Bills hire Olympic gold medalist wrestler with no prior football experience
The Buffalo Bills are taking deep advantage of the free agent pool.
The organization on Friday hired Gable Steveson, an Olympic gold medal wrestler who has never played organized soccer.
Steveson won the gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics in the 125kg division. Now, he and the Bills want to see if his skills on the mat can translate to the field.
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Gable Steveson celebrates after the men’s 125kg freestyle wrestling competition during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at Makuhari Messe in Tokyo on August 6, 2021. (Stringer/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
“I have been fortunate to compete at the highest level in my sport, but I look forward to the challenge of seeing how my wrestling skills can translate to football,” Steveson said in a statement released by his agent, Carter Chow. “I am grateful to the coach [Sean] McDermott, [general manager] Brandon Beane and the Buffalo Bills organization for giving me this opportunity.
Listed as a defensive lineman, Steveson joins a team with a head coach in McDermott, who was a two-time national high school wrestling champion while growing up in Pennsylvania. And although McDermott pursued football after high school, he credits wrestling with helping shape his life.
At age 21, Gable Steveson became the youngest freestyle wrestler to win gold as a super heavyweight at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. (Stringer/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
At 5-foot-11 and 266 pounds, Steveson, at age 21, became the youngest freestyle wrestler to win gold as a super heavyweight at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. He went on to win two national titles. colleges at Minnesota in 2021 and ’22, and was twice named the winner of the Dan Hodge Trophy as the top college wrestler in the country.
Steveson becomes the second player with no previous football experience Buffalo has added to its roster this offseason. Last month, the Bills used their final pick to select former English rugby player Travis Clayton in the seventh round of the NFL Draft.
The 23-year-old Clayton, who is 6-foot-7 and 303 pounds, is projected to play on the offensive line after spending last winter learning about football in the NFL’s International Pathway Program.
Gable Steveson of the Minnesota Golden Gophers celebrates after defeating Cohlton Schultz of the Arizona State Sun Devils in the 285-pound final match during the Division I Men’s Wrestling Championships held at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit on March 19, 2022. (Jay LaPrete/NCAA Photos/NCAA Photos via Getty Images)
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Steveson is from Minnesota and his mother named him Gable after wrestler Don Gable, who won gold at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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