Something tells me it was this, specific moment from Luke Combs’ high school football career that let him know he was going to be better off chasing a music career rather than a career as a pro athlete.
Long before Combs became a household name with hits like “When It Rains It Pours” and “Beautiful Crazy,” Luke was just a kid in high school trying to figure out life. I’m sure all of us can remember pivotal moments from our youth where we figured out what we wanted to do… or didn’t want to do with our lives.
For Combs, one of those moments came when the high school football team he was a part of in Asheville, North Carolina faced off against a team that had a future NFL player by the name of Brandon Spikes.
If you don’t know the name, Spikes hailed from Shelby, North Carolina, and was an absolute specimen in high school. That led him to get recruited by a number of big time college programs, and he ultimately attended the University of Florida (where he helped the Gators win two national championships). Following his stellar college career, he played in the NFL for six seasons with the Patriots and the Bills.
All that to say… he was really good at football, and was by far the best player on the field when he faced Luke Combs’ high school team back in the day.
The country music singer remembers facing Spikes like it was yesterday. And when he joined the Bussin’ With The Boys podcast earlier this year, he told Will Compton and Taylor Lewan about the unforgettable moment that happened when his team played Spikes’ squad:
“We had a really good running back that year. I think he was going to Western Carolina. Our coach is like, ‘We’re running straight at this dude.’ It set the tone for the game, but not in the way we had hoped.
He absolutely annihilated our running back. Fullback folded (like a) piece of paper, gone. Running back, folded. (Spikes) gets over top of him, grabs a dreadlock and rips it out of his head, from his helmet, and wraps it around his wrist like a bracelet and wears it the rest of the game.”
Just an all-time great story.
When Combs told that for the first time on Bussin’ With The Boys back in March, a lot of people assumed that the country star may have been exaggerating the story a bit. In defense of the doubters… that does seem like something pulled straight out of a football comedy like The Longest Yard.
But since there were multiple witnesses to the dreadlock-turned-bracelet, there was always the chance that another source would come forward and verify Combs’ account. Funny enough, that actually happened on Bussin’, when they had Brandon Spikes (yes, the dreadlock-bracelet-wearer himself) verify the story.
Lewan and Compton played back the story that the country artist told on their podcast, and Spikes confirmed that’s exactly how it went down:
“Yeah. I was on all of that bro. That’s a true story.”
