Former NFL Great Jimmy Graham's Next Challenge: the Arctic Ocean

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Former NFL Great Jimmy Graham's Next Challenge: the Arctic Ocean originally appeared on Athlon Sports.
Jimmy Graham has been called an adrenaline junkie, and for good reason. During his 14-year NFL career, in which he was one of the best tight ends of all time, Graham spent every offseason adding to his long list of flying certifications — pilot's license, helicopter license, seaplane license, you name it. When he wasn't flying planes, he was jumping out of them — Graham recently said he's skydived about 100 times.
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Graham retired from the NFL in 2023, and last year he committed to an adventure that will be much more than an adrenaline rush. In less than a month, Graham and three others embark on a trek that will push the limits of human endurance.
Graham is part of Arctic Challenge 2025. In early July, he and his new teammates will row their way across the Arctic Ocean — 1,000 kilometers through freezing and treacherous waters. Among the many goals is to raise money for charity and to break the speed record for this route. The record currently stands at 15 days, five hours and 32 minutes.
Jimmy Graham aboard the boat he'll be in for two weeks during July's Arctic Challenge 2025.Omar Barrera
'We're trying to push the limits of our body, our brains, our minds, our soul,' Graham told Athlon Sports. 'It'll be an interesting journey.'
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Interesting? That might not be the best word. Insane, maybe
'I can describe this as the hardest thing I've ever done,' he said.
Graham first heard about the Arctic Challenge through his good friend, Andrew Tropp, a retired Navy SEAL. Graham and Tropp teamed up with husband-and-wife team John and Hannah Huppi, both former Team USA rowers based in Louisiana. The four of them, along with several members of the support team, have been training and prepping for over a year.
If they complete the trip, they would be the first all-American quartet to do it. Hannah Huppi would be the first woman. Graham would be the first black rower.
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Again, that's if they complete the trip. They begin the journey in Tromso, Norway in a state-of-the-art boat that includes three rowing positions and two cabins.
'We row two hours on, two hours off,' said Graham 'And on your time off, you have to do your job. My job is lead navigation, lead comms, lead weather.
'So I'll be communicating with our ground teams, figuring out our route, figuring out the currents and any storms that are headed our way. And then determining what the right compass course is going to be for the next, I guess, five to 12 hours.'
After that, Graham added, there's the job of personal care — calorie intake, hydration, sleep.
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'The biggest component for me is going to be the sleep,' he said. 'We'll get about 50 minutes of sleep at a time. Once you're dealing with sleep deprivation, you know, trouble can happen and mistakes can happen. And this is a journey that, you know, there's very small margins for errors.'
This may be the greatest challenge Graham has undertaken, but the 38-year-old has been pushing himself since childhood. Placed in a group home at age 11, Graham was bullied often as a kid. As he grew into his 6-foot-7 frame, basketball became a way out of his troubling situation as he earned a scholarship to play hoops at the University of Miami.
After four years of basketball and graduating with a double major (marketing, management), Graham stayed at Miami to take graduate classes — and that's when he joined the Hurricanes' football team for one season. He only caught 17 passes that year, but five were for touchdowns. NFL scouts noticed that his size-speed combination made him an enticing tight end prospect. The New Orleans Saints took him in Round 3 of the 2010 draft.
Jimmy Graham with the Saints in2023.Stephen Lew-Imagn Images
Graham took full advantage of the opportunity. In just his second season, he set career highs with 99 receptions and 1,310 yards. In 2013, he led the league with 16 TD receptions, one of four seasons with 10 or more touchdowns. After playing for the Saints, Seahawks, Packers and Bears, Graham retired with 719 receptions for 8,545 yards and 89 touchdowns. The 89 touchdowns rank fourth all-time among tight ends. The receptions and yards are both eighth.
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Believe it or not, Graham said life in the NFL has prepared him for the rigorous training for the Arctic Challenge — both the hard work put in and the acquired skill of making smart decisions under pressure.
'I think it definitely helps me just staying calm, just having a clear vision and decision making at, you know, very, very dangerous moments when things have to be decided,' he said. 'And two, I think just the pallet for training … I've been working out since I was 15. The longest I've taken off from working out was probably two weeks, after I had wrist reconstructive surgery.
'There's a lot of like misconceptions of what the NFL is. I speak to a lot of kids and mentor a lot of kids and try to describe to them what being a professional athlete is. Most people, they see all the glory, right? They see the touchdowns, the Pro Bowls, they see the commercials, they see the fanfare … but the real moments and the majority of the time, it's a lot of work. It's a lot of sacrifice and it's a lot of suffering, especially after injuries.'
Preparing for the cold
During his six seasons with the Saints, Graham had the luxury of playing indoors. But he does think his two years each with the Packers and Bears will help him in the Arctic.
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'Definitely, Green Bay was a great preparation for this, Chicago as well,' he said, adding that his coldest experiences weren't games so much as practices.
'Forget the games,' he said. 'The games, you can always get up for that. In Green Bay, we practiced outside every day. … I remember one day it was probably zero degrees.'
Graham said the average air temperature when they get to the Arctic will be around 37-45 degrees — balmy compared to winters in Green Bay. Problem is, the average water temperature for the Arctic Ocean will be 28 degrees, with 10-foot waves and wind gusting between 20-40 miles per hour.
'I think I've had a little bit of prep for it, but in the end, you know, it's just going to be suffering, keeping the digits and feet dry.'
The Arctic Challenge Team (l. to r.): Andrew Tropp, Jimmy Graham, Hannah Huppi and John HuppiOmar Barrera
As much as the past year has been dedicated to training, it's been equal parts learning. Graham's aviation experience is valuable in terms of navigation and understanding of weather patterns. In late May, he was preparing for a trip to the U.K. to meet with the team's 'weather router,' Simon Rowell, a weather expert who supports record challenges for sailing and rowing around the world. In Graham's role as lead navigator, he'll be in communication with Rowell every 12 hours throughout the trip to mitigate weather risks.
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Back in December, the team was in Idaho for medical training and cold-weather training. He said they were put through a four-year medical course in two days.
'We learned how to do finger blocks, digit blocks, learned how to do dental blocks … You know, learned basically wartime triage medicine.'
Mitigating risk
As intense as that sounds, Graham is quick to point out that all of this is just a natural progression from everything else he's done that others might consider too dangerous. Whether flying or skydiving, he was always learning from the best and working with the best. And mitigating risk was always top of mind.
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'I love my life,' he said. 'I want to keep living my life happy and healthy.'
The team has already had a couple of sea trials. The most recent was from Miami to Islamorada, midway down the Florida Keys, and back. Of course, the weather was much nicer than it will be in the Arctic, and the trip was a about one-third of how far they'll go in July.
Next up for Graham, he's planning to pull an all-nighter about two weeks before the trip.
'I'm going to spend about 24 hours, just to prepare my back and my sit bones and everything,' he said. 'I'll just sacrifice the day … I'll row two hours on, two hours off for 24 hours nonstop.'
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If they can complete the Arctic Challenge in 15 days, that means Graham's 24-hour exercise would be less than 7% of the overall time he'll be rowing two hours on/two hours off in the Arctic.
Still, Graham says — perhaps joking? — this could be less grueling than a seven-month NFL season.
'But yeah, it's going to be the hardest thing I've ever done in my entire life. Definitely interesting to see where the mind goes.'
Another key aspect of the training and preparation has been nutrition. Graham said he expects to burn 9,000-1,000 calories per day, so he's got to prepare the body for that. Fortunately for Graham, he's been very particular about food and being healthy since he got to the NFL.
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'I've been eating a certain way for about 16, 17 years now,' he said. 'So nothing has really changed.
'I would say during my trainings, I'm intaking more carbs than I ever had before. You know, with football, I didn't eat a lot of carbs … I limited them.'
Don't get him wrong, Graham does enjoy pizza — he just hasn't had a slice in about a decade.
It was suggested to him that maybe a slice of pizza would be a nice way to celebrate when he completes the Arctic Challenge.
'Oh, yeah,' he said.
'Well, I'm going to eat everything. I think it'll be about five days of literally eating all the things I haven't eaten in the last probably 20 years.'
The team preparing for a sea trial in Miami.Omar Barrera
For the kids
Graham won't just be celebrating his completion of this massive undertaking; he'll also be celebrating the money they expect to raise for several youth charities, including Covenant House in New Orleans.
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Graham's been working with at-risk kids through his foundation for years. Helping raise money for these groups is gratifying, but not as important to him as inspiring kids to be their best.
'Providing them with great opportunities, giving them hope,' he said. 'Giving them somebody who's been exactly where they are, who spent times as a child very alone, very unwanted. For them to realize that when you turn 18, you have complete control over what happens to you. It ain't gonna be easy. But if you put your head down and just work and focus on each and every day, focus on just getting better, focus on getting smarter…
'I just want to encourage any kid that feels alone, feels unwanted, just understand that you have a bright future, you're a bright human being, and if you're willing to work, and put in the time and limit distractions, you can create any life for yourself that you want.'
So what's next for Graham after he conquers the Arctic Ocean? He's got an idea. It's something that would check all the boxes: one, inspire kids; two, provide the adrenaline rush he craves; and three, entertain a crowd.
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'I've spent the majority of my adulthood entertaining crowds,' he said. 'One of the biggest joys I've had, besides the camaraderie with my boys in the locker room, was scoring touchdowns. There is nothing that compares to that. How do you replace scoring a game-winning touchdown in front of 60,000 or 70,000 fans, 12 million people watching on TV? It's a hard hole to fill.'
Hmm… Loves to fly, loves to entertain…
'I'm gonna go into air shows at some point,' he said. 'Doing front-flips in a plane with people watching seems like the best way to fill that hole.'
Given Graham's track record, don't bet against him.
This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jun 2, 2025, where it first appeared.