New Mexico Basketball: Hugh Greenwood retires, will try Australia Rules Football

Sometimes in life you just have to follow your heart and that’s what former Lobo guard Hugh Greenwood is doing. Greenwood who had just signed a contract to play professional basketball for the Perth Wildcats in the NBL shocked the basketball world when he announced that he would not honor his contract and instead play Aussie rules football.

Greenwood who stands 6’3 and 209 pounds is no stranger to football prior to joining the Australian institute of Sport on a basketball scholarship. He shared the 2005 Robert Bleakley Medal for best under-13 football player in southern Tasmania . Greenwood was even approached by teams prior to his senior year at New Mexico but returned to the Lobos with hopes of make the NBA.

Many may wonder what made Greenwood change his mind only a month after signing a three year deal with the Perth Wildcats, it may have been the fact Greenwood was snubbed from the Oceanic  Championship roster when the Boomers needed a guard due to injury. Greenwood played on Australia's junior team for the World University games this summer but being left of the team may have been an indication to Hugh that he did not have a chance to make the squad heading into next year’s Rio Olympics and thus he choose to take a different path and following  his grandfather Peter Marquis footsteps.

Marquis played 99 games with Melbourne and was featured in three consecutive premierships from 1955 to 1957.

"I told him I'd get him that last game for the family," Greenwood told the Albuquerque Journal via text message.

He is also a member of the Tasmania football hall of fame and is considered one of the legends of the sport.  Greenwood who was on the nation radar in his youth always told his grandpa that he would get that last game for his family and now he will have the chance. Greenwood will be a member of the Adelaide Crows as a category B rookie.