AP Photo/David Zalubowski
Allen Iverson is in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, but he doesn’t even think it was his best sport.
The 11-time NBA All-Star told Shannon Sharpe on Club Shay Shay that he would have been a legend if he stayed with football.
“Not being cocky, not being arrogant, I think—no I know—that I would have been a better player in football than I was in basketball,” Iverson said.
Iverson said that football was his “first love,” joking that he probably would have actually lifted weights if he stuck with the sport.
The Virginia native was a two-sport star growing up, leading Bethel High School to a state football championship while being named the Associated Press Player of the Year in both football and basketball.
Iverson previously told Bleacher Report that he planned to go to Notre Dame to play football. As a mobile quarterback, he might have been a precursor to Michael Vick, who came out of nearby Newport News, Virginia, a few years later.
Considering how good he was in basketball, it’s difficult to imagine the type of career Iverson could have had on the gridiron.