LeBron James' 6'9, 250-pound frame has helped him forge possibly the greatest career in NBA history, surpassing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the sport's all-time leading scorer and claiming four league titles across 21 seasons.
But that same dominant build helped James become the top-ranked football prospect in Ohio after just two varsity seasons, termed a "readymade" NFL receiver before electing to focus on basketball.
"I always said he'd be a cross between Harold Carmichael, who was the tallest receiver at the time and played for the Philadelphia Eagles at 6'8", but he had the fluidity of a Randy Moss," Jay Brophy, James' high school football coach, told Bleacher Report. "He glided. Like you see in basketball, the way he glides down the court, it was the same way he ran on the football field."
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"He probably ran a 4.5 40 [yard dash], no problem...I knew if he wanted to, especially with the rules nowadays in football with not being able to put your hands on receivers and not taking shots over the middle and not being able to target people, he's the kind of guy that could come out and play it. There's no doubt in my mind."
Even as a comparatively slight 6'2 freshman at St. Vincent-St. Mary's High School in Akron, Ohio, James immediately dominated on the hardwood with 18 points and six rebounds a night, per StatsReference. As James grew into his now unstoppable frame and his scoring average climbed toward 30, the power forward drew Sports Illustrated coverage, packed crowds and unprecedented hype for a high-school prospect.
Before the winter hoops hoopla rolled into Akron, however, James' excellence on the gridiron attracted some similarly high-profile suitors. James was named first-team All-State as a sophomore before leading his Fighting Irish to the state semifinals the following season, piquing the interest of Alabama, Miami (FL), and local giants Ohio State.
"I went over to him and... I said, 'LeBron, hey, let me ask you, are you really interested in playing college football?" Brophy said. "I've got a ton of schools asking about you playing that have called me.'...Until the coaches got wise to how great he was and realized that he was definitely going to play basketball, they all wanted him. It was all the major schools."
James forwent his senior season of football after sustaining a wrist injury on the AAU circuit, but it was the volume of collisions he sustained on the gridiron that led him to focus exclusively on basketball. "If I would have had a better quarterback in high school, I might have continued to play football,” James said in on ESPN's 'MNF with Peyton and Eli'. “But I took way too many hits and that led me to the basketball court.”
Despite this pivot, James' NFL potential has been extolled by many of the most experienced, respected minds in football. Urban Meyer, who recruited the current Lakers star while at Ohio college Bowling Green and later produced dozens of NFL players at Ohio State and Florida, didn't mince words in describing what James could have been on the gridiron:
"A first-round draft pick, a Hall of Famer. Obviously, he's a winner."