Someone (usually a child or teenager) is discovered to have a natural athletic ability while doing something else. They usually assume they are in trouble when they are spotted and called out for it. Common examples include showing off how quickly they can run away. (In a high school setting, expect it to be the class nerd becoming a good sprinter by being forced to outrun the school bullies.) They'll quickly be recruited to save the local team from failure.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Eiichiro in Baby Steps. He very suddenly finds himself practicing tennis driven by a pushy mother, his own obsessive nature, and a crush on Natsu. Unique example in that he didn't have any apparent talents that made him fit for the sport, his own unique talents (his capacity for observation and his visual reaction speed) are discovered later on.
- When Bashin runs down a track one episode of Battle Spirits Shonen Toppa Bashin to try and catch a runaway Aibou, beating all his school’s runners, all the sports teams try to recruit him. Of course, he has no interest in joining any team.
- This is how Kasuka Heiwajima got his start as a Teen Idol in Durarara!! — Originally, the talent scout was interested in recruiting his (ludicrously volatile and super strong) brother, Shizuo. Kasuka saved the poor guy from the resulting beatdown and was scouted in Shizuo's place.
- Eyeshield 21 has multiple examples:
- Sena is picked up as a runningback for the Deimon Devil Bats after Hiruma sees Sena fleeing from the the Ha-Ha Brothers. Years spent running from bullies and being their gopher has somehow made him faster than professional athletes, being able to sprint 40 yards in 4.2 seconds. For reference, the fastest officially recognized 40-yard dash is 4.22 seconds in real life.
- Monta gets scouted as a receiver after he's seen leaping into the air to catch an errant ball.
- Karin, who apparently developed a gentle, yet powerful throwing technique just by practicing piano and drawing manga.
- The Ha-Ha Brothers were initially blackmailed into playing as linemen before they discovered their love for the game.
- Unbelievably, Shin. He had no intention of playing any sports and only tried out for the White Knights because his friend Sakuraba asked him to.
- Hayato Kazami from Future GPX Cyber Formula. The 14-year old is in a favor for a motorbike, but when he's forced to driving a car in professional-level races, he performs surprisingly, if desperately well despite having no experience at all.
- Hajime no Ippo - After a timely rescue from bullies (well, maybe not that timely) by passing jogger Takamura, Ippo gets an impromptu Boxing Lesson just for fun: punch bag, feel better. Instead, he punches the bag nearly to the ceiling and splits all the skin on his knuckles. Turns out spending a childhood or two moving heavy fishing equipment will build muscle like nobody's business.
- While the more common "running away skills" come into play, it's not until after he actually starts training that they manifest.
- This was sorta the case with Sendoh, too. He was well-known as a delinquent who stood up against bullies, and once his future coach heard about him, he decided to fist fight Sendoh to try recruiting him for his gym. It worked.
- In Harlem Beat, Sakurai lined in a wrong queue, entered a streetball game and boom, he was hooked.
- Happens a lot in the Inazuma Eleven series. For example, surfer Tsunami shows that he has potential in soccer when the team accidentally kick a ball at him while he's surfing. He manages to defend himself, with powerful kick.
- Played for laughs in Katteni Kaizo. Chitan is actually a god of soccer, and had he pursued this talent he could have rocked the planet, but he's only interest in trains, and his potential is wasted.
- In the My Heavenly Hockey Club manga (which is a slightly more sadistic and straight-forward version of Ouran High School Host Club), Hana is recruited because she was struck by a car and survived... and is more or less invincible in her sleep.
- In One Outs, Kojima discovers Tokuchi largely by chance.
- In Samurai Champloo, Mugen is drafted into playing baseball against the Eagleland navy team after the Japanese organizer sees how fast he can run from the restaurant he failed to pay at, in addition to the fact that he can throw a baseball hard enough to knock down a wooden tower about a mile away.
- Averted in Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei where Fujiyoshi is asked to join a baseball team after hitting a home run, but says she's only there to do research for a manga.
- The school athletic clubs are also trying to drag her to join, because despite the Opaque Nerd Glasses, Harumi is a very competent athlete. She just has better things to do.
- Slam Dunk: Hanamichi Sakuragi, although he wasn't doing something else except blow off his top at hearing the word "Basketball". Haruko only notices his height and his build which is perfect for the sport. Skills-wise, though, he cannot play to save his life. But he is a fast learner. Coach Anzai saw it too, and had Sakuragi master the basics. In no time, he became Shohoku High's starting power forward, slowly working his skills to become the team's rebounder and center under the basket when Akagi isn't around.
- In one Filler episode of Tokyo Mew Mew, Ichigo's secondary abilities from being a Catgirl, such as jumping high and landing on her feet, get her dragged onto the gymnastics team. Fanservice ensues when the recruiter forces her into a leotard.
- In Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches, when Yamada wants to make exchange student Alex popular by swapping bodies with him, he tries joining a few sports clubs and realizes by accident how athletically amazing Alex's body is, making all the sports clubs want him in their ranks.
- Onoda Sakamichi from Yowamushi Pedal. Imaizumi discovers his talent for cycling when he passes him on a difficult climb behind their school. Onoda was just cycling to Akibahara for to get his anime otaku merchandise.
Comic Books
- One Archie Comics story has Archie and Betty walking by the football field while the team is practicing. Archie says that if they were in an old movie, a stray ball would fly in his direction and he'd kick it it fifty yards, thus earning him an instant spot on the team. To Archie's chagrin, when a stray football does make it their way, it's Betty who kicks it straight between the uprights. It seems that "they don't make old movies the way they used to."
- In Marvel Adventures Spider-Man #34, Peter Parker is recruited as a shortshop for his high school baseball team after he's seen using his super-powers to deftly catch and return a wayward ball. Team pitcher Flash Thomson is enraged because he suspects Parker's skills are due to illegal drugs, while the Green Goblin wants to eliminate Parker so his son's rival team can win instead.
- Peter's skills are so accidental he can't mess up his game even when tries to. Peter deduces that his battles with super-villains have honed his reflexes so much that he can't help but react to the ball.
- Robin (1993): While Tim had been careful to stick with his friends in PE at his previous school and not display his athletic ability after being forced to transfer to Brentwood he races a fellow student he's curious about in class and has the school's soccer coach hound him to join the team after seeing how fast he was able to run and how long he could keep it up. Tim turns him down in defiance of the usual plot.
- In Superman #77, "The Greatest Pitcher in the World!", an amnesiac Superman, who is living as a hobo, is recruited as a baseball pitcher after he returns a fly ball and almost breaks the catcher's hand.
Comic Strips
- One Peanuts strip has Charlie Brown recounting his fantasy of catching a wild foul ball while watching a baseball game, prompting the manager to declare, "Sign that kid up!" Linus responds that many millions of other kids have had the exact same daydream.
Films — Animation
- In An Extremely Goofy Movie, the antagonists place Goofy on their skateboard team after they notice his expert ability to compensate for his own clumsiness, placing him against his own son Max in a skateboarding championship. Naturally, Max isn't concerned as he notes himself that his dad is the most athletically challenged person in the universe before Goofy quickly proceeds to be really really good (though he had a bit of help) and to the stunned amazement of pretty much everyone there instantly becomes a school hero. Max's comment is extra funny when one remembers that most of Goofy's solo cartoons from back in the day revolved around Goofy's ineptitude at sports.
- Kung Fu Panda: Po, who was previously thought to be hopelessly clumsy, inadvertently demonstrates his agility when he climbs up some shelves in order to steal some cookies. Shifu then finds out exactly how Po needs to be trained.
Films — Live-Action
- In The Blind Side, Michael Oher excels as a linesman only when he learns to tap his "protective instinct." After Oher's foster mother Leigh Anne Tuohy discovers his 98th-percentile score on the 'protective instincts' category of an aptitude test, she understands how to extend his custodial nature to the gridiron.
- Which was some Hollywood History on the film maker's part, as Oher was a football player since at least Jr. High.
- Happens to Sach in a few Bowery Boys movies, usually thanks to some Applied Phlebotinum.
- Class Act: Duncan Pinderhughes ends up discovering that he has an uncanny ability to kick field goals, and joins the school's football team.
- The Faculty has a mention of this—it's not the main plotline, but the football coach does mention Casey's athletic ability after seeing him run away from aliens.
- Forrest Gump becomes a star running back while being chased through a high school football practice field by bullies. It helps that he's seen running by Paul "Bear" Bryant (who is there presumably on a scouting trip), universally considered to be one of the greatest American football coaches of all time. Then again with Ping Pong. "Keep your eye on the ball" indeed. Then yet again starts off the national jogging craze while Walking the Earth after tragedy hits his life.
- In Frankenstein The College Years, the recently revived Frank is wandering near the football field when the ball lands near him. The throw he makes while trying to return it is so awesome that the football coach immediately recruits him.
- The Garbage Picking, Field Goal Kicking Philadelphia Phenomenon is a movie about a garbageman who is spotted punting water jugs at the garbage dump and is quickly signed to the Philadelphia Eagles as a kicker.
- In Film/2011, working as a bouncer, and being naturally tough, have made Doug the perfect hockey enforcer.
- In The Great Gildersleeve, Leroy accidentally hooks up a treadmill backwards and Throckmorton ends up running backwards on it. But he runs so fast that he challenges Judge Hooker to a backwards race.
- The Grizzlies: Kyle joins the lacrosse team after proving his speed as a runner by racing to stop a dog (who has just outrun the other applicants) from racing in front of a truck.
- The end of Jerry Maguire doesn't make this into a plot point, just into one last joke, when the kid turns out to have a wicked throwing arm when throwing a baseball back to a team that let it get away from them, and Jerry (a sports agent, if you haven't seen the movie) starts musing about training him up...
- Lagaan: Who knew farming could prepare some people to play cricket?
- A similar scene happens with a woman in A League of Their Own, a movie about women's baseball during World War 2, only the girl is black and the team is all white, making an implied statement about who could play pro baseball and who couldn't.
- In The Mighty Ducks, Fulton Reed (who did not play hockey before at all) is recruited after slap-shotting a hockey puck into Gordon Bombay's van that he (well, technically, the driver assigned to him) began using to shuttle all the players around. He has to be taught how to ice skate, and while his power is good from the get-go, his aim needs worknote .
- Played with in The Milky Way. After mild-mannered milkman Burleigh Grimes knocks out middleweight champion of the world Speed McFarland on a public sidewalk, people start getting interested in Burleigh as a boxer. In fact Burleigh has no boxing talent—it was Speed's Bumbling Sidekick bodyguard who accidentally landed the knockout punch—but Speed's sneaky, unethical manager hits on a Throwing the Fight scheme in which Burleigh will be built up as a contender so Speed can get an easy knockout.
- In Mr. Hulot's Holiday, Hulot manages to beat everyone at tennis by copying the odd swinging motion of the salesperson who sold him his racket. This results in several bruised egos.
- In Rookie of the Year, the twelve-year-old protagonist has his newly-found pitching ability discovered when, from about the middle of the stands, he throws back a home run ball hit by the opposition...and hits home plate.
- Also occurs in (at least) two Adam Sandler movies:
- In Happy Gilmore, Happy's ice hockey skills unexpectedly transfer to playing golf.
- In The Waterboy, Bobby Boucher is discovered to have unique tackling abilities when his Berserk Button is pushed.
- In the 2007 St Trinians movie, Annabelle Fritton is recruited for the hockey team after she smashes a bust with a mobile phone she belted with a hockey stick.
- Subverted in Sudden Death. At one point, Darren McCord actually has to pretend to be the Pittsburgh Penguins goalie to avoid the terrorists who have invaded the arena. He even makes a save.
- Happens in one of The Three Stooges early shorts.
- In the Disney movie The World's Greatest Athlete, Nanu is a Mighty Whitey Nature Hero who grew up in the wilds of Africa, which was the perfect setting for training. He doesn't consider athletics until a college coach Sam Archer discovers him.
Literature
- In the Gordon Korman novel The Chicken Doesn't Skate, the school's resident loser, constantly picked on by the Jerk Jocks of the hockey team, turns out to be a brilliant goalie because he has so much practice catching all the toys his toddler brother throws at his beloved computer.
- Another Gordon Korman example: Rudy Miller from "I Want to Go Home!" At summer camp, he claims that he "doesn't do [insert sport here]" for half the book...until it's revealed that he's insanely good at everything athletic.
- No More Dead Dogs: Bit Character Leo sets a record on the climbing rope while trying to avoid having a conversation with his English teacher.
- Slugfest: The Fidelio twins are capable of their most stunning athletic feats while attacking or running away from each other on the football field and barely register just how fast they can get while doing that.
- In Choosing Up Sides, Luke wanders into the outfield of a baseball game, where he picks up a ball and hurls it about three hundred feet to home plate. Having been raised by a fundamentalist preacher who forbids sports, he's uncomfortable with the attention from everyone who wants him to pitch for the local team.
- Discworld:
- Rincewind may be an utter failure as a wizard, but he has become a champion sprinter from all the dangers he's had to run away from.
- Zig-zagged with Trev Likely in Unseen Academicals: his skill at kicking a tin can around when he's supposed to be working in the University candle vats certainly attracts the attention of their nascent football team, but he insists he promised his mum not to play, although he agrees to help train them. Then when he does join the team, it turns out skill at kicking a can ("You've got the long spin and the short spin") doesn't equate to skill at kicking a round ball. But there turns out to be a way round that as well.
- In Moving Pictures, Victor Tugelbend is so lazy that he's become incredibly athletic, because it's less effort than carrying around lots of fat. He's picked out to become a movie star because of this.
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone: Harry is picked as seeker for the Quidditch team after making a fifty-foot dive and a one-handed catch of Neville's Remembrall during his first time on a broomstick.
- In Infinite Jest, the older brother in the family starts out playing tennis, and is really good at it, but in college, he tries out for the football team, only to find that he isn't big enough. As he is leaving the try-out, he punts a football, and the coach realizes he is a really good kicker.
- P. G. Wodehouse used this sometimes; in The Inimitable Jeeves a fat boy is found to be a remarkable runner after he insults someone and has to run from a beating.
- Jessica Darling gets recruited to the track team after it turns out that she can run surprisingly fast in a fifty-pound seagull costume when there's a lovesick goose chasing her. For that matter, her being in that costume was a variation on this trope too - she was trying to become a cheerleader, but only succeeded in impressing the coach with her ability to look absolutely hilarious when falling on her face.
- Operation Do-Over:
- Mason does get some good accidental athlete moments after joining the football team, like causing another in a rival team'd player to accidentally trip over him during a pivotal moment, but he never reaches the level of the other players.
- After witnessing Clarisse display amazing speed when she runs away from an argument with him, Mason convinces her to join the track team so she can improve her social status and sense of character the way football has improved him. Clarisse hates doing it at first, but by the last chapter, she's setting track records for the whole county while retaining her high academic standing, and she clearly loves it.
- Slapshots: Chipmunk (who turns out to be listed as a reserve player) plays in the final pre-playoffs game solely to try to pull off an opposing player's jacket and expose a graduation t-shirt underneath revealing that the player is too old for their league. Chipmunk keeps failing, while also inadvertently bouncing pucks off his body parts and into the goal, setting a new record for most goals scored by a player in a single game.
- In Sword of Truth, Richard gets conscripted into a Ja'La team after he slaughters his way through a considerable number of soldiers in an almost-successful attempt to free himself.
- To elaborate, it's not his fighting skills or athletics that get noticed so much as his strategy in weaving through a horde of foes towards a goal point; Ja'La being loosely analogous to American football.
Live-Action TV
- Dead Gorgeous: Twice Sophie discovers that she is naturally gifted at sports, only to the discover that she has been subconsciously using her ghost powers to triumph. It happens with basketball in "Sisters of the Mind", and running in "A Friend Indeed".
- Josh from Drake & Josh is forced to join the high school football team after his brownies, poisoned by his prankster sister, gets one of the players sick. He manages to win the game when the opposing team tackles him so hard he knocks Josh into the end zone.
- Even Stevens: In "Head Games", it is discovered that Twitty has incredibly aim when he is enraged at Louis. He joins the baseball team as a pitcher, with a photo of Louis on the catcher's mitt.
- In Everybody Hates Chris, the titular character is recruited by the basketball coach who sees Chris shooting a wad of a paper into a trash can. Alongside the fact that Chris must be able to play basketball, he has Chris join the team. Subverted when Chris fails horribly at the sport.
- In Glee, Kurt's dance skills unexpectedly earn him a spot as kicker on the school football team.
- In Happy Days, the Cunninghams are at a rodeo when Joanie, who is riding a horse, gets out into the performance arena. She then does an amazing job of trick riding, sliding on and off the horse, moving around the saddle and finally ends up back at the entrance. After finishing, she is asked where she learned to trick-ride like that. She admits she was scared to death, since in reality, she had slipped out of the saddle and was just trying desperately to get back to a normal riding position while the horse was in full gallop.
- In Little House on the Prairie, when Pa is getting ready for a baseball game against a team from Sleepy Eye, he and Half-Pint are at Jebediah Mumfort's farm where they both witness Jebediah trying to hit a chicken hawk with a rock. He throws the rock so hard, it puts holes in the side of a barn. After this display, Pa convinces Jebediah to try out for Walnut Grove's baseball team. Of course, he's a natural and helps them win the big game despite all the cheating and poor sportsmanship of those evil people from Sleepy Eye.
- In one of the episodes of M.I. High one of Daisy's friends gets frustrated over being completely unable to do the high-jump. In a fit of fury she grabs a shot-put and flings it across the field and into a window, also breaking the British record at the same time.
- Modern Family: In "A Fair to Remember'', Cam recruits Manny for his football team after he spots Manny charging his way through a crowd, shouldering people out of the way, in order to get to a cake-baking contest before it closes.
- Pixelface: In "Rex on the Bench", Rex becomes the mascot for a football team, and is forced to make a penalty shootout. Alexia is able to get him to score the winning goal by telling him not to break the goals as, every time he is told not break something, he immediately does.
- "Waikiki Hockey", a Saturday Night Live sketch parodying Elvis Presley movies, featured a busboy who became the starting center for the Waikiki Kings after being spotted clearing the table with a hockey stick-shaped piece of driftwood. It helped that the busboy was played by that Saturday's host, hockey great Wayne Gretzky.
- An episode of The Secret World of Alex Mack has one of these, where Alex is sprinting down the hallway of her school attempting to avoid being late to class and getting in trouble. She is still late for class, but instead of getting chastised she is instead recruited for the track team.
- Smallville: In "Hothead", a bullying football team member throws a football at Chloe's head. Clark Kent catches it and throws it back hard enough to floor the bully. The coach lets Clark on the team after this.
- Wolfblood: In "The Call of the Wild", Rhydian is recruited to play goalkeeper for the school football team after he intercepts a wild kick in the playground.
Tabletop Games
- In Blood Bowl, the Dark Elf Star Player Horkon Heartripper was once an infamous assassin hired by the Ashbane Vendettas to take out an opposition blitzer. Unable to take out the player before the game, Horkon launched his attack during the game itself and ended up taking out half his target's team and accidently scored a touchdown in the process. Such talent was immediately in high demand and the Vendettas ended up hiring the assassin in the spot.
Video Games
- Gamevil Pro Baseball: Medica and Psycher started out as this in 2008. Same for Luna the maid in 2012.
- Tsunami Jousuke from Inazuma Eleven is a Surfer Dude who is discovered to have a natural talent for soccer.
- In Phantom of Inferno (game only), Drei is discovered to have natural assassin abilities. Right after the hero pretends she does, no less.
- According to the fact sphere of Portal 2:
Fact Sphere: Edmund Hillary, the first person to climb Mount Everest, did so accidentally while chasing a bird.
Web Animation
- Cyanide and Happiness, "Waiting for a bus" short. This being Cyanide and Happiness, the trope is Deconstructed.
Western Animation
- In the Classic Disney Short Casey Bats Again (a sequel to Casey at the Bat), Casey discovers his daughters form a natural girls' baseball team as they practice their skills while doing the dishes.
- Dexter's Laboratory episode "Sports a Poppin", has Dexter's dad trying to teach Dexter to be more athletic. While Dexter fails at traditional sports he demonstrates great athleticism at the end of the episode when fighting a giant monster outside his Dad's field of view.
- In an episode of Doug while fooling around he accidentally kicks a football over the fieldgoal along with his shoe and is recruited for a position in the school football team. Unfortunately, he can't do the kick a second time, but turned out to be really good at football strategy.
- An episode of Family Guy has Peter running to the bathroom at a high-school reunion, knocking down with ease everyone in their path. Patriots quarterback, Tom Brady, happens to see how well he fights off the people and puts him on the team.
- In Futurama, Bender accidentally takes down the legendary wrestling robot The Masked Unit. He is subsequently recruited into robot wrestling. Though more of a subversion, as he's not actually good at the sport. The head of the wrestling league, and ostensibly the audience, just loves how much of a Jerkass he is. So as a crowd favorite he's scripted to win the rigged matches.
- In Kim Possible, Ron Stoppable cheats his way into the quarterback position on the school football team, only to discover his 'mad running away skills' make him a natural running back after his deception is exposed.
- In the Looney Tunes short Bugged by a Bee, an ongoing war with a bee accidentally causes Cool Cat to be become a champion pole vaulter, baseballer, rower, hurdler and footballer at college. Parodied at the end, where Cool Cat is congratulated on his contributions to the university's athletic success, and a trophy is awarded to "the one who made it all possible... the bee!"
- The My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "Buckball Season" has Applejack and Rainbow Dash assemble a team for an upcoming game of buckball and fins that Pinkie Pie (thanks to her agility) and Fluttershy (thanks to her long mane) are better players than them. Even Snails, normally a Butt-Monkey, displays a natural talent at catching balls in the water buckets he's carrying.
- Happens on a regular basis to Candace on Phineas and Ferb showing a remarkable athletic prowess of the girl. Ultimately subverted in "Phineas' Birthday Clip-O-Rama" where she perform impressive stunts to preserve the DVD that contains all the proof she will ever need for all of P&F's projects, but then she comments that "those parkour classes really paid off." We even have a kid asking her for an autograph after all of that.
- The animated Punky Brewster episode "The Quartersize Quarterback" has Glomer giving Allen—normally a klutz—the abilities of a professional player who winds up winning a spot with the Chicago Bears. Punky and the others have to stop Allen when Glomer reveals that magic on him has a time limit.
- Rocket Power has Sam Dullard becoming a goalie this way as well. He and Reggie are having a casual conversation while Otto and the gang play street hockey. A wayward slapshot speeds in Sam's direction, and Otto, horrified at what will be an inevitably ugly collision, shouts "LOOK OUT, SAM!" Sam lifts his left hand and coolly deflects the puck WITHOUT EVER TAKING HIS EYES OFF REGGIE. Needless to say, the opportunistic Otto recruits Sam to play goalie for their team, which just happened to be a position they needed filled.
- In Rocky and Bullwinkle Wossamotta U story arc, football scouts recruit Bullwinkle on a scholarship after seeing his throwing ability when he's giving Rocky a boost. In another arc, Bullwinkle is mistaken for one of the Three Musketeers because of his skill with a shish kabob skewer.
- Scooby-Doo's Shaggy twice: In "The Spirited Spooked Sports Show" (1973 episode) and "Spooky Games" (2012 special), he becomes an athletic runner who runs fastest when he's scared.
- The Simpsons
- In "Lisa On Ice", where Bart and Lisa compete in hockey, her talent as goalkeeper is discovered when Apu sees her block all the paper balls that Bart throws at her while taunting her.
- In "Homer vs. Patty And Selma", Bart is assigned a ballet class and then discovers he is a natural dancer while trying to remove his leotard.
- In "Little Girl In The Big Ten", Lisa discovers a natural talent for gymnastics because of her big head.
- In the most implausible example yet, in "The Homer They Fall" Homer is discovered to have the toughness necessary to succeed as a professional boxer when he blithely takes a beating from three other fathers who are angry that Bart ratted on their boys.
- In "Homer Of Seville", Homer also makes for a great opera singer while he's horizontal. Also a great painter. Both on the same episode.
- In "Smoke On The Daughter", Lisa discovers she has a natural talent for ballet when she gets angry at the instructor, who notices her never-before-mentioned "lecturing stance".
- Zeke's Pad: In "Gender Render", Maxine drags Zeke (currently in the body of a girl) up at 5 AM to train with her. Zeke shows that he is extremely fast when he runs after the ice-cream truck. Maxine puts Zeke on her team and prepares him for the finals.
Real Life
- In the autobiography My Life Outside The Ring, Hulk Hogan discovered his affinity for wrestling when his coach pitted him against the #1 wrestler of the school who had just won a competition and the Hulkster won easily without even knowing what he was doing. The coach then faced Hogan himself and Hogan won again at which point he ran away. This is a subversion actually as Hogan did not immediately go into wrestling, and in fact at the time did not want to partake in it.
- Football great Jerry Rice was recruited for his high school football team after he ran away from the principal who caught him playing hooky.
- In the 1900 Olympic Games in Paris, the Dutch rowing team decided to replace their overweight coxwain with a boy they found around, and won! Whoever the kid - and the other underage boys who the French were using as coxwains - was remains a Riddle for the Ages.
- Jim Thorpe, winner of several Olympic Gold medals, got a spot on his school's track team when he beat the high jumpers while wearing street clothes.
- As a child, Boxing icon Muhammad Ali was offered his first boxing lesson by the police officer to whom he'd reported his stolen bicycle. He only took up lessons so that one day he'd be able to beat up the kid that stole his bike...the rest is sporting history.
- Not exactly "unrelated activity", but California/Anaheim Angels closer Troy Percival started out as a catcher until the coaches discovered that his returns to the mound were often faster than the other pitchers.
- Similar to Percival, Kenley Jansen was a Dutch catcher in the Dodgers minor league system who came to attention when he threw out two runners in a row during the World Baseball Classic. As of 2019, he's been the Dodgers' ace relief pitcher for eight years, and has made the All-Star team twice.
- Likewise, because it's less strenuous on the arm than most other pitches, position players sometimes fool around with throwing the knuckleball in their spare time. Tim Wakefield was a poor-hitting minor league first baseman when he was discovered to have a talent for throwing the knuckleball and became a moderately successful pitcher at the major league level for almost two decades.
- The reverse of this is Babe Ruth's story: As a pretty good Boston pitcher at the time, he was converted to the outfield when his propensity for good hitting and gargantuan home runs revealed itself. He would still pitch, but not nearly as often, until he was traded to the Yankees and became a pure outfielder.
- Legendary sports writer Ring Lardner once said, "As to why the Yankees would waste such a pitching giant on the outfield I can only guess, but I think the blame lies with the Sultan of Swat himself. Hitting home runs has become so popular with the crowd that they had to move such a powerful pitcher off of the mound and into the outfield because if Ruth knows something other than hitting the ball out of the park, it is how to pitch strikeouts."
- Betty Robinson, at age 16, won the first Olympic 100 metres dash for women. Her remarkable speed was discovered by a schoolteacher when she ran to catch a train. The way the story is told in her biography would make for a great scene in a movie:
From the elevated platform in Harvey, Illinois, Charles Price could look back up Broadway toward Thornton Township High School, where he taught biology. On that weekday afternoon in the late winter of 1928, he could see several of his students walking in small groups toward the station and one, in particular, racing in his direction. As the Illinois Central commuter train pulled in and he stepped aboard, the man thought it was unfortunate that Betty Robinson had just missed her ride home.
Price did a double take a few seconds later when the junior sat down alongside him.
