Did Jerry Rice play basketball? Revisiting NFL legend’s high school career
NFL
MORGAN MORIARTY
The 2025 NBA All-Star weekend tips off Friday night in San Francisco. The annual event held during the NBA’s midpoint of the season will feature big names like Stephen Curry, Jayson Tatum, Kevin Durant, James Harden and several others.
One of the more popular events of the weekend is the Celebrity All-Star Game, which tips off at 7 p.m. ET on Friday evening. There are several big stars expected to suit up and play like Kai Cenat, Walker Hayes and Jerry Rice.
Yes, the Pro Football Hall of Fame receiver will be playing in the celebrity basketball game. In fact, Rice played basketball back in the day. Let’s take a look back at Rice’s basketball career before he became an NFL star.
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Yes, Rice played basketball in high school. He attended B. L. Moor High School in the late 1970s. Located in Oktoc, Miss., Rice played forward for his high school basketball team in addition to playing football and running track.
Per his Wikipedia page, Rice’s high school was so small that there aren’t many statistics from his high school playing days.
“It was football and basketball,” Rice told Nick DePaula in 2009 of sports he played growing up. I wanted to be the next Michael Jordan, and I wanted to fly with wings and do all of that stuff. I felt like I was OK, but I knew that I was just not big enough to play basketball. I played forward, and those guys were 6 feet 8 inches and above, and I couldn’t handle the basketball as a point guard or something like that, so I felt that football was it. I liked it, I was going to devote myself to it, and I gave it 100 percent. I think I did OK.”
Rice attended Mississippi Valley State University from 1981-84, which is an HBCU located in Itta Bena, Miss. He had his most successful season as a senior there, setting NCAA DI-AA records for receiving yards with 1,845 and 112 receptions. He had 27 touchdown receptions too, which was an NCAA record. He finished ninth in Heisman voting that year.
He was drafted in the first round of the 1985 NFL Draft by the San Francisco 49ers at No. 16 overall. He won two Super Bowls with Joe Montana and the 49ers during the 1988 and 1989 seasons. He was named Super Bowl 23’s MVP after getting 11 receptions for 215 yards and a touchdown.
He won another Super Bowl with the 49ers in 1995, as they beat the San Diego Chargers 49-26. He spent the first 16 years of his NFL career with the 49ers, before spending four seasons with the Oakland Raiders from 2001-04. He spent his 20th and final season with the Seattle Seahawks before his retirement in 2005.
He finished his impressive NFL career as a 13-time Pro Bowler and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2010.
Per Celebrity Net Worth, Rice has a net worth of $50 million.
Morgan Moriarty joined The Sporting News as a content producer in the fall of 2024. Her sports journalism career started at the University of Florida in 2012, where she graduated in 2015. She has covered college football and basketball, the NFL and numerous other major sports for outlets like the Tampa Bay Times, Saturday Down South, UPROXX Sports and SB Nation. She also covers college football for Bleacher Report, and is a featured guest on various CNN programs.
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Did Jerry Rice play basketball?
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MORGAN MORIARTY
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Warriors’ Draymond Green calls Jimmy Butler ‘franchise changer’
HOUSTON — The Golden State Warriors go into the All-Star break feeling much more confident about their season with Jimmy Butler III on their side.
The Warriors improved to 3-1 since trading for Butler with a 105-98 victory over the Houston Rockets at the Toyota Center on Thursday.
“He’s a franchise changer,” Warriors power forward Draymond Green said about Butler. “He’s done that everywhere he’s gone, and he is helping revitalize what we got here. The belief amongst this team, now that he’s arrived, as opposed to what it was before he got here, it’s night and day.”
Warriors coach Steve Kerr said Butler is the finisher they have desperately needed to give Stephen Curry, who finished with 27 points and two big fourth-quarter 3-pointers, some help down the stretch of tight games.
Butler finished with 19 points, 8 rebounds and 4 assists. When the Warriors watched a 24-point lead dwindle to 91-89 with 6:03 left, Butler returned at the 4:42 mark with the lead at four. The Warriors went on a 9-2 run with Butler scoring four points.
“Jimmy, he’s a real deal,” Kerr said. “I mean, just a complete basketball player, methodical, under control all the time, plays at his own pace, never turns it over, sees the game and then can get to the line frequently. Great closer, not in the traditional sense where he’s going to be Kevin Durant and make four straight midrange jumpers, but it’s more of a complete game. Get to the line, make the right pass, get somebody else an open look, get a defensive stop, get a rebound. He’s a fantastic player.”
Butler was beating himself up for not being undefeated as a Warrior. The Warriors’ 111-107 loss at the Dallas Mavericks on Wednesday still stung.
“We should be 4-0,” Butler said. “I am not going to lie to you. I have been sick to my stomach because of it since I got here. But we are going to figure it out. We are going to go streaking.”
Considering the Warriors got to their hotel around 3:30 a.m. after the loss in Dallas and nearly let a 24-point lead slip away, Green said Thursday’s game could have easily gone the other way if not for Butler’s presence.
“We let one get away last night, but this one tonight, we would’ve lost,” Green said. “But just having a guy like that changes everything for us. So after four games … the assessment [on Butler] is, it’s great.”
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Steph had stark realization after Warriors’ trade for Butler
Steph Curry and Draymond Green are riding with the Warriors until the wheels fall off.
And after Golden State’s blockbuster trade for star forward Jimmy Butler, that day might not be as imminent as it once appeared.
Green discussed the move and its impact on Curry on the latest episode of his podcast, “The Draymond Green Show with Baron Davis,” and shared Curry’s initial reaction to the trade and his superstar teammate’s stark realization afterward.
“He looks like he’s got belief. That’s all it is, Steph, he looks like he’s got belief,” Green said of Curry. “He said to me in Utah after the trade, he looked at me and said ‘Man, it’s crazy because it just dawned on me that this is it.’ And I said, ‘Let’s do it.’ It was an emotional moment.”
By trading for Butler and signing him to a lucrative contract extension, the Warriors are pushing their chips all-in on one last NBA championship run before the summer of 2027, and it’s clear to Curry and Green that their window to hoist a fifth Larry O’Brien Trophy, with this core, could close in the next season or two.
The Warriors have won both games that Butler has played in, and the offense looks much improved, as the team had hoped it would by acquiring Butler.
If this indeed is the Warriors’ last ride, Green and Curry are committed to making it work.
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