Mike Alstott
player of American football
Michael Joseph Alstott (born December 21, 1973) is an American former professional fullback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 12 seasons with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Nicknamed "A-Train", he is regarded as one of the greatest fullbacks of all time.
Alstott played college football for the Purdue Boilermakers, earning third-team All-American honors in 1995, and was selected by the Buccaneers in the second round of the 1996 NFL draft. He received six Pro Bowl and three first-team All-Pro selections, in addition to being a member of the Buccaneers team that won the franchise's first Super Bowl title in Super Bowl XXXVII. For his accomplishments in Tampa Bay, he was inducted to the Buccaneers Ring of Honor in 2015.
College career
Alstott attended Purdue University for four years, where he became the first player in school history named MVP in three consecutive seasons. Alstott scored 12 touchdowns as a sophomore, 14 as a junior, and 11 as a senior, and held the Purdue rushing touchdown record with 39 until Kory Sheets broke it in 2008. He averaged 5.6 yards per attempt during his Purdue career before graduating in 1995 with a bachelor's degree in business. He finished as Purdue's all-time leading rusher with 3,635 yards, including a school-best 1,436 yards in 1995.
Professional career
Alstott was selected in the second round (35th overall) of the 1996 NFL draft by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Prior to the draft, the Pittsburgh Steelers were considered the favorites to draft Alstott as a possible replacement for Bam Morris (and more long-term Barry Foster) following Morris' marijuana possession arrest, but were able to execute the draft-day trade for Jerome Bettis before the Steelers turn at 29th overall.
The public source identifies “Mike Alstott” as player of American football. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Mike, Alstott and player.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3313199. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1973, 1995, 1996 and 2015.
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This entry incorporates text from “Mike Alstott” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.