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Colin Kaepernick would “absolutely” consider representing Team USA at the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles when flag football makes its Olympics debut.
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“I would have a ball going out there and doing that,” Kaepernick, 38, exclusively told Us ahead of the release of his new book, The Perilous Fight, out Tuesday, September 15. “I also would love to win a gold medal. If there’s a pathway and opportunity there, we’ll knock on that door.”
Kaepernick hasn’t played in a professional football game since January 2017, four months after he took a knee during the national anthem before a preseason game amid his tenure with the San Francisco 49ers, a symbolic gesture to protest racial inequality and police brutality.
Flag football will be introduced at the 2028 Olympics. In May 2025, NFL owners voted to allow current players to compete at the Games. Olympic rosters will be selected by each participating country’s national governing body.
Kaepernick lauded the rise in popularity of flag football as “a significant pathway for young kids.”
“The biggest thing I think of with young kids getting into the sport is CTE and brain injuries,” Kaepernick said of the scientific connection between degenerative brain disease CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) and the sport of tackle football.
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Kaepernick acknowledged that he and his wife, Nessa Diab, have discussed what they would do “if we had a son.” The couple, who revealed in 2025 that they had secretly gotten married “years ago,” welcomed a daughter in 2022.
“I think I would try to steer them away from football as long as possible until they try to force my hand,” he said. “From the research that I’ve seen, in the early years, you are most susceptible to the brain injuries while children’s brains are still developing. I think that’s the biggest concern that I would have. I would try to delay getting into full pads and collisions within football until later ages. But on the flag football side, I think there’s going to be a lot of success there because people who love the game can play it without having to worry about if they are going to end up with CTE at the end of this.”
While Kaepernick and his wife have kept their daughter’s name private, he told Us how he recently was forced to be quick on his feet when she asked him about why he was taking a knee on the cover of Time magazine, which was framed and hanging in the family’s home.
“In real time, I had to think about, ‘How do I explain?'” he recalled. “She wasn’t even 4 at that point. How do I explain to a 3-year-old taking a knee and protesting police violence and systemic oppression? You try to create an entry point for understanding, you know, protesting for a better society. We want to see people thrive and do well, and we’ve been able to get through those conversations successfully.”
Kaepernick added, “But it’s also been some foreshadowing of the questions that I know are going to quickly follow.”
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The Perilous Fight is available Tuesday, September 15.
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This story was originally published September 14, 2026 at 10:08 AM.