Before becoming a full-time country music singer, Riley Green was playing football in college as the quarterback for Jacksonville State University. According to Riley, “I was a decent ballplayer.”
His downfall came when he started playing music in local bars for the fun of it. Riley says, “I definitely didn’t realize you had to go to class to play football in college. I thought I could just breeze through it like I did high school, and I think that the start of my music career was probably the end of my athletic career. I started staying out in bars all night and playing music all night and I couldn’t get up and go to 9:45 class. So, I think my first semester I passed 16 hours, then the next one they stopped checking my classes and I passed like Aqua Aerobics and that was it.”
Thankfully for Riley, it all worked out, and now he’s making and playing music full time, like his latest single, “I Wish Grandpas Never Died,” and his career is not dependent on passing Aqua Aerobics.
Riley Green – football career
“I was a decent ballplayer. I definitely didn’t realize you had to go to class to play football in college. I thought I could just breeze through it like I did high school, and I think that the start of my music career was probably the end of my athletic career. I started staying out in bars all night and playing music all night and I couldn’t get up and go to 9:45 class. So, I think my first semester I passed 16 hours, then the next one they stopped checking my classes and I passed like Aqua Aerobics and that was it.”