CHARLOTTE — The Olympics are a special time, when competitors from around the globe come together to celebrate their sport, the competitive spirit, and the culmination of all their dreams coming alive on the world stage. The 2026 Milano Cortina Olympics are drawing to a close this week, with closing ceremonies taking place on Sunday, February 22. With it, the international attention will turn to Los Angeles and the 2028 Summer Olympics.
The Summer Olympics will feature flag-football for the first time, and NFL players will be allowed to participate.
Back in December, a group of Panthers players sat down to discuss the Heritage Helmet project, an NFL initiative that allows players to display the flag of a country to which they have ties other than the United States on the back of their helmets. These can be countries where they were born, or have ancestors going back two generations.
Those parameters also allow so many to compete in the Olympics, either for the United States or another country. That is a dream come true for so many athletes and with the Winter Olympics concluding, it's a topic on the minds of those who want to see themselves on the international stage one day, representing their country.
"That'd be a dream come true," admitted running back Chuba Hubbard, who would be eligible to represent Canada or Nigeria. He even ran track for much of his youth, with the goal of joining Team Canada at the International level. "Obviously, you see these track photos here. I always had a dream of going to the Olympics for track and field, and now that that's possible for flag football, it's something I've always dreamed of.
"Obviously, going to the NFL was something special for me, but this would be another feat that would be amazing just to achieve. So, it's definitely something I'm looking forward to."
Added linebacker Princely Umanmielen, "I think that would be really cool, actually, you know, I'm actually a really big fan of the Olympics," he grins. "I do a lot of Olympics research and history and things like that, and I just find myself watching random old Olympic videos and things like that.
"So if I were able to join the flag football team in the Olympics and represent Nigeria, I think that would be a big deal for me, and it would mean the world. It would mean a lot to have the country I was born in, and my parents were born and raised in, to have that on my body and represent it would be amazing."
You can watch some of the internationally connected guys talk about their Olympic dreams in the social video above. And don't forget to check out the documentary and all the stories with each proud Heritage Helmet participant below.
