People who gave up an activity they were incredible at to take up something they were not good at.

Ulysses S. Grant

And the persistent rumor is that Michael Jordan’s temporary leave of absence from the N.B.A. was not voluntary.

There was a French(?) writer who in his later years completely committed himself to learning all aspects of chess, openings, endgame, strategy etc. For the life of me, I can’t remember the name. :confused:

You’re not thinking of Marcel Duchamp, are you?

Yes! But I now realize that he wasn’t actually bad at chess.

Who knows how good Jordan might have been at baseball if that’s where he had concentrated his energy from the beginning. Taking up the game at thirty something after not playing since high school and then batting .200 in AA? Maybe he still wouldn’t have learned to hit a breaking pitch, but he might have been another Dave Winfield.

Jesse Ventura had middling success as a wrestler, more success as a wrestling announcer, back to middling success as an actor, the success running for political office, then became professional crackpot.

I used to spend all my time pleasuring women, and now I play blues piano in bars.

Lucien Bernhard more or less invented modern poster art, then chucked it all to become a less than mediocre painter.

Every singer/ song writer/ band that gave up producing popular music to devote themselves to “art”. :slight_smile:

Got any particular examples in mind? I’m sure there are some, but there are also examples of artists who got better as they got artsier (e.g. The Beatles).

To being an even worse murderer

Charles Barkley and his pursuit of golf. It’s the most god awful, pathetic, cringe-inducing swing you’ve ever seen.

Can you elaborate? I hadn’t heard and am most curious.

Well, the people he wanted dead, are. Seems like his goals were achieved.

Who are these people and what did they do?

He got away with it. That’s pretty good.

I don’t know if looking at what professional athletes do after they’re retired really counts; it’s not like OJ gave up playing football to act, or Charles Barkley quit the NBA to play comically bad golf. Or for that matter, politicians who weren’t re-elected don’t count either, as they didn’t necessarily “quit”.

Curt Schilling was a considerably more successful baseball player than he was video game developer. But I don’t know if he retired for that or just because he was at the end of his baseball run.

Rumours abound that he was ‘suspended’ for gambling offenses. A quick google search will turn up any number of theories on the specifics.

And an even more worse robber and kidnapper.

Two more in music kinda fit and I don’t believe have been mentioned:

  • Garth Brooks and his attempt to repackage himself as Aussie rocker Chris Gaines.

  • Chris Cornell aka, best hard rock vocalist everrr from grunge legends Soundgardern and super group with ex Rage folks Audioslave, did a solo album of R&B/dance tracks produced by legendary hip hop producer Timbaland that bombed mightily.