Not every Olympian arrived at their sport by design. Some dreamed of it from the very start, others stumbled into greatness through a choice that almost went the other way. For Sha’Carri Richardson’s boyfriend, and a seven-time world championship medalist, the NFL wasn’t just a childhood dream; it was a genuine path. Track and field won in the end, but only just.

After all, Christian Coleman did have a chance at a career in American football. The now-30-year-old was an all-state high school football star as both a defensive back and a wide receiver. It’s why the NFL was a genuine choice, as Coleman admitted in a recent interview.

“Yeah, I would be lying if I said no,” Coleman told Bruce McAvaney. “I mean, I grew up in Atlanta, in Georgia, and that’s just, like, home of high school football and I would say rec league football as well. And so I come from just a sports background and a family that just loves football. And so growing up, I mean, I’ve always said that I wanted to just, like, play in the NFL.”

By family, Coleman meant quite literally everyone. Two of his cousins were letter-winners in college football, while his older sister was a track-and-field star. That’s likely why he did so well in high school and even as an amateur, winning a long jump gold at 11. Yet, football had his attention for the longest time with Coleman, an all-state high-school football star.

He even admitted in a 2018 interview that it was “one of my first loves”. In high school, Coleman continued competing equally well. So much so that he set state high school records in the 100m, 200m, and 4x100m. He earned all-state, all-region, and all-county honors as a defensive back and wide receiver.

That, combined with his lack of knowledge on how the professional track and field worked, was likely why Coleman’s goals were aimed at the NFL. However, everything changed when he turned 20 and made the Olympic team while still in college. That’s when he realized that he had to give “track and field a shot” although there was another reason as well.

“I had smaller schools looking at me for football, but I had, like, all the big-time schools looking at me for track and field,” Coleman explained. “And so that was the first time, like, I just actually said like, ‘Okay, let me just focus on track and field.’”

However, that doesn’t mean that his dreams of playing in the NFL completely left his mind. It was only added on by the fact that the Atlanta Falcons were likely always on his mind. Why? Well before the 2016 Olympics, where Coleman participated in the relay, he got to meet the Falcons team. Not just meet but the star-struck NFL fan also got photos with Julio Jones, Devonta Freeman, and Matt Ryan.

As if that wasn’t enough, owner Arthur Blank even handed him a chance to play for the Falcons, although he was likely joking. Yet, that thought has always been in the back of Coleman’s mind, even now.

“But in the back of my mind, I’m like, ‘If this track thing doesn’t work out, like, you know, I might try to see what I can do on the football field.’”

Sprinters crossing over into the NFL were seen multiple times. The legendary Usain Bolt was offered multiple opportunities to train with NFL teams, but he declined them. In 1964, Bob Hayes transitioned successfully, and in the modern era, Marquise Goodwin, an Olympian in the long jump (2012), who also excelled as a sprinter, had a successful 8-year NFL career as a deep-threat wide receiver with the Bills, 49ers, and Bears.

Given his background, perhaps that lingering thought for Coleman was never entirely unrealistic. After all, long before Christian Coleman became a track and field star, he had a viral moment that stunned NFL fans. That’s because it was a record that even NFL stars struggled to match. Yet, Coleman wasn’t at his best.

Christian Coleman reflects on breaking the 40-yard sprint record

In May 2017, a few months before he beat Usain Bolt, Christian Coleman had gone viral. For what? The then-21-year-old went viral for blitzing the record in the 40-yard sprint at the time. It wasn’t even a competition with the standing NFL record, as he ran it in 4.12 seconds.

That shattered the NFL combine record, which stood at 4.22 seconds at the time. In fact, John Ross had only just set the record, breaking Rondel Menedez’s 1999 time of 4.24 seconds. For the unversed, prospects at the Combine run the 40-yard dash without pads, helmets, or uniforms. Ross would eventually become the No. 9 overall pick and is still an active NFL player.

Coleman replicated the conditions and blitzed the record. That had fans sit up and take notice of him, although he had no idea just how big the video would become.

“When they were making the video, we figured it would get a lot of views because it was a pretty fast 40,” Coleman said as per NBC Sports in 2017. “I don’t know how I really feel about it. I got a lot of publicity for it. It was just a cool little deal.”

In fact, to make matters worse for Ross and Xavier Worthy, who broke the record with 4.21 in 2024, Christian Coleman wasn’t even in the best condition.

“I wasn’t really in my best sprint form,” Coleman said. “We kind of just went out there and did it. I feel I could probably run faster, but you know, it’s pretty good.”

That alone had many stunned, although Tennessee football coach Butch Jones was clearly interested, questioning whether Coleman would turn out for them. But while football may have been his first love, track and field ended up being the one he married. In fact, the then-21-year-old reiterated what he had said nearly 10 years later: that he had offers to play college football.

“I had a couple of (football) offers from really small schools – (Division) II, a couple of I-AA schools – but I had other opportunities, of course, to run at SEC schools for track…. It just seemed like the best situation for me,” Coleman added.

In the end, Christian Coleman may have walked away from football, but not because the sport walked away from him. Judging by a 40-yard dash time that still turns heads nearly a decade later, the NFL probably lost out on a player who was just as dangerous on the gridiron as he became on the track.