Everett Golson almost played basketball at North Carolina

Picture Everett Golson in Tar Heel blue.

That could have been reality, as Notre Dame's Heisman Trophy candidate nearly ended up playing Division I hoops at North Carolina, Matt Fortuna of ESPN reports.

Golson has already enshrined himself as one of the best Irish quarterbacks in history, flaunting a 15-1 career record with a sparkling .9375 win percentage.

Back when he was in high school, though, then-Notre Dame offensive coordinator Chuck Martin said football was just Golson's hobby, but he was darn good at it.

"Primary love basketball is just what he does on the side," Martin said. "He's actually pretty decent at (it)." 

Golson was a point guard out of South Carolina's Myrtle Beach High School, where he had committed to the Tar Heels program in 2010. The former standout averaged 19.6 points per game in his junior year while totaling 334 points, 80 rebounds, 85 assists and 29 steals in 17 games. 

But he also turned the ball over 89 times.

Golson gave up basketball in his senior year in order to focus on football, flipping his commitment to Notre Dame in the process. Needless to say, that panned out pretty well, but he's not ruling out a return to the hardwood. 

"Obviously basketball is my love, that's what I love," Golson said. "But my primary right now is football. I'd like to say I would like to have the chance of playing basketball someday (in South Bend). But like I said, football is my primary and what I'm focused on right now is the national championship." 

His high school coach, on the other, is alright with Golson's decision to play football, as long as he's vying for a national championship with the Fighting Irish.

"If he was doing something else right now other than quarterbacking a top-(six) team, I probably would have been disappointed, just because the kid was so, so talented, such a good athlete at basketball,"  former Myrtle Beach coach DeAndre Scott said. "I knew he could've been a Division I kid. But to see him be able to do the things he's doing at football - which at the time, I'll be honest with you, when he was a freshman or sophomore, he was a kid that really didn't like football nearly as much. 

"But people who were around knew the things he could do on the football field were just unreal in comparison to where he was as a basketball player at that time."