Officially, former Buccaneers linebacker Brandon Magee remains committed to football. Unofficially, he’s giving baseball a try -- in spring training with the Red Sox.
As he does, Magee is heeding advice from one of the last great two-sport stars, Bo Jackson.
“Some of them I can tell you, some of them I won’t,” Magee said Sunday regarding the pointers he has gotten from Jackson, via Rick Weber of ESPN.com. “He’s a great guy. He’s been here before. He gives me encouragement all the times I talked to him. He just told me to stay humble and try to keep working hard and outwork everybody out here. That’s his main key.”
While he still may be interested in playing football, Magee seems to be all in with baseball, at least for now.
“Every day, I’m learning something new,” Magee said, via Weber. “I’m getting adjusted to it. It’s a lot different than playing football. You’ve got a lot flexibility things I’m working on -- getting my arm ready, getting my swing right. I’m enjoying every minute.
“It’s been 90 feet every day so far. I think starting tomorrow we’re going to ramp it up even more -- taking four rounds of BP tomorrow. So I’m excited about that.”
So how focused is Magee on football?
“I’m just focusing on spring training,” Magee said. “And I take it one at a time. When I’m playing football, it’s to help the team win. When I’m playing baseball, I’m focusing on getting better, helping the team win. Now I’m just focusing on getting better every day.”
Still, Magee needs to eventually pick a lane. As Jackson said last year, times have changed since he played baseball and football at the highest levels. He conceded that he probably wouldn’t be able to pull off playing both sports in 2015.
Currently, the lane necessarily is baseball, because no NFL team has given him a job.