Rico Gathers ready for football life after basketball career

11:40 PM ET

IRVING, Texas – Like Ezekiel Elliott, Rico Gathers has played a game at AT&T Stadium. Like Elliott, Gathers’ team won.

Unlike Elliott, it wasn’t a football game. Gathers was a sophomore power forward when Baylor beat Kentucky 67-62, scoring six points and grabbing 13 rebounds.

Like Elliott, Gathers was drafted by the Dallas Cowboys, just in the sixth round of last weekend’s draft and nine years after he played his last football game.

On the basketball court, Rico Gathers led the Big 12 in rebounding as a junior and was third last season. Ray Carlin/USA TODAY Sports

“I was playing tight end, and I played mostly in-line, but they also used to play me on the outside as well to create mismatches,” Gathers said. “Those mismatches were really exposed because I was so big. But now I understand I’ll be playing against grown men who want it just as bad as I do, who have been doing it way longer than what I have been doing it now. It’s going to be much harder than the eight grade was.”

Gathers is now a 6-foot-7, 270-pound tight end prospect, attempting to do what Antonio Gates did so many years ago at Kent State. Gates was a power forward on a basketball team that made an Elite Eight run before turning to football, where he became one of the most prolific tight ends in NFL history with the San Diego …

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