Float Like a Butterfly, Sing Like a Bee! Eight Pro Athletes Who Bowed on the Great White Way

Former NFL star and Heisman Trophy winner Eddie George will start performances as Billy Flynn in Chicago on January 12. He is not the only elite athlete to leap from the playing field to Broadway’s bright lights (or vice versa). Who else is in that huddle? Let’s find out!

Muhammad Ali
ATHLETIC ACCOMPLISHMENTS: Too many to list, which makes sense when you’re a cultural and athletic icon known as "The Greatest" beloved by millions.

BROADWAY ROLE: The title role in 1969’s Buck White, a musical centering on a militant black lecturer who tunefully addresses a meeting organized by a black political group.

LEGACY: Only as a colorful anecdote during Ali’s banishment from the sport he defined. Buck White closed after seven performances, though Ali did perform a number from the short-lived musical on The Ed Sullivan Show.



Dominique Dawes
ATHLETIC ACCOMPLISHMENTS: As a gymnast, she won three medals over three Olympics (1992, 1996, 2000). She was also the first African-American to win an individual event medal. Graced a Wheaties box.

BROADWAY ROLE: Patty Simcox in Grease—on two separate occasions in the late 1990s.

LEGACY: What’s most notable is what Dawes did after playing Rydell High’s resident square: win a bronze medal in the 2000 Olympics. Isn’t that the most?

Olga Karmansky
ATHLETIC ACCOMPLISHMENTS: Former U.S. champion and two-time Pan American champion in rhythmic gymnastics. She was also an alternate in the 2004 Summer Olympics.

BROADWAY ROLE: An acrobatic player in the original cast of the 2013 Tony-winning revival of Pippin.

LEGACY: Another nifty highlight in a professional career that includes improving the flexibility of professional dancers (as well as amateurs), touring with Panic at the Disco, and a truly bonkers Instagram account.

Joe Namath
ATHLETIC ACCOMPLISHMENTS: His Super Bowl victory is why New York Jets fans aren’t total basket cases. The best playboy-quarterback of all time. Pretty much owned New York City in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

BROADWAY ROLE: Accused mutineer Lt. Stephan Maryk in the 1983 production of The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial.

LEGACY: Bittersweet. “Broadway Joe” was getting older. The need to be a star had diminished. “I don’t think that’s going to happen,” Namath admitted to Robert Lipsyte, the acclaimed sportswriter. “I just don’t have those drives and hungers anymore.”

Cathy Rigby
ATHLETIC ACCOMPLISHMENTS: In 1970, the 15-year-old Rigby became the first American woman to win a medal in the World Gymnastics Championships. She’s also a two-time Olympian.

BROADWAY ROLE: The title role in Peter Pan.

LEGACY: Rigby’s lengthy stage career might have trumped her athletic feats, which is saying something. She earned two Tony nominations as Peter Pan, performing the role off and on for nearly 40 years. Rigby left Neverland for good at age 61.

Elvis Stojko
ATHLETIC ACCOMPLISHMENTS: The seven-time Canadian figure skating champion competed in four Olympics, winning silver medals in 1994 and 1998. He was men's world champion in 1994, 1995 and 1997.

BROADWAY ROLE: Wouldn’t you know—as Billy Flynn in Chicago (in March 2014), a role he previously performed in Canada.

LEGACY: Acting—he also performed north of the border as Vince Fontaine in Grease—is one part of Stojko’s well-rounded, post-skating life. He’s also a Go-Kart enthusiast who has raced professionally.

Mark Teixeira
ATHLETIC ACCOMPLISHMENTS: All-Star first baseman with the New York Yankees; member of the 2009 team that won the World Series.

BROADWAY ROLE: Role is a bit of a stretch. Teixeira made a one-night-only cameo in January 2013 as “Mark,” a bartender in Rock of Ages’ infamous Bourbon Room. Yes, his ‘80s garb was Yankee-themed.

LEGACY: Rock of Ages got athletic in its casting a year later. When the Super Bowl was played at nearby MetLife Stadium in February 2014, the week’s performances featured cameos from football players Ahman Green, DeAngelo Williams, Randall Cobb and Joique Bell.

Mike Tyson
ATHLETIC ACCOMPLISHMENTS: With all the scandals—including a stint in prison and gnawing off part of Evander Holyfield’s ear—it’s easy to forget that Tyson was a phenomenal boxer. At age 20, he became the youngest heavyweight world champion in the sport’s history.

BROADWAY ROLE: As himself in the one-man show,Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth, directed by Spike Lee.

LEGACY: Tyson’s honesty streak continued. HBO eventually aired the one-man show, which was filmed over two days in July 2012, as a movie. In 2013, Tyson’s autobiography was published. The title: Undisputed Truth.