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The Undertaker Shares Rare Details of Former NBA Coach Who Scouted Him for College Basketball: “Mark, I Need to Win”

Published 07/12/2022, 9:00 AM EDT

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The Undertaker had a professional wrestling career for over 30 years. The way he eternalized many eras in WWE from 1990 to 2020 will forever adorn the history books. Besides, he is still under a special contract with WWE as a non-wrestling figure.

The WWE Hall of Famer never thought of being a pro wrestler in his teenage years, though he was always a wrestling fan. During his teen years, Taker aspired to pursue a pro basketball career.

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Recently, on the first episode of season 2 of WWE Legends Biography Live–The UnderTaker, The Phenom shed light on his early basketball career. He told how he started his college basketball player across the Universities he was in.

The Deadman said, “Start to get a lot of interest at that point to go play college. Lon Kruger, he was at Pan American University (1982 – 1986) and recruited me really, really heavily. I don’t a couple of days before signing. And coach Kruger called me and said, ‘You know, Mark, I need to win right out of the gate’. He says, ‘I’m gonna go with a couple of junior college players’.”

Taker added, “And I’m like okay and that’s where I went to the University of Saint Thomas, that was in Houston. After one year of athletics, the school went bankrupt. And that’s where I ended up with Texas Wesleyan University”.

The Undertaker Is Set To Reveal Plethora Of Secrets He Kept Hidden And Protected To Maintain Character’s Mystique For Three Decades

One of Taker’s Texas Wesleyan teammates, Keith Husky, once talked about Taker’s way of playing basketball. He recalled Mark Calaway as passive and heard soft rock music and kept himself close to basketball. Also, he gave a tough time to his opponents as he was a very physical player on the team, Husky reminisced.

The Undertaker didn’t know what to do after WWE

Recently, in the same episode, Taker took the fans across his personal and professional life right from the start until he announced his retirement.

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Taker’s wife Michelle McCool gave her thoughts on being scared about what the future holds after wrestling. McCool said, “I knew that gonna be hard for him. That’s the scary thing. Who am I as Mark Calaway the person or where do I go from here? Wrestling is all he’s done and all he’s known for 30+ years”. 

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The only reason The Phenom hung up his boots was that his body wasn’t flexible to perform the way he wanted to. This is the toll of all the exceptional things Taker did. However, he put his body through everything for 30 years in WWE to entertain the fans.

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Watch this story:-  Dwayne Johnsons Daughter Simone to The Undertakers Daughter Kaia – Meet Daughters of Top WWE Stars

If The Undertaker felt flexible in the ring, he wouldn’t have retired. Nonetheless, in his illustrious career, we got to see many memorable moments of The Deadman, which we will never forget.

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Written by:

Tushar Deogharkar

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Tushar Deogharkar is a WWE writer at EssentiallySports. Tushar has done his Master's in Tourism Management and is an ardent fan of pro wrestling. He follows WWE and AEW very closely and wants to learn how the promotions are run.
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Edited by:

Sreeda U M