Tyreek Hill has Olympic aspirations and knows which Chiefs he’d have on a relay team
Tyreek Hill, Olympian?
Leading up to the AFC Championship Game, CBS broadcaster Phil Simms said he believed a group of Chiefs players could win an Olympic relay if they wanted.
Last week, 49ers defensive coordinator Robert Saleh echoed that thought as he sized up the Chiefs ahead of Super Bowl LIV.
On Tuesday, Hill revealed he has thought about running track again. He was a sprinter in high school and at Oklahoma State, where he was a Big 12 champion in the 200-meter dash.
“Hopefully after the season, if I’m healthy and my mind is still in the right place, I really want to try and like try to qualify for some Olympic teams, even go to Penn Relays, give that a try,” Hill said Tuesday at a Super Bowl LIV media event. “Maybe get a few guys off the team and see if we can put a relay together, and show these track guys that football guys, we used to do this back in high school, man, we still got it, you know? I just want to have a fun with it, like keep the guys together.”
In his younger days, Hill said, he ran a 9.9-second 100-meter dash but knows he couldn’t step on a track the day after the Super Bowl and match that time.
Hill was asked if he had really had looked into the Olympics.
“I have. The thing is I’m weighing 195 (pounds) right now. Back in high school when I ran a 9.9, I was 175,” Hill said. “If I do it, it’ll be like me changing my whole diet, changing everything that I’ve been doing to get to this point where I am now.”
While Hill’s not ready to make that kind of commitment because football is foremost in his mind, he does have an idea of which Chiefs players he would add to his 400-meter relay team:
Wide receivers Mecole Hardman and Sammy Watkins, and cornerback Charvarius Ward.
In what order would that relay team be set up? Hardman wasn’t sure, but he offered his services for the anchor leg.
“I don’t know, it depends on how we want to do it,” said Hardman, who ran relays in high school and at Georgia. “Do we want to get an lead early? Do we want to come back at the end? We’d probably put Ward at the first leg, Tyreek at the second, Sammy at the third and I’d probably anchor it. I’d probably take it home.
“You’d want 10 on the second leg to open that thing up, to get the lead, and I think Sammy would do a good of holding. And I’m definitely do a good job of keeping that thing and keeping the lead and bringing it home.”
For now, though, the Chiefs will be concentrating on bringing a Lombardi Trophy home Sunday in the Super Bowl.
This story was originally published January 28, 2020 at 12:59 PM.
