Feel Locked Out? Nothing to Tackle? Well, Try Opera

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Lawrence Harris, an opera singer, poked the ballroom’s faded carpet with the toe of his black alligator boot and said it reminded him of another arena he once performed in.

“It’s like the Orange Bowl,” he said, “when we played the Miami Dolphins.”

Before Harris became a booming baritone, he was a brawny lineman with the N.F.L.’s Houston Oilers. Transitioning from audibles to arias would seem the most disharmonic of bridge passages, with the barbarity of football and the elegance of opera at opposite ends of the entertainment spectrum.

But Harris is not alone in making the switch. Opera singers with a football past include Ta’u Pupu’a, a lineman drafted by the Cleveland Browns; Keith Miller, a former Arena League fullback who appeared in two bowl games with Colorado; the former Harvard players Ray Hornblower and Noah Van Niel; and Morrison Robinson, who played on the offensive line for the Citadel.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/sports/football/16opera.html?_r=1&hpw