Anyone who watched Calvin Johnson play for the Detroit Lions, or Georgia Tech before that, knew that he was a special kind of athlete. Pardon the cliche, but a freak? As in a “freak of nature?” Dude is 6’5″ and could snatch anything out of the air from any angle (his body control was uncanny for a player that big). But he got sick of playing for a perennial loser (and his body got beat up).
So at 30, after six straight Pro Bowl appearances, he said adios to the league. An old contract dispute with ownership kept him away from the only team he played for until last year when Dan Campbell, and his winning ways, ushered the human highlight reel back into the family (the Lions actually made a deep run in the playoffs).
But the Hall of Famer seems to be enjoying the hell out of retirement. Sounds like the man legitimately loves to snowboard. he appeared on a podcast with former Pittsburgh Steeler defensive back Ryan Clark and talked about sliding on snow with the analyst.
“You also do, like, white people activities and rich people activities now,” joked Clark. “Bro, you ski and snowboard? Boy, you know you didn’t grow up skiing.”
“My wife was always trying to get me to ski towards the end of my career,” Johnson replies. “She’s like, ‘Come on, let’s try it out, you’ll like it.’ I was like ‘I don’t do nothing on ice.’ But I tried out skiing and I enjoyed it.”
Johnson says he switched to snowboarding after a year because he said it made his knees feel more comfortable (and he wanted to shred!). Now, from the looks of his Instagram account, he gets after it.
“I love being on the mountain,” he said. “If there was snow on the mountain all year I would snowboard all year.”
It’s probably a lot more enjoyable than having a 230-pound safety try and take your head off.
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