Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that Tony Romo will no longer be suiting up for the Dallas Cowboys as he had for the past 14 years. Instead, the former QB will be behind the desk as the lead analyst for CBS. But before all that, the Dallas Mavericks honored Romo by making him an honorary “Maverick for a day” for the team’s final home game on Tuesday night.
While some of us may have been a little shocked at the sight of Romo sinking jumpers, former NBA player Caron Butler wasn’t shocked at all. Butler played high school basketball against Romo in Wisconsin and says that he could’ve easily swapped the NFL for the NBA.
Believe it or not, man, when we were in the prime of our careers, I used to always talk about it: [Romo] could have easily been a professional basketball player. And a lot of people were like, ‘Man, you’re crazy for saying that,’ but Tony could shoot. He could handle the ball. He had a knack for scoring, man, he really did.
He was a really good football player, obviously, being a quarterback. He was great at golf. And he was really good at basketball. Obviously it worked out for him with the football, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if he would have made it playing basketball. He had a great feel for the game, man. And it’s not surprising. Golf is a cerebral game; you gotta have that mental component to conquer the course. And then football’s the same thing; you gotta be able to think on the fly and do all these things. And then basketball, I thought, all those components worked together.
Romo, who was named to the All-Racine County (Wisconsin) boys basketball team along with Butler in 1998, averaged 24.3 points, 8.8 rebounds and 4.7 assists. According to ESPN, a number of mid-major schools recruited Romo to come play basketball. Not such a shock as Romo is still the all-time leading scorer in his high school’s history with 1,080 points.
Roma’s high school coach, Steve Berezowitz told ESPN that the quarterback was a “quiet player” who once had seven 3’s in one game. He was an all-around player that helped the team in every aspect of the game.
He completely filled the stat sheet. He did that with a group that wasn’t incredibly skilled, so he had to basically do every part of the game for us to be successful.
Apparently, while most kids dream of the long NFL career that Romo had, Berezowitz says that the one-day contract with the Mavs was something Romo had always wanted.
Flip the page to see Romo on the hardwood.
