ron Fairly
Ron Fairly was a first baseman and outfielder who played 21 seasons in MLB starting in 1958, but the Los Angeles Rams also drafted him as a wide receiver before he ever appeared in a major league game. He chose baseball without much apparent hesitation and went on to accumulate 1,913 career hits across stints with the Dodgers, Expos, Cardinals, Athletics, Angels, and Blue Jays.
The Rams moved on. Fairly did too.
D.J. Dozier
D.J. Dozier was a running back for the Minnesota Vikings after being drafted in the first round in 1987, and he later became an outfielder in the New York Gans organization — making him one of the rare athletes to convert from the NFL to professional baseball rather than the other way around. He reached Triple-A in the Mets system in 1992 and actually appeared in a handful of major league games.
Neither career reached the heights his draft pedigree suggested, but the sheer range of the attempt is worth acknowledging.
Herschel Walker
Herschel Walker was one of the greatest college football players in history, won the Heisman Trophy in 1982, and was then drafted by the New Jersey Generals of the USFL — and also by the New England Patriots in the fifth round of the NFL Draft. He later competed as a bobsledder in the 1992 Winter Olympics, finishing fourth in the two-man event, and trained in martial arts seriously enough to compete professionally.
At some point, “multi-sport athlete” stops covering it and you need a different word entirely.
Dick Groat
Dick Groat was a two-sport professional in the old-fashioned sense: the Fort Wayne Pistons drafted him in the NBA in 1952, and he played one season of professional basketball before returning exclusively to baseball. He went on to win the 1960 NL MVP Award as a shortstop with the Pittsburgh Pirates and played 14 seasons in MLB.
Basketball lost a legitimate professional player; baseball gained a Most Valuable Player — which is a lopsided trade by any accounting.
Garfield Heard
Garfield Heard is famous for hitting “The Shot” in the 1976 NBA Playoffs — a buzzer-beater for the Phoenix Suns in triple overtime of Game 5 against the Boston Celtics — but he was also drafted by the Dallas Cowboys as a wide receiver in 1972. He chose basketball, played 11 NBA seasons, and gave Phoenix one of the most memorable shots in franchise history.
Whether he would have made the Cowboys’ roster is unknowable, but the Suns are probably glad he went the other direction.
Jay Berwanger
Jay Berwanger won the very first Heisman Trophy in 1935 and was the first overall pick in the first-ever NFL Draft in 1936, selected by the Philadelphia Eagles — who immediately traded his rights to the Chicago Bears. George Halas offered him $25 a game, Berwanger held out for $25 a game guaranteed regardless of injury, negotiations collapsed, and he never played a single down of professional football.
The NFL Draft existed for about 15 minutes before its first-ever pick decided he’d rather work in business.
Deion Sanders in College
Before the professional stage, Deion Sanders in College played baseball at Florida State while simultaneously being one of the most feared defensive backs in college football — an overlap that previewed exactly what would follow. His college duality wasn’t a curiosity; it was a warning to every scout in every sport that this was an athlete who operated outside the normal categories.
The two-sport professional career that followed was almost inevitable given how early the blueprint was drawn.
Drew Henson
Drew Henson was a third baseman taken in the third round of the 1998 MLB Draft by the New York Yankees, spent years in their minor league system, and was simultaneously pursued so aggressively by the Dallas Cowboys that they traded for his NFL rights and eventually signed him away from baseball altogether. The Yankees, who had invested heavily in his development, reportedly received nothing useful for losing him.
Henson never established himself in the NFL either — a rare case where both leagues lost.
Steve Filipowicz
Steve Filipowicz played for the New York Giants in the NFL and the New York Giants in baseball (the MLB version), which sounds like a scheduling joke but was entirely real in the mid-1940s. He scored touchdowns on the football field and appeared in 45 MLB games as an outfielder, becoming one of the few athletes to wear the same team name in two different professional leagues.
There’s a tidiness to that story that feels almost too convenient, but the record books confirm it.
Kirk Gibson
Kirk Gibson was a wide receiver at Michigan State and was drafted in the seventh round of the 1979 NFL Draft by the St. Louis Cardinals, but the Detroit Tigers had already taken him in the first round of the MLB Draft that same year. Gibson chose baseball, hit .268 over a 17-year career, and delivered what many consider the most dramatic pinch-hit home run in World Series history — limping to the plate for the Dodgers in 1988 and putting one over the right-field wall on a bad knee.
The Cardinals’ football scouts probably watched that on television like everyone else.
Tom Brown
Tom Brown played outfield for the Washington Senators in 1963, hitting .147 in 61 games, before the Green Bay Packers drafted him as a defensive back and he went on to win two Super Bowls with Vince Lombardi’s dynasty teams. The baseball career was brief and unremarkable; the football career included two championship rings.
Sometimes the draft card in the wrong sport is just a detour sign pointing toward something better.
Gene Conley
Gene Conley pitched in MLB for 11 seasons — including as a member of the 1957 World Series champion Milwaukee Braves — and also played center for the Boston Celtics, winning three NBA championships. He is the only athlete to win championships in two major American professional sports leagues.
And at 6 feet 8 inches, he apparently had the frame to make both careers feel inevitable rather than remarkable.
Bob Gibson (the Other One)
Not the Hall of Fame pitcher — this is a different Bob Gibson (the Other One), a basketball player drafted by the Harlem Globetrotters who shares a name with one of baseball’s most intimidating competitors. The coincidence of names has caused no small amount of confusion in sports reference materials over the years.
Worth noting simply because the universe occasionally has a strange sense of humor.
Lonnie Frey
Lonnie Frey was a second baseman who played for the Brooklyn Dodgers, Chicago Cubs, and Cincinnati Reds across a 14-year MLB career, and was also drafted as a football player early in his athletic career before committing to baseball. He was part of the Reds team that won the 1940 World Series.
His football career never materialized professionally, which means baseball got a World Series champion at the price of a football player no one remembers.
Jim Thorpe
Jim Thorpe won gold medals in the decathlon and pentathlon at the 1912 Olympics, played professional football and was one of the founding members and first president of what would become the NFL, and played six seasons of MLB as an outfielder for the Giants, Reds, and Braves. He was recruited — informally, by the standards of that era — into multiple professional sporting enterprises simultaneously.
Calling him a two-sport athlete feels like calling the Grand Canyon a ditch.
Ricky Williams
Ricky Williams won the Heisman Trophy in 1998 and was drafted fifth overall by the New Orleans Saints in 1999, but he was also a talented baseball prospect who had been drafted by the Philadelphia Phillies in the eighth round of the 1995 MLB Draft while still in high school. He chose football, ran for 10,009 career yards in the NFL, and briefly retired before returning to the league.
The Phillies file for this one probably still exists somewhere in a cabinet no one opens.
Dmitri Young
Dmitri Young played 13 seasons as a first baseman and outfielder in MLB, but he was also drafted by the Los Angeles Rams as a tight end in the 1991 NFL Supplemental Draft — before he had even played a single professional baseball game. At 6 feet 2 inches and with the kind of build that made NFL scouts curious, the football interest made a certain physical sense.
He chose baseball, played for the Reds, Cardinals, Tigers, and Nationals, and the Rams moved on to other tight ends who actually showed up.
Vic Janowicz
Vic Janowicz won the Heisman Trophy in 1950 playing for Ohio State and was drafted by both the Pittsburgh Pirates in baseball and the Washington Redskins in football. He played both — catching 67 MLB games for the Pirates and then switching to the NFL full-time with the Redskins in 1953.
A serious car accident in 1956 ended his athletic career entirely, leaving behind a record as one of the few Heisman winners to genuinely pursue professional careers in two different sports.
Brandon Weeden
Brandon Weeden was drafted by the New York Yankees in the second round of the 2002 MLB Draft as a pitcher, spent several years in their minor league system, and then returned to college football at Oklahoma State, where he won the 2011 Biletnikoff Award before being drafted 22nd overall by the Cleveland Browns in 2012. He was 28 years old at his NFL Draft — ancient by quarterback standards — because the baseball detour had eaten nearly a decade.
The Browns took him anyway, which tells you something about how good he looked coming out of Stillwater.
Chris Lindstrom
Chris Lindstrom — the Atlanta Falcons guard, taken 14th overall in 2019 — was a baseball catcher in high school good enough to draw genuine draft attention before committing to football at Boston College. The crossover never materialized into a professional baseball draft selection, but he represents the deep pipeline of athletes who stand at that fork and make a permanent choice.
He made the Pro Bowl as an offensive lineman in 2022 and 2023, so the choice landed well.
Antonio Gates
Antonio Gates was never drafted by an NFL team — he went undrafted in 2003 — but he had been a highly recruited basketball player who played at Kent State and drew attention from NBA scouts without ever being formally drafted there either. The San Diego Chargers signed him as an undrafted free agent, and he went on to become one of the greatest tight ends in NFL history, making eight Pro Bowls.
So technically he was drafted in neither sport and still ended up in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, which is its own kind of rebuttal to the entire concept of draft evaluation.
When Two Sports Aren’t Enough
What the athletes on this list reveal, almost accidentally, is that elite physical ability doesn’t respect the lines humans draw around their sports. A body that can throw a fastball and take a hit and shoot a jump shot and run a route is just a body doing what bodies capable of all those things will inevitably do — look for the next available challenge.
The draft, in every case, is just the formal moment when multiple sports simultaneously raised their hands and said they’d noticed.
The more interesting thread is what these athletes chose and why, because the choice is almost never purely financial. Bo Jackson wanted both.
Michael Jordan needed to know. Tom Glavine looked at two Hall of Fame trajectories and picked the one he picked without ever being entirely sure he made the right call.
The athletes who got drafted in two sports aren’t just remarkable for their physical range — they’re remarkable for having to make a decision most people never face, about which version of an extraordinary life to actually live.
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