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Nowhere to Run: Why does New York City produce few football players?

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Erasmus Hall gets ready to down the ball while an F train rolls by during the team’s win vs. Curtis to clinch a spot in the PSAL Championship game.

High school football in New York City takes place on claustrophobic fields within the five boroughs. These scholastic athletes attack and defend their end zones on gridirons stuck between public housing high-rises and abandoned factories. Elevated subway cars roar and screech above stadiums in Midwood and Bay Ridge, and water surrounds a narrow field at Pier 40, a small peninsula which plays host to Stuyvesant High School football.

Some schools, like Lehman High School in the Pelham Bay section of The Bronx, have fields that were built 20 yards too short to hold actual games. Beach Channel High School in Rockaway Park no longer has a field; Hurricane Sandy ripped apart the turf, and patch of gravel now sits where the 50-yard line used to be. The school had to practice at abandoned Far Rockaway High School for its PSAL first round playoff game in November.

These football stadiums, the breeding grounds for the city’s best football players on their way to the next level, are not fertile places for big-time college football programs to find talent.

Out of nearly 14,000 college football players who were on Division 1-FBS football rosters during the 2012 football season, only 39 were from five boroughs. This number ranked the New York City behind suburbs like Arlington, Texas (55), Katy, Texas (43) and Corona, California (41), and it was minuscule when compared to Miami’s 219 Division 1 players. Queens’ output of only two players put it behind many international cities, including Pago Pago and Amsterdam.

“New York kind of gets a bad rep when it comes to football,” said Beach Channel head coach Victor Nazario, who hopes to have two players playing for Division 1 football schools next fall. “We had to politic very hard to get our kids to play in the next level, and part of that is just that college scouts don’t view New York City as a haven for talent.

“We have talented football players; it’s just not an abundance.”

Mapping by Mapline

This heat map shows the details the hot and cold areas of college football recruiting by county. The county colors range from beige (which means a county produced five or fewer players on Division 1 football rosters for the 2012 season) to brown (30 or more Division 1 players). 

 

Regionally, the South produces the most quality college football players. A report by ESPN.com showed that more than 50 percent of college football players who played this past decade came from Florida, Georgia, Texas and other states in the South. The abundance of quality players in states in this region means that each game is a litmus test for each potential college player, according to Brandon Huffman, a national football recruiting analyst for Scout.com.

“If a player sticks out in a game in Georgia, and you see players going against him, that’s when you know he can play,” Huffman said. “There’s still questions when a kid from New York City looks good on tape, because his competition may just be ‘good high school players.’ ”

Huffman argues that the difference is in the football culture. Football is a religion in the South, and Friday nights in towns south of the Mason-Dixon are celebrations that revolve around high school football games. And while fans pack stadiums that hold more than 10,000 people in towns like Allen, Texas and Valdosta, Georgia, New York City footballers compete on unkept fields with little room for bleachers.

That high schools in Georgia, Florida and other states play football in the spring also makes a huge difference. This allows student athletes in these states to commit to one sport for the entire scholastic year. Kids who play sports at New York City high schools are versatile multi-sport athletes; it’s not uncommon to hear of New York football stars who play basketball in winter and baseball in spring.

This leads to different speed and strength in the two regions. New York City players may have more endurance from playing basketball in the winter, but regions with spring football have bigger players because of more weight training, along with quicker and faster athletes.

“Size matters when it comes to football,” Nazario said. “They start listing the size of these high school kids (from Texas), and they’ll list a fullback at a certain size and I’ll say, ‘Yeah, he’d be playing offensive line for me.’ We don’t have really huge kids here.”

 

In addition, New York State doesn’t possess an abundance of Division 1 programs that recruit local kids. Only three New York schools – U.S. Military Academy, Buffalo and Syracuse – play Division 1-FBS football. This number is less than the amount in Arkansas, Tennessee, Indiana, and Michigan (among others), and it pales in comparison to the 10 schools and seven schools that play in California and Florida, respectively.

More than a quarter of the college football players from New York City played for the Syracuse Orange in 2012. Despite the proximity of Rutgers University and the University of Connecticut to New York, Syracuse has a bevy of connections in the city and draws a lot of its available talent. Doug Marrone, the former head football coach who was hired to coach the NFL’s Buffalo Bills in January, is a Bronx native and played football at Lehman High School growing up. With Marrone’s city connections, Syracuse football recruiters scoured New York City for available talent, and these efforts have not diminished since Marrone’s departure.

This has led the school marketing its football program in the city to attract fans and appease SU alumni. Midtown cabs crawl up and down Manhattan avenues with Syracuse ads boasting the school as “New York’s College Team,” and it’s tough to argue that statement. This past season, Syracuse played in the New York City metro area two times, losing to USC at MetLife Stadium in September before beating West Virginia in the New Era Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee Stadium in December. These games gave downstate fans a chance to catch the team, and family members of Orange players from the area got to see their loved ones compete. They also provided two important opportunities for Syracuse coaches to meet potential recruits from the City.

Despite the effort to market its program in New York, Syracuse still has more players from Florida (13) and Pennsylvania (13) than New York City (10). It points to the city’s limited crop of players, which forces New York schools to look elsewhere. The University at Buffalo’s football roster only has one New York City player on roster. The school has more players from Detroit, Miami, and tiny State College, Pa., than from the five boroughs.

Schools near the city have only moderate interest in its talent, and schools in the South almost never come to New York for players. Only one New Yorker – Staten Islander Dominque Easley at the University of Florida – plays Division 1 football in Florida, and there are no New Yorkers playing in Texas.

As hot as the South is for football, the Northeast is equally as dominant in basketball. New York City is still considered one of the best cities in the world for basketball talent. That emphasis on the game – plus the bone-chilling winter months that put potential footballers in basketball gyms – leads to more athletes picking the hardwood over the gridiron.

“New York is more of a basketball place,” Nazario said. “If you want to recruit basketball talent you’re looking at places like New York. If you’re looking at quality football players, you look elsewhere. I think we have quality football players, but do they measure up against Texas, Atlanta, and Florida football players? Maybe not.”

Though there is a number of explanations for the city’s inability to produce a bevy of recruits, recruiting experts are still baffled by the city’s limited output.

“The city, as big as it is, you figure you’d be able to find talent,” Huffman said. “This year, there’s maybe three or four guys who are commanding attention in NYC. There are always a couple guys from Brooklyn and Staten Island. Other that, there’s really a limit of prospects.

“It always leaves recruiting analysts scratching their heads. Maybe it’s because of the limited space? Who knows the singular reason, but the limited amount of recruits is always surprising.”

KEVIN AUSTIN VIDEO from David Sanchirico on Vimeo.

This video highlights Curtis High School running back Kevin Austin, a player many coaches call the best in New York City. He ran for 1,500 yards and 20 touchdowns his senior season, but will that be good enough to get him a Division 1 scholarship offer?

 

 

 


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