It’s a common misperception that musicians and jocks are mutually exclusive commodities. Au contraire, mon frère: many of music’s most innovative and popular acts are major fans of sport – if not stellar athletes themselves. Here, we feature our second volume of our column about musicians with a sports history. Some might even surprise.

The Game: Hip-hop’s gangbang slanger had a promising college basketball career before drugs deaded it.

“I had a scholarship to Washington State, but my hoop dreams deflated because of drug allegations during my freshman year,” he says. Before that, he had played with Tayshaun Prince, Gil Arenas, Tyson Chandler and Baron Davis – all making millions in the NBA now.

via Hoopshype

Tim Commerford: Rage Against The Machine’s bass maniac was a pro baseball prospect before an injury turned him into a musician: now he’s a near-professional mountain biker in addition to his bottom-end pursuits.

Commerford hops on his Intense Uzzi VPX whenever he wants to go for a spin. “I’ve bought so many of their bikes over the years,” he says. “My bike is flickable – you can hit jumps on it and climb on it.”

via Rolling Stone

Bruce Dickinson: Iron Maiden’s epic vocalist is an internationally-ranked fencer – and even owns his own fencing gear company, “Duellist”!

Incongruous as it may seem, the man who wrote and recorded Bring Your Daughter to the Slaughter for the Nightmare on Elm Street 5 sound track was also the seventh-best foil fencer in Great Britain during the 1988-89 fencing season.

via Maidenfans

Tommy Guerrero: Guerrero was a pro skater before becoming a don of downtempo funky grooves; Rolling Stone even put Guerrero’s Soul Food Taqueria album at #3 among 2003’s best releases.

Guerrero made his name in skateboarding in 1984 when, as a young teenager, he entered the first streetskating competition, held in Golden Gate Park. The only amateur involved in the event, Guerrero won, beating out 15 well-known professionals.

via KQED

Nelly: This St. Louis multiplatinum rapper was a fierce competitor on the field,  working his way up through baseball’s minors before the lure of the streets, and then hip-hop, got him.

I won an MVP trophy with the St. Louis Amateur Baseball Association. I didn’t even start. I was a sub on this team. This was like an All-Star game where we had athletes from different teams, different mixtures. We had like the only black team in the league, basically.

via ESPN