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You May Be Surprised to Learn These Western Stars Also Played Football

Key Takeaways

  • John Wayne played on two undefeated football teams in high school
  • Burt Reynolds had an outstanding freshman year as a running back at Florida State
  • Clint Walker said football is like business—find your team and build the culture

 

Every fall, millions of fans pour into stadiums around the country to watch high school, college, and professional football games. Even more sit around the television or their streaming devices to watch the most popular game in the country. There’s something beautiful about the game that brings people together for five months each year.

John Wayne. Burt Reynolds. Clint Walker.

What do they have to do with football? Sure, they’re all known for their acting chops, playing some of the more memorable roles in the history of Western television and movies but they also each played football before they were famous.

Long before he became the Duke, John Wayne was Marion Robert Morrison. He was born in Iowa but grew up in Southern California and played on two undefeated Glendale High School teams. He was the perfect build to play college football at 6 foot 4 inches tall and 215 pounds. Wayne, or rather, Morrison, was given a football scholarship to play at the University of Southern California, where he’d play on the offensive line. He played sparingly as a freshman and later lost his scholarship because of an injury he sustained in a bodysurfing accident.

While rehabbing his injury, Wayne took a job as an extra in a few movie roles until his first leading role came in The Big Trail, a 1930 Western that was not a box-office success. Wayne played more leading roles in Westerns throughout the 1930s and only became a mainstream star in 1939 with the release of Stagecoach.

“I think the lesson you learned on the football field is basic,” Wayne once said. “If the player on the other side of the scrimmage line is as good or better than you, you don’t care what color, religion, or nationality he is. You respect him. I’ve tried to live by that all my life.”

Burt Reynolds had a promising college football career at Florida State before transitioning to acting. He received a scholarship to FSU and played running back. He was a starter in 1954 and had an outstanding season that year as a freshman. But he injured his knee in the first game of his sophomore season and injured the opposite knee in a car accident. Reynolds took time away to heal, but when he returned to college two years later, he was not the same player and realized his career was over.

“It would take a long time to get through my thick skull that there could be more to life than playing football and chasing sorority girls,” Reynolds said.

Reynolds turned to acting and eventually signed a seven-year contract with Universal Studios, which earned him plenty of work. In 1962, however, Dennis Weaver started to hint that he was looking to leave Gunsmoke, so producers of the hit series developed the character of a blacksmith named Quint Asper, which Reynolds played for 50 episodes from 1962-65.

Although Reynolds died in 2018, he remained an avid football fan his whole life and considered it a thrill to play former pro quarterback Paul “Wrecking” Crew in The Longest Yard (1974).

Clint Walker, who played Cheyenne Bodie in the hit TV series Cheyenne from 1955-63, did not have a big football career, but he played in a semi-professional league before becoming famous in Hollywood. At 6 foot, 6 inches tall, he was an imposing figure, both on the gridiron and with every role he played in his lengthy acting career.

“Football is much like business,” Walker once said, “find the team, build the culture and work to get everyone in the right seats in the bus until you start winning consistently.”

There were more football players who went on to play roles in Westerns, of course, including, among others, Woody Strode, Johnny Mack Brown, Roman Gabriel, Alex Karras and Jim Brown.

Strode, a college standout at UCLA who played professionally for a decade, appeared in Western films like The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and Sergeant Rutledge.

Brown was a running back at the University of Alabama and appeared in minor roles until 1930 when he played a bigger role and starred as Billy the Kid.

Gabriel a quarterback in the NFL for 15 years, played a Cherokee Indian scout in the 1969 Western film The Undefeated, and also appeared in other television shows and small films. Coincidentally, The Undefeated also starred John Wayne and Merlin Olsen, a defensive tackle for the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams from 1962-1976.

Karras was a defensive tackle with the NFL’s Detroit Lions for 12 years and went on to have a great acting career. In 1972, he played the villain who was a menace to the aforementioned Clint Walker in the TV Western Hardcase. His most memorable role came a year later when he played the strong, yet slow Mongo in the Western parody, Blazing Saddles.

Jim Brown, a Hall of Fame running back for the Cleveland Browns, went on to have a lengthy acting career post-football. In fact, Brown began his acting career before the 1964 NFL season, playing a buffalo soldier in the Western action film Rio Conchos. Among other movies, Brown also appeared in Dirty Dozen (1967) and 100 Rifles (1969), a spaghetti Western that starred Raquel Welch and, bringing it back to football, the aforementioned Burt Reynolds.

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