I don’t know about you, but I absolutely love a fun, territorial argument when it comes to sports. Being from LA, I will defend the Pac-10 til death, argue that Southern California has the best baseball, and claim there is an East Coast bias regardless of sport. I’ll also tell you that we have some pretty darn good high school football. The stats back it up.
Based on a review of all the rosters on the opening weekend of the NFL season, California produced the most players at 211. Texas was second with 181, and Florida was third at 177.
Per capita, Louisiana (68 out of 4.46 million), Mississippi (37 out of 2.84 million), and Hawaii (15 out of 1.21 million) have produced the most NFL players. The other states that have the most players in the NFL currently per capita are D.C., South Carolina, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Texas, and Montana.
As for individual high schools, Woodland Hills High School in Pittsburgh, PA is the most accomplished, having six of its former students in the NFL (Steve Breaston, Rob Gronkowski, Ryan Mundy, Lousaka Polite, Shawntae Spencer, and Jason Taylor). Three other schools have five players.
Maurice Jones-Drew, Derek Landri, T.J. Ward, D.J. Williams, and Jackie Bates all went to Northern California powerhouse De La Salle in Concord. Ted Ginn, Antwaun Molden, Robert Rose, Troy Smith, and Donte Whitner all went to Glenville High School in Cleveland. The other top school is St. Thomas Aquinas in Ft. Lauderdale. They’ve produce Geno Atkins, Jeremy Cain, Tavares Gooden, Major Wright, and Sam Young.
14 schools have four players each in the NFL. Because I’m regionally biased, I’ll list the ones that matter to me: Dorsey in LA, Los Alamitos, Tustin, and Vista all from California have four each.
If this post wasn’t informative and interesting enough for you, then at the least hopefully it’s a nice piece of trivia that can win you a drink at the bar.
