Professional footballers can often have very unique backgrounds in other sports.
Petr Cech grew up playing ice hockey, Gary Lineker was a cricketer and infamously, Gareth Bale loved playing golf during his career.
In fact, Bale has played at a pretty high level since hanging up his boots, appearing at AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and BMW PGA Pro-Am at Wentworth.
Everton also have a player who has a background in another sport, and he was actually a national champion at under-14s level.
Photo by PAUL ELLIS/AFP via Getty Images
Photo by PAUL ELLIS/AFP via Getty Images
Jake O’Brien was a national champion in boxing
It’s just come to light that Everton defender Jake O’Brien is a man of many talents, as before he decided to become a professional footballer, he was a national champion in boxing and hurling, quite incredibly.
Interviewer: “I do my research on you and you’re such an athletic child. Like, you’ve done boxing, national title, at under 14 or under 13?
“Hurling, national title, under 14. You’ve won stuff in football then you made the transition at around, was it 14, 15, 16, to football?
O’Brien replied: “Yeah, I think I was 15 when I kind of just, like, cut the other sports and just focused on football.
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“I just enjoyed football more. I found myself enjoying it more than going to other sports. And at that age, I just had to pick one because I was just training two, three times a day and I was just getting wrecked.”
O’Brien was asked if he’d ever get back into hurling after his football career, considering it’s a sport that has some players well over the age of 40.
“Possible,” O’Brien replied. “Possible, yeah I mean it’s a great sport. I mean, if people don’t, if they’ve never seen it before. Like I was watching it yesterday.”
The 6ft 6 defender is clearly incredibly athletic and has been able to show that in his new role at right-back, bombing up and down the pitch.
O’Brien admitted that he finds overlapping weird, but it’s something he’s getting used to and is really enjoying getting forward.
The Republic of Ireland international has been able to get on the scoresheet twice in recent months and looks a real threat whenever he marauds forward.