Getty Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck tells ESPN's Seth Wickersham how he wants to return to football.
Hope has remained in Indianapolis over the last few years that retired quarterback Andrew Luck would decide to return to the NFL.
Luck revealed in an interview with ESPN’s Seth Wickersham that he is planning to be back on the sidelines one day, but not as an NFL quarterback.
The 33-year-old told Wickersham that he has attended classes at Stanford this fall in an effort to land a graduate degree. Luck said he wants the degree to perhaps teach high school history and coach football.
The Moment Luck Chose His New Football Path
As he did throughout his long-form piece on Luck, Wickersham eloquently described the exact moment the former Indianapolis Colts quarterback had the realization that he could take a different path back to the game he loved.
Luck has his daughter, Lucy, to thank.
“On a Saturday morning in Indianapolis last autumn, he was at Lucy’s soccer practice on fields next to the Colts facility,” Wickersham wrote. “Over a blue fence, the Colts were holding a walk-through. Luck could hear and see glimpses of his old job, and what hit him felt truer than some of the stories he’d tell himself, and didn’t feel like a story at all. He was still a quarterback. ‘I don’t think that will ever go away,’ he says.
“He wanted back in the game. This time, to coach.”
To begin the pursuit of a new football dream, Luck moved with Lucy and his wife, Nicole, to Stanford, where he started taking classes to earn a graduate degree. Luck has shared his dream of becoming a high school coach with many close friends, including his former teammate and Colts wide receiver T.Y. Hilton.
Hilton described Luck’s coaching desire as making “perfect sense.”
With lots of time for reflection, Luck has already begun asking himself what he can bring to a high school locker room in order to be the best coach possible.
“If I were to coach, what would I bring? Well, certainly an experience that’s semi-unique on the scale of football experiences,” Luck told Wickersham before correcting himself. “I shouldn’t say semi-unique. Completely unique.”
Could Luck Return to the NFL?
It’s pretty clear Luck has moved on with his life since retiring from the NFL. The Colts have tried to do the same, bringing in three veteran signal callers since his retirement to try and replace him.
But the team has experienced little success behind center since Luck’s departure, which has fueled the fire for a possible Luck return to the Colts.
Luck told Wickersham that he watched little football immediately after his retirement. Even today, Wickersham described that the football memorabilia Luck has on display in his house is mostly from Stanford.
But Luck remained close to former Colts head coach Frank Reich. As the years have past since his retirement announcement, Luck began watching Colts games and began sharing his thoughts about key plays with his former coach.
Naturally, Reich started to wonder if Luck wanted back in.
“At one point, Reich was driving when ‘Message in a Bottle’ played on the radio,” Wickersham wrote. “It’s a sign! Reich thought. He pulled over and sent Luck a long text, beginning it with, ‘I’m sending out an SOS.’
“‘I appreciate the message in the bottle,’ Luck replied. But the answer was no.”
Luck told Reich that “there are things I miss,” about football but “there are things that, one I’m not willing to give up about my life now, and two, that I don’t want to put myself through again.”
Fans could see Luck back on the sidelines one day, but maybe not in the NFL and very likely not as a quarterback.