How good was Ryan Seacrest at football? American Idol host's football career worth revisiting

Look at Ryan Seacrest today, and his personality is one at ease with the entertainment industry. He has been a television staple for some time with shows like Live with Kelly and Ryan and, of course, American Idol. He has also won an Emmy as a producer.

So, it's difficult to imagine Ryan Seacrest as a hard-hitting football player. However, it has emerged that he was indeed a very good defensive player during his time playing high school football.

He used to play as a defensive back for Dunwoody High School in the early 1990s and was a starter for a couple of years. David Kelly, his coach at the time, recounted how Ryan Seacrest "was feisty" and "would knock the crap out of people."

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Ryan Seacrest may owe his broadcasting career to football

Ryan Seacrest may not have made it on to the professional football field as a player, but his career may have been shaped by his experiences playing the sport in high school.

While he may not show physical feistiness in his day-to-day life, no one survives at the top level in the cut-throat entertainment industry without having combativeness. Seacrest has seemingly channeled his focus away from the football field and into the media business.

Beyond the character he has shown in his career, there's another probable direct link between where he's now and how football got him into it. While he was playing on defense, Seacrest would knock out unwitting receivers outside the field, allowing time for the public announcer to slip in some commercial or other announcements.

Eventually, the high school footballer took over both duties: playing the game and also making public announcements. In a way, it was on the high school football field that the future mediaman launched his career.

Before taking over those duties, Seacrest said that he played a lot of positions on the football field before settling on strong safety. He said that he played center and was also a long-snapper at one point. He also played as a guard and linebacker before moving to his final position.

However, as it turned out, that was not to be his ultimate call, as the PA man in him took over, and he charted a career in the media instead. The versatility and guts he showed on the football field found an easy translation in an industry that's just as ruthless off the field as football is on it.