Usually, the biggest regret of college football players who do not make it to the National Football League is missing out on the opportunity to further their football careers. Even after achieving huge success as an analyst with the Worldwide Leader in Sports, Kirk Herbstreit has a major regret regarding his playing career. Surprisingly, it has nothing to do with the NFL.
Watch What’s Trending Now!
“Baseball was the most natural sport for me,” Herbstreit said in an August 19 video on Wingmen with Matthew and Brady Tkachuk. “When you’re five years old, probably like you guys with hockey, for me, it was just in the backyard playing with about 10 neighborhood friends. In the summer, that’s all we did. We didn’t have phones, we didn’t have computers. We were just out in the yard playing, like your dad probably was doing. I loved football. My dad played at Ohio State. He coached with a guy named Woody Hayes, who’s a famous college coach. And so I was kind of brainwashed, very much like you guys with hockey.”
“And so for me, it was kind of a no-brainer. I would go that route. But as far as the sport that I probably love the most was baseball for sure, just growing up. There was a team, a big Reds fan, and the Big Red machine was maybe the best team in the history of baseball. I was five, six, seven, eight, nine coming up when that team was winning the World Series. If there’s any regret I have, I don’t have very many at all, but I’d love to have pursued baseball a little.”
Like his father, Kirk Herbstreit had a decent collegiate career with the Ohio State Buckeyes between 1989 and 1993. He was largely a backup quarterback until his senior season, when he became the starting quarterback and co-captain. In that season, he recorded 1,904 passing yards and 4 touchdowns, and was named the team’s MVP after the season.
Rather than have the entirety of his collegiate career confined to football, Herbstreit would have loved to continue his high school reputation as a multi-sport athlete. At Centerville High School, Herbstreit was an outstanding basketball and baseball player, even while winning the Gatorade Ohio Player of the Year as a senior quarterback.
However, he chose to follow in his father’s legacy. Jim Herbstreit played for the Buckeyes between 1958 and 1960. During these three years, he played as a running back, defensive back, and a special teams player. After his playing career, he went on to work as a coach with Ohio State, Miami of Ohio, and Akron University.
Even as far back as Herbstreit’s playing days, there was the possibility of playing as a dual-sport athlete. Deion Sanders was a famous dual-sport athlete who played baseball and football from his collegiate days to the MLB and NFL.
Regardless, even if Herbstreit might have gone as far as playing baseball professionally, his success in the media is proof that he did not entirely get it wrong. Today, he has five Emmy awards to his name as a sports analyst.