Two years after Andrew Luck shocked the sports world by announcing his retirement from the NFL in a preseason press-conference, the former Indianapolis Colts superstar QB was spotted back on a football field.
Now 31 years old, the four-time Pro Bowler and No. 1 overall pick in the 2012 Draft recently worked out with Colorado’s Summit High School’s squad, quarterbacking the Tigers scout team in a practice the players and coaches likely will never forget.
Luck, an avid skier, previously met Summit High’s assistant football coach Rob Gannon at Breckenridge Ski Resort. According to the Summit Daily, the former NFL QB told Gannon that he’d love to come out to practice one day. Luck followed through, showing up at Tiger Stadium in Breckenridge in July.
Luck diagrammed pass protection improvements on the whiteboard with the coaches and took questions from the players in the locker room before hitting the field, demonstrating proper grip techniques to the offense, among other tips. Head coach James Wagner was coaching the first-team defense when Luck got under center for the scout team offense.
“The kids are all trying to get picks on Andrew so they could say that,” Wagner told the Summit Daily. “We almost had one.”
Andrew Luck with the Colts during his playing career. Getty ImagesWagner further described watching Luck’s return to the gridiron: “Football is still football, no matter where you are at. I think he was so happy to be out here on the field again being around the game.”
Luck played all seven seasons of his NFL career for the Colts, winning the 2018 Comeback Player of the Year Award after returning from a shoulder injury.
Considered to be one of the best athletes to retire in his prime, Luck stunned the league on Aug. 24, 2019, when he announced he was stepping away from football.
In the emotional press conference, he clarified that past injuries played a major role in what he described at the time to be the “hardest decision of my life.”
“(The injuries have) taken my joy of this game away,” he said at the time. “I’ve been stuck in this process, haven’t been able to live the life I want to live.”
Since then, the former franchise QB has mostly stayed out of the public eye. His wife, Nicole, gave birth to their daughter Lucy in November 2019.
