Blog · October 24, 2026

Celebrity 40-yard dash times: 31 famous marks ranked

The 40-yard dash reaches beyond active NFL rosters. This ranking collects 31 famous people from track and field, basketball, wrestling, acting, politics, rugby, and television who have a recorded 40-yard mark, spanning from 4.12 s at rank 1 to 5.94 s at rank 31.

Two patterns stand out across these 31 entries. First, the fastest times at the top of the board carry an effort unknown label, and their timing methods are often unstated. The official test entries come from combines, pro days, and other pre-draft testing, and the one competition entry comes from the 2014 RBC Decathlon. Second, many official test times belong to former football players who later became known as actors, wrestlers, reality television leads, or US Representatives.

Track champions and practice stopwatches

Champion sprinters hold three of the top four spots on the board from runs outside official NFL testing. Christian Coleman, the American sprinter, 2019 world 100 m champion, and 60 m world record holder, sits at rank 1 with a 4.12 s run on turf in Knoxville on 1 May 2017. Then a University of Tennessee sprinter at age 21, Coleman ran in answer to John Ross’s 4.22 NFL combine record. The mark is logged as effort unknown with an unstated timing method.

Retired track champions have also posted 4.20 s and 4.22 s marks in practice or fan runs. Justin Gatlin, the 2004 Olympic and 2017 world 100 m champion, retired in 2022. In his own words, he ran 4.20 s in 2023 at about age 41 during a ‘Project 40’ practice, an effort unknown mark with no stated timing method.

At rank 4, Usain Bolt—the eight-time Olympic champion and 100 m and 200 m world record holder—ran the Combine Corner 40-yard dash at the 2019 Super Bowl LIII Experience in Atlanta. Retired since 2017 and age 32, Bolt clocked 4.22 s in sneakers and track pants, matching John Ross’s 4.22 combine record in an unofficial fan-event run labeled effort unknown.

Basketball players have posted their own sprint marks. At rank 7, Michael Jordan has a 4.38 s time from a 1982 team practice at UNC at age 18-19. Assistant coach Roy Williams recalled 38 years later that three coaches timed the future six-time NBA champion and five-time MVP with stopwatches. Two coaches had him at 4.38, one had him at 4.39, and a second run was below 4.4. Hand times read faster than electronic times, and Jordan’s practice run carries an effort unknown label.

Combine and pro day tests before fame

Measured official test results begin at rank 6 with American hurdler Grant Holloway, the world 110 m hurdles champion and 60 m hurdles world record holder. Before college, Holloway was a four-star football recruit and high school wide receiver at Grassfield HS in the class of 2016. He ran a measured 4.32 s official test at the Rivals Combine Series.

Pre-draft football workouts also capture future entertainers. Actor Terry Crews, known for Brooklyn Nine-Nine and White Chicks, played in the NFL before acting. At the 1991 NFL Scouting Combine before his rookie season, Crews weighed 237 lb at age 22 and ran a measured 4.74 s official test for rank 22.

Heavyweights and a suit at the combine

Five of the entries between 4.70 s and 5.34 s list bodyweights from 283 lb to 308 lb. Before becoming a multiple-time WWE world champion, Roman Reigns played defensive tackle at Georgia Tech, where his pre-draft numbers were recorded under Joe Anoa’i. At his 2007 Georgia Tech pro day, he weighed 303 lb and recorded a measured 4.91 s official test at rank 27.

Rank 31 belongs to NFL Network host Rich Eisen, who runs the 40-yard dash in a suit at the combine every year, a run that later became the Run Rich Run campaign for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. At the 2016 NFL Scouting Combine, Eisen ran a measured 5.94 s official test in his suit at age 46.

Want to see how your own sprint or lifting numbers stack up against these 31 famous marks? Visit famousprs.com to enter your personal records and compare them side by side.

Each person appears once, with the same best record as their page: for a lift, the highest estimated one-rep max; otherwise the most reps or the fastest time. "Working set" and "Effort unknown" marks are training numbers, so the person's true best may be higher. How the data is collected.