Okay, so the other day, I was chilling on the couch, flipping through channels, and I stumbled upon this old interview with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. You know, the wrestler-turned-actor guy? And it got me thinking, did this dude ever play football? I mean, he’s huge, he’s got the build for it, right?
So, I grabbed my phone and started digging. First, I just typed “Dwayne Johnson football” into the search bar. A bunch of stuff popped up, but it was all about him owning the XFL and things like that. Not what I was looking for.
Then, I got a little more specific. I searched for “Did Dwayne Johnson play college football?” Boom! There it was. Turns out, the guy was a defensive tackle for the University of Miami. Who knew?
I started reading a few articles about his college football days. Apparently, he was pretty good, but he had some injuries that held him back. There was this one article that talked about how he was on the 1991 Miami Hurricanes team that won the national championship. That’s pretty cool, even though he wasn’t a major star or anything.
Next, I wondered if he ever tried to go pro. So, I searched for “Dwayne Johnson NFL draft.” Nothing. The guy went undrafted. But get this, I found out he actually played in the Canadian Football League for a bit! He was on the Calgary Stampeders practice squad, but he got cut after just a couple of months. That was in the mid-90s.
From Gridiron to the Wrestling Ring
- College Football: Yep, he played for the University of Miami.
- NFL Dreams: Didn’t get drafted.
- Canadian Football League: Short stint with the Calgary Stampeders, then got cut.
After digging a little more, I found this interview where The Rock talked about how he actually wanted to play football instead of becoming a wrestler at first. Can you imagine that? The Rock, not as The Rock, but as a football player? It’s wild to think about. He said that after he got cut from the CFL, he was kind of lost, and that’s when he decided to follow in his family’s footsteps and get into wrestling.
Honestly, it’s a pretty cool story. I always thought of him as just a wrestler and then an actor, but he had this whole other life as a football player. It just goes to show you that people have these hidden depths, these past experiences that shape who they are. And it makes you wonder, what if he had made it in the NFL? Would he still be The Rock we know today? Who knows. But I am so glad that I did it, I found what I wanted.
