From the NFL to Track Racing: How Luke Willson Shifted Gears

From the NFL to the velodrome, Luke Willson's shift from pro football to semi-pro cycling is inspiring. Fabienne Lang recently caught up with the Super Bowl winner to discover how he’s chipping away at his new passion.

What do American football and cycling have in common? Luke Willson. And no, I’m not talking about the actor.

That may sound like the start of a joke, but Luke’s sporting career is anything but laughable. He is a former American football NFL tight end who was drafted in 2013 by the Seattle Seahawks. He spent eight seasons in the league, made two trips to the Super Bowl, and won a championship ring during his rookie season in 2013-14. He retired from pro football in August 2021, but his desire to push limits has remained alive and well.

So, what is the connection to cycling, you ask?

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After hanging up his cleats, Luke didn’t rest on his well-deserved laurels. Instead, he pivoted to becoming a semi-pro track cyclist.

Now, if you’re like me, you might wonder how someone with the frame of a pro footballer, particularly a tight end, could comfortably fit on a bike, let alone pedal one fast enough to compete at a semi-professional level. Luke stands at 6.5 feet tall (196 cm) and weighs 245 lb (111 kg). Compare that with the general build of track cyclists who, on average, are 5.8 feet (178 cm) and weigh 160 lbs (73 kg), and you’d think Luke’s build would be a hindrance. Plus, he is 34 and has only three years of serious cycling experience under his belt.

That body type, experience, and age group aren’t exactly the trifecta for pro cycling. Or are they?

‘I like to ride my bicycle’

Luke’s entry into cycling is as sweet and surprising as finding that one caramel popcorn piece in a bucket of salty popcorn. “Just a couple of weeks after I retired, I went back to Canada to visit my parents. When I was there my dad asked if I wanted to join him and my mom for a bike ride around town,” he recalls. “I hadn’t ridden a bike since I was 10 years old, but I joined them. I remember sitting on the bike and thinking, ‘Man, I just retired from the NFL and now I’m riding a bike around Lasalle with my mom and dad’,” he says with a light tone.

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Luke could have easily let that family moment simply be that – a family moment. Instead, it was a turning point. “It was a lot of fun and I loved being in nature for long stretches of time,” he says, chuckling at the memory. The excitement stuck and immediately upon returning to his home base in Seattle, he bought a road bike and started riding regularly. A few months into his cycling, as he was realizing it was becoming more than a hobby, one of his friends suggested he join bike races. “Now, don’t judge me,” he says, grinning, “but at that point I had no idea local bike races existed.”

Luke wasted no time signing up for a race and his introduction to racing was a baptism by fire. “My first road race was a Cat 5, or novice, and near the end, as we were sprinting, a couple of guys in front of me crashed and there was a big pile up, which caused me to fall, too.”

But the crash didn’t dampen his spirits. He joined another Cat 5 race not long afterward and, this time, placed third. “I remember thinking, ‘Man, for my second race I already got third place. I’m going to blow this thing up,’” he recalls, chest puffed out. “That clearly didn’t happen,” he quickly chuckles, “because at my next race, which was a stage race with a little elevation, I got absolutely smoked.”

 Enter Luke’s second cycling lesson: numbers and tracks. At this point, he weighed 245 lbs (111 kg) and his friend suggested if he wanted to climb the ranks and win Cat 1 races, he’d have to switch to velodrome, or track racing. “I remember looking at him and saying, ‘What the hell! I don’t even know what velodrome racing is.’”

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That friend’s suggestion marked another turning point in Luke’s cycling career. Track cyclists are generally a bit bigger than road cyclists, as they rely on shorter, sharper sprints, which require more power and muscle – perfect for Luke’s bigger footballer composition. But that’s not to say he fits the perfect mold. “Even on the velodrome it’s kind of comical,” he shares, laughing. “I still stick out like a sore thumb in a hilarious way because a lot of times it’s me, a 34-year-old, out there next to 19-year-olds who weigh 75 lbs (34 kg) less than me, and I’m like, ‘All right, here we go!’”

However, Luke has been gaining good momentum around the track and even had his sights set on qualifying for the 2024 Olympics.

A shift in training

Even though Luke makes light of his situation, he takes his cycling training and racing just as seriously as his NFL days. Though, that training looks drastically different now.

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For a little perspective, an entire American football game lasts 3h12, only 11 minutes of which are actual action. At an offensive position, like Luke’s, players see an average of 5.5 minutes of action time per game broken down into four to five seconds of explosive running. “Now I’ve had to train to become an endurance athlete,” Luke explains the extreme shift in his training to become a track cyclist.

From bench pressing the equivalent of 225 lbs (102 kg) to cycling for four or more hours in VO2 max zone 2. And from explosive weighted squats to even more hours spent on the bike, Luke’s training has seen a 180-degree shift, but he’s enjoyed every moment.

“The only part that’s tough is when you’re not feeling well. When I played American football and didn’t feel great, I’d go into training early to use the hot tub facility, do a contrast bath to warm my body up, and there were a million trainers there who were all on deck to help out,” he explains. “Nowadays if I’m not feeling 100%, I’m alone in my apartment and all I can do is stretch a little bit and head out. Oh, and instead of a 45-minute lift session, I’ve got three and a half hours on the bike that day, which feels like seven and a half hours when you’re not feeling great. That side of training is definitely not as intense as my football days, but it’s a completely different mental game.”

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Being a professional footballer in the NFL for eight seasons is impressive. Winning the Super Bowl in your rookie year is impressive. Switching to another sport professionally in your thirties is equally as impressive. “I feel like things are starting to click in my cycling and hopefully in the next couple of years I’ll be able to show up to nationals and be somebody who is respected in the field instead of ‘that guy who used to play football’,” he shares his hopes.

We’ve no doubt those perspectives will switch because Luke has some big goals ahead of him, one of which is qualifying for the 2028 Olympics. In the meantime, he’s fostering the cycling community by creating a digital cycling team, which will eventually be a Strava club, called the Stone Cutters Union. “I’m not a huge quote guy but one of my favorite quotes is called ‘The Stone Cutter’. It’s not exact but the premise of it goes something like: ‘When I am struggling, I look at the stone cutter and I see him hammering away at the rock and I know that it was not the final blow that split the rock, but the hundreds that came before’,” he shares.

“Coming from a football standpoint, I have a lot to learn about bike racing. I’m riding my bike, chipping away at this new thing, like the stone cutter from the quote, and I’d love to create a community where no matter which category or level you’re at, you can get into it and learn, and get better at it.”