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Terry Crews Had an Impressive NFL Career Before Becoming an Actor
America's Got Talent Host Terry Crews got his start in football and the NFL before becoming an artist and actor.
Terry Crews wears many hats. You know him as an actor from memorable projects like The Longest Yard, White Chicks, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. America's Got Talent fans have loved him as Host of the show since 2019, where he brings his pec-popping gusto to the stage weekly. But before that — before fame and Hollywood success — Crews was a football player. He actually played on and off for the NFL for five years.
His journey to the football world is interesting. He didn't set out to be a professional athlete. In fact, his original dreams couldn't have been further from the gridiron. Read more details, below.
When was Terry Crews in the NFL?
Terry Crews played football in the NFL between 1991 and 1996. That's roughly between the ages of 23 and 28.
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What NFL teams did Terry Crews play for?
Crews was drafted in the 11th round by the L.A. Rams in 1991. He played only six games, then took a year off.
He returned to the NFL in 1993, signing briefly with the Green Bay Packers before heading to San Diego to play for the Chargers. He appeared in 10 games that season.
Crews took another year off to pursue his passion for art, then headed to Düsseldorf, Germany in February 1995 to play for the World League of American Football’s Rhein Fire.
He played football well enough in Germany to score a one-year contract with a Washington, D.C. team (now known as the Commanders) in June 1995.
After that contract ended, he had a brief stint with the Philadelphia Eagles in 1996 before retiring for good. He moved to Los Angeles in 1997.
In the course of his football career, he took up painting and drawing photorealistic portraits of his teammates on commission, ultimately striking a brief licensing deal with the NFL while playing for the D.C. team.
How did Terry Crews become a professional football player?
Crews grew up in Flint, Michigan and graduated from the Flint Academy in 1986. He attended camp at the Interlochen Arts Academy — which boasts a number of prestigious alumni — that summer before going to Western Michigan University on an $500 art scholarship.
During his freshman year, he walked onto the football team and, after his sophomore year, earned a full athletic scholarship. He was drafted into the NFL before he could complete his degree.
"My first scholarship wasn't in football. I had a scholarship at the Western Michigan University as an artist," Crews recalled in an interview. "And then I walked on to the football team...Football was a way out of Flint, Michigan."
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How did Terry Crews get into acting after football and the NFL?
Crews got his first on-screen role in 1999 as the character T-Money on the syndicated American Gladiator-style series Battle Dome, which combined the challenges of American Gladiator with the scripted antics of professional wrestling. A crossover event led to his appearances in Season 6, Episodes 45-47 of WCW Monday Nitro in 2000 (which you can stream on Peacock).
His first movie role came during his Battle Dome tenure, when he appeared as an assassin in the Arnold Schwarzenegger cloning film The 6th Day (2000). He also had an uncredited role in the Denzel Washington movie Training Day (2001), and played Damon, a formerly incarcerated man, in the third installment of Ice Cube’s Friday trilogy, Friday After Next (2002).
Crews then had a variety of guest appearances on television before his breakout roles in White Chicks (2004) as pro basketball player Latrell Spencer. He followed that up by playing Cheeseburger Eddie in the Adam Sandler prison football film The Longest Yard (2005), and President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho in the 2006 Mike Judge film Idiocracy. He played Terry Jeffords on the popular TV series Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which you also can stream on Peacock.
