The easy path for Jeremy Bloom would have been to concentrate on football and leave skiing and the Olympics behind.

Football is, after all, America’s favorite sport – a place where stars can be born and millions can be made.

Becoming a freestyle skiing “star,” on the other hand, can make a guy famous for a day, a month, maybe a year or two if he’s really lucky. And, yes, it can make a guy rich, too.

So far, Bloom has been lucky in both respects.

Yet for all the hype and glamour of the Olympics, everyone knows – even Bloom – that once the games are over, they are over. Sure, skiing is much more popular in Europe and elsewhere overseas, even during non-Olympic years. But football is always on America’s mind. And Bloom’s.

“I’m very happy to make the Olympic team, and that’s my focus now,” Bloom said in late December when he qualified for the Turin Games. “But whenever someone brings up football, I get a big smile on my face.”

Bloom, who was training and unavailable for interviews for this story, figures to be smiling much more in the very near future.

His big Olympic shot comes Feb. 15, on the mountain in Sauze d’Oulx in the men’s moguls competition. After that, it’s back to Los Angeles to train and try to get into some semblance of football shape. And then, off to the NFL scouting combine, where the 23-year-old’s future as a pro football player will begin to be decided.

Jeremy Bloom does a trick jump during the U.S. Olympic Freestyle Moguls. Bloom gave up his first love, football, to focus on a skiing career and a spot in the 2006 Olympics.

“I represent a lot of players, and, by far, I’ve got more people coming up to me asking me what’s going on with Jeremy than anyone else,” said his agent, Gary Wichard, who has been overwhelmed this week as he walks around in Mobile, Ala., the home of the Senior Bowl.

“He’s an explosive playmaker. That’s what people want in the NFL.”

But while everyone knows Bloom has the speed and playmaking ability, there’s no denying the fact that he hasn’t played football in 26 months. That surely won’t help his status in the draft – where the difference between being chosen in the first and third rounds is millions of dollars.

Given that, some might say Bloom’s decision to put football on hold was more a big-time risk than the easy way to fame.

“I can literally see Jeremy almost start to laugh at that whole idea,” said Joel Klatt, the quarterback, an ex-teammate and a good friend of Bloom’s at CU. “He’s always kind of defied, not necessarily logic, but the norm. He’s going to do what his heart tells him to do and what’s best for him and those around him.”

“The fact that he ended up skiing, not playing football, was a choice that was forced upon him,” said Bloom’s father, Larry. “It’s more a statement of belief on his part that led him to go the route he went.”

In other words, he wasn’t going to let the NCAA strip away his dream of doing both.

Forced, in Bloom’s words, by the NCAA to choose between skiing and football, he chose skiing to start, football for later.

He turned pro, began accepting endorsements and since has gotten rich.

“I don’t know that they want me to get into specific numbers, but he has a yearly income that’s substantial,” Larry Bloom said.