See how many male Country Singer athletes can you name that played at the college level or above before becoming country music stars. Watch the video to discover more about the 10 country singer athletes and see more details below.
10 Major Country Singer Athletes Video
1) Sam Hunt Football Days
Sam Hunt played football in both high school and college. For high school, he played quarterback at Cedartown High School in Georgia. In college, he was a quarterback for two years at Middle Tennessee State University and played the same position for University of Alabama Birmingham (UAB) for two years. He was the starting quarterback for UAB in both 2006 and 2007 season and missed several games due to injuries.
Here you can watch highlights of Sam Hunt as quarterback at UAB in a close game against Florida State University.
Hunt was invited to try out for the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs and joined their training camp. He did not make the KC Chiefs squad and decided to pusue a career in country music in Nashville, Tenn. Sam might be lucky that the NFL career did not work out. He has evolved to be a major Country Music star. His hit song “Body Like a Back Road” set the record for most consecutive weeks at #1 on the Country Music chart and also crossed over to be a major hit on the pop music chart. Hunt’s debut album “Montevallo” came out in 2014 and he co-wrote “Body Like a Back Road” with Zach Crowell, Shane McAnally and Josh Osborne.
2) Garth Brooks Baseball and Track Athlete
In high school, Brooks played football, baseball and track and field. He received a track scholarship to Oklahoma State University via skills throwing the Javelin.
[Photo: Pinterest Garth Brooks Oklahoma State]
In adult life, Brooks became a 3 time veteran to pro baseball Spring Training camps having tried out for the Padres (1998 and ’99), Mets (2000) and Royals (2004). The country star found it challenging going up against professional pitchers and he went 1-for-22 with San Diego and 0-for-17 with four walks for New York. He tallied at least one hit for KC with an infield single off Mariners’ pitcher Mike Myers.
3) Conway Twitty (Baseball)
Conway Twitty also played baseball as his second major passion to a music career. He received an offer to play with the Philadelphia Phillies after high school, but he was drafted into the United States Army before he could sign the contract. Twitty joined the entrepreneur Larry Schmittou and other country musicians, such as Cal Smith and Jerry Reed in 1977 as investors in the Nashville Sounds, a Minor League Baseball team of the Double-A Southern League, which began playing in 1978.
4) Charlie Pride (Baseball)
Country music legend Charley Pride was a pitcher for the Memphis Red Sox briefly in 1953 and then the Birmingham Black Barons in 1954. He was his primarily known for his curveball. After spending a couple of years in the Army, he returned to Memphis in 1958 at age 20. He was listed as being born in 1938 at the time, which would have made him 15 when he made his first appearances with Memphis, but he was actually four years older. After briefly playing for the Missoula Timberjacks of the Pioneer League in 1960, he retired from baseball and went on to become one of the most successful black country musicians of all time, being named to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2000.
5) Toby Keith (Football)
After playing as a defensive end on the Moore High School football in his native Oklahoma, Toby Keith played semi-pro football for the Oklahoma City Drillers, a farm team for the United States Football League’s Oklahoma Outlaws.
6) Trace Adkins (Football)
Trace Adkins was born to play sports with a a muscular build and above average height standing 6 and a half feet tall. In high school, Trace played both basketball and football. After high school, Adkins continued to pursue his football career, playing for the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs, all while studying music. Adkins played as a walk-on offensive lineman, but injured his knee during his freshman year.
7) Brett Young Baseball
Young was a pitcher on his high school baseball team and led the squad to a CIF championship. For college, he went to Ole Miss on a baseball scholarship in 1999 after turning down pre-draft selection by both Tampa Bay Devil Rays and Minnesota Twins. In his one season on the Rebel baseball team in 2000, he earned a varsity letter and posted two wins and two saves. He then lettered for one season at Irvine Valley before moving to Fresno. His pursuit of a professional baseball career was cut short by an elbow injury while at Fresno in 2003.
8) Jake Owen (Golf)
Jake Owen is a serious golfer having played college golf for Florida State University. Jake still plays in some of the PGA Pro-am events. He suffered a wakeboarding accident that ended his pro golf ambitions.
“It ended up not happening when I hurt my shoulder and had surgery,” Owen explained during an interview with Radio.com. “That’s kind of what led me to pick up a guitar and start playing that. I had to find something to do.”
9) Brian Kelley of Florida Georgia Line (Baseball)
Brian played baseball for Belmont and Florida State long before he became the country music duo with Tyler Hubbard to form Florida Georgia Line. Hubbard discovered Kelley at a Church service where Kelley was playing guitar.
In an interview Hubbard stated, “I really liked what he had going on at the time, so we decided to write songs together,” Hubbard said. “We moved in with each other and we started playing music. We’ve been building our fan base and heading out on the road, giving it a shot.”
Brian Kelley at Florida State Baseball
10) Chase Rice College Football
Before his country music career, Chase Rice played Linebacker for University of North Carolina football.
Chase Rice began playing guitar in college. He co-wrote the singe “Cruise” with Florida Georgia Line and dominated the pop and rock music charts with his first songwriter success story. Chase has achieved success in Country Music with his 2014’s Ignite the Night, as well as a delivering a pair of successful singles with “Ready Set Roll” and “Gonna Wanna Tonight”.
There are several more country singer athletes that played in high school sports including: Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw, Cole Swindell, Willie Nelson, Eric Church, and many more.
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