A fun picture is circulating on social media this week.
It’s of LeBron James, high school football player at St. Vincent-St. Mary High School in Akron, Ohio.
He’s one of the great football “What ifs?” for a certain generation of fans in the Buckeye State who watched him play.
Clearly, LeBron made the right decision choosing basketball.
But what if he had chosen football?
One of the most talented football players I have seen but who never played in college was LeBron James. I took this picture at Akron St. Vincent-Saint Mary HS,OH in the spring of 2002. Pictured with Sian Cotton. He agreed to be in our US Army game but got hurt that September. pic.twitter.com/XDzmVpZv8h
— Tom Lemming (@LemmingReport) January 13, 2026NFL wide receiver Davante Adams recently told Dan Patrick his thoughts on LeBron the football player:
“He would’ve been one of the best receivers, tight ends, all time. No question… He can fly, too. That’s the thing. He’s one of the fastest NBA players. I’ve never seen someone cover space on the basketball court, like John Wall, Derrick Rose.”
James was an All-Ohio wide receiver as a junior for St. Vincent-St. Mary in Akron.
That junior season, he had 57 catches for 1,160 yards and 16 touchdowns.
He was a top-end football recruit, despite the fact that those coaches probably knew as well as anybody else that LeBron’s future was the NBA.
“He had the football speed, the acceleration, the ability to make people miss and was a punt-return-type guy,” LeBron’s quarterback Willie McGee told Sporting News’ Bill Bender. “His hands were amazing. The ability to catch the ball, one hand, two hands, adjust to the ball in the air, it was uncanny. He could throw the ball, too. You put him on a reverse, and he can throw it off that. There wasn’t anything he couldn’t do on a football field.”
James was actually offered contracts by both the Dallas Cowboys and the Seattle Seahawks during the 2011 NBA lockout.
He didn’t play his senior season of high school football as he focused on basketball, and the gridiron dreams are probably in the past now.
LeBron probably would’ve put on quite the show, though.
