Instead, Russell Wilson and Mark Rodgers spent four hours together over lunch, the future Super Bowl champion and nine-time Pro Bowler presenting his life plans as his soon-to-be agent listened in amazement.
This was before the 2010 MLB draft, when the new Denver Broncos quarterback was playing football and baseball at NC State. With a dream of pursuing both sports professionally, Wilson wanted to hire a baseball agent who also had experience representing NFL players, as Rodgers had done years earlier.
Ever the buttoned-up professional, the 21-year-old Wilson wore a suit when the two met for the first time at a restaurant in Raleigh, North Carolina.
“I was fascinated that somebody that young could have so many ideas and have such a clear-path vision for who he wanted to be and what he wanted to be,” Rodgers told ESPN in 2020 for a feature on how Wilson was shaped by his late father, Harrison. “It was extraordinary. It wasn’t about football and baseball. It was about a legacy. It was about a foundation. It was about businesses. It was about owning a team some day, an NFL team. It was about building an empire.”
Wilson will begin the second act of his NFL career following his trade from Seattle to Denver. With his Broncos set to open against the Seahawks on Monday Night Football (8:15 p.m. ET, ABC/ESPN/ESPN+), here are stories about who he is and how he got here. – Brady Henderson
Wilson and his singer/actress wife Ciara might have a $25 million house with a nine-car garage in the Denver suburbs, but 10 years ago, his life was much different. He was riding thousands of miles in cramped, smelly buses, eating off per diems, and staying in motels next to Waffle House.
After being selected by the Colorado Rockies in the fourth round of the 2010 MLB draft, Wilson played a summer at the Low-A Tri-City Dust Devils in 2010 before landing with the Class A Tourists. That summer of 2011, less than three years before he’d lead the Seattle Seahawks to a Super Bowl championship, was in flux for Wilson.
He’d already graduated from NC State and had another year of football eligibility, but coach Tom O’Brien made it clear he didn’t want his quarterback playing two sports. So Wilson asked Tourists skipper Joe Mikulik for permission to take football recruiting trips during the team’s off days.
Wilson started the season in a slump, and spent much of his free time trying to work through it in the batting cage. The pitchers he was facing were better than the ones in college, and could throw nasty breaking balls. Hitting them required repetition, which is easier when you’re a full-time baseball player. A few months into the season, things started to click for Wilson. He hit .271 in June and had an OPS (on-base plus slugging percentage) above .800. Late that month, he committed to Wisconsin for his final season of football eligibility and left the Tourists to prepare.
The day after his departure, Asheville was on a bus trip to Greenville, South Carolina, when Wilson appeared on a college football show on their TV. The bus erupted in cheers.
“There’s no doubt in my mind Russell Wilson would’ve played in the major leagues,” Mikulik said. “The drive, the work ethic … There was something that started clicking. If you just give him two or three years of facing obviously better pitching, I think he could’ve run out to the outfield and played because he’s such a good athlete.
“There’s never been a player in baseball that had that drive that I’ve seen in 38 years. And it was true. It was authentic. There wasn’t any eyewash there.” – Liz Merrill