Former Michigan All-American Adam Coon reveals attempt to play football under Jim Harbaugh

Former Michigan three-time All-American and two-time NCAA finalist Adam Coon returned to wrestling, according to an exclusive interview with InterMat.

Coon tried his hand at football when the Tennessee Titans signed him June 4, 2021 to play on the offensive line but hadn’t played the sport since high school where he was an all-state linebacker and honorable mention for the offensive line at Fowlerville (Mich.) High. He recently revealed his return to the sport of wrestling to resume the pursuit of his Olympic Gold Medal dreams, but he almost doubled up while at school.

In an interview conducted by his sister Maddie with InterMat, Coon said he talked with Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh about playing football in the middle of his wrestling career.

However, injuries ultimately held him back from trying football for at least one season while in Ann Arbor.

“I had talked with Coach Harbaugh and he was working on trying to get me in for that fifth year to go play football and talking with a few other coaches and things were getting set up but then in ’16 after the Olympic Trials, I just couldn’t use my shoulder,” Coon said. “It was just so banged up and beat up from the years that I needed to have shoulder surgery to get that thing repaired. So I had to have labral surgery and it was nine months of hard recovery and all that fun stuff.

“I used my redshirt then and there and then my fifth year ended up being my fourth year wrestling and football just kind of ended right there.”

However, the desire did not go away for the former Michigan wrestling star.

“So I didn’t think about football too much until right around that point and then surgery kind of ended it so it was kinda like I’m still thinking of football,” Coon said. “I would like to try my hand at it because again, Stephen Neal wrestled all the way through and then transitioned over to football so it was toward the later end that I started thinking ‘I wonder when football would fit,’ but I still wasn’t ready to move into football at that time.”

Neal wrestled at Cal State Bakersfield, going 156-10 and was a two-time NCAA champion (1998 and ‘99). Neal went on to play for the New England Patriots, despite not playing in college. He played from 2001-10 after back and forth stints on the practice squad with the Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles and ended up winning three Super Bowl titles in New England.

“I had my shot at the NFL, I gave it my all and I found out what I needed to find out and that was exactly what caliber I could be at in the NFL and I found my answer,” Coon said. “It felt like I didn’t with wrestling, so that’s why I chose to come back to wrestling.

“I still have some questions that I have unanswered. I need to know, can I make another world team? And if I do, can I step on the podium? Can I make the Olympic team and actually wrestle in the Olympics? There are still all these question marks in my mind.”

Coon went 116-15 at Michigan from 2014-18, placing on the podium three times and was a two-time NCAA finalist as a heavyweight. He also took silver at the 2018 World Championships at 130 KG, while taking gold in 2019 at the Pan American Championships and a silver in 2020.