2008.10.21
Virginia’s best football players aren’t from Roanoke. Why?
New in the DataSphere, a small database of the top high school football recruits of the class of 2009 as selected by Roanoke Times sports writer Doug Doughty. In addition to the players’ names and high schools, you get their height, weight and position. Plus, your results are mapped.
And it was the map that got my attention:
Each blue marker represents a school attended by one of the top recruits. It’s not all that surprising that most of the blue is in the populous eastern part of the state, especially Tidewater, the Richmond area and Northern Virginia.
But look at the Roanoke Valley.
But for that one marker in Vinton for Tyler Snow of William Byrd High School, there would be a gaping hole around Roanoke a hundred miles across.
What’s the story here? It’s not that no players of note have come from the area ever. There’s the Barber twins out of Cave Spring, of course. Lee Suggs out of William Fleming. More recently, Nick Schmidt punted for Virginia Tech and opted out of what seemed to be automatic work as a punter in the NFL. There are others, too, I’m sure, though they aren’t coming to mind as I write this.
But the pattern seems obvious. Last year’s map looked about like this one. There are prospects coming out of the less populous western half of the state, and yet they consistently don’t come from the biggest population center in the region — the Roanoke Valley.
I could suppose that part of the problem may be a lack of development at an early age. Roanoke City Schools dumped middle-school football years ago. That can’t help, at least as far as Roanoke schools go.
But only addresses part of the question.
So how about some input here. I’m not sportswriter, or sports analyst, so maybe my premise is wrong. If it is, straighten me out. But if I’m on the mark, what’s your theory about what’s going on?
Anybody want to mention Lang Hawkins from Salem? He did not play last year due to injury so that took him off many radars. Now he is getting better every week. Wake Forest, UVA, and others are watching film on him now. He went on a recruit trip to App State recently. I am guessing nobody knows this or he would be in the conversation. He ate Tyler Snow’s lunch when they played. Snow had something like 6 rushes for 13 yards against Salem. Keep an eye on Hawkins. He will make a lucky college team better if they give him a chance.
Comment by John Crews — October 23, 2008 @ 11:25 am
Many more great athletes came out of the Roanoke school system over the years going back to George Preas who played at Tech and the Balto. Colts. John Copper now playing for UVA was the ACC defensive player of the week last week and on and on. As for the problem with the volume of better athletes coming from Tidewater and Richmond now, it is in most part due the ethnicity in those areas. The black kids growing up in the inner city are tougher and fight harder for scholarships than white kids do.
Comment by Bob Leasure — October 23, 2008 @ 3:04 pm
Come on John, I know you’re from the great state of Salem but get real. This is not the forum ( and nobody cares at this point ) which of these young men are “better” at this stage of their young careers. Tyler is a true student athelete and a great KID. Note the word KID. Quit living your life through other peoples children and be big enough to congratulate others on their success, even if they don’t hail from Lake Wobegon, I mean Salem. I noted the bad attitude of some of your fans and heard their less than flattering comments towards their own team when I was leaving the game when Brookville cleaned your clock this year. Were you one of them? Dc
Comment by Doug Chittum — October 24, 2008 @ 12:04 pm
I don’t believe it’s a lack of development at an early age. I personally believe our kids can compete with any program on the east side of the state prior to high school. Besides the attrition of atheletes due to disinterest, academics, etc., I think we can place most of the blame on the head coaches. Our development of players to compete at the next level is pretty poor. The majority of the players who have become top prospects in the state did it on sheer god given talent not from coaching development. I also don’t think we do a good job of promoting our players. I never hear of the guys who have made it telling their former coaches to come check out a player who made be pretty good. It’s all about visibility and if we don’t have anyone coming to see our kids, how do we expect anyone to recognize them?
Comment by Kevin — October 24, 2008 @ 11:20 pm
We need more AAA schools with big time athletic programs that can compete with the No.Va, Richmond, and Tidewater schools I know some might take exception to this but the competition is greater. Besides Fleming, Salem, and distant G.W. Danville there are no real athletic powerhouse programs in the area. Don’t get me wrong there are many great athletes in the single A and AA schools in the Roanoke Valley, but in a real bigtime AAA program a great atlete is cultured and groomed and gets the exposure to schools like VA Tech, UVA, ACC, SEC, Big Ten instead of ODAC and Mason Dixon
Comment by Reese — October 25, 2008 @ 10:23 am
Doug, you are obviously jealous of Salem’s success. I have only moved to Salem a few years back. I am not a “Salemite” but I do like the tradition of pride, hard work, and strong leadership in the football program. That is why the are good year after year. That is also what is lacking in other programs in the area, note Fleming is gaining on Salem with others improving. As for Snow, he got a scholarship because he deserved it. Great kid and great player but you missed my point. Hawkins beat him at his game. I used Snow to give people something very good to compare Hawkins to. Are some people too far with their Salem bias? Absolutely. Brookville had had superior talent and good coaching but Salem was not far from making it interesting. I try to see high school football for what it is. A great way to teach young men a sense of responsibility, accountability, team work, and leadership. By the way, Hawkins gets near perfect grades from what I here. Snow and Hawkins should be mentioned in the same conversation but Hawkins gets left out. Watch Hawkins play and tell me what you think.
Comment by John Crews — October 26, 2008 @ 8:18 pm
I am surprised that the Roanoke Valley does not have more D1 prospects. Why not? There are several good High School teams in the area. I’d like to see kids from all of the area schools Salem, Hidden Valley, Fleming, Glenvar, Byrd, Franklin County … get D1 offers from Virginia’s schools. They’re our local kids, lets support them. Oh, Doug Chittum, about your rude, negative post that added nothing to the discussion, next time you get ready to post, don’t.
Comment by Steve Lawrence — October 27, 2008 @ 11:43 pm
John, One of us just doesn’t get it. The question for this datablog was WHY HASN’T THIS AREA PRODUCED MORE TOP COLLEGE PLAYERS? The map showed all past top signed recruits, and the Roanoke Region was underrepresented. That’s a fact, and thus the question. Right now this Hawkins kid IS NOT A COLLEGE RECRUIT! Snow IS, that’s why he was mentioned and placed on the map. The question didn’t ask anything about highschool kids who haven’t yet signed, or those who should have according to you. But you found it necessary to change the debate into a different conversation that serves your purpose. I’m glad you recognize the “Salem bias”, you represent it well. And no I’m not jealous of Salem’s success, I admire it. I have good friends whose kids are active in the program. I’m continually impressed. That’s why I go to some of their games, and I don’t even have kids. I do however think that the rest of the Valley would embrace the program a little better if more of your fans showed a little humility, and stopped discounting other programs’ succeses like you did in your first post. Think about it.
And Steve, could you please explain exactly what your post added? Thanks for letting us know that you were surprised. How revealing.
Comment by Doug Chittum — November 10, 2008 @ 3:03 pm
Doug,
I did get side tracked from the datablog question. I feel like 2 others on Salem could play at the next level as well but that is to be seen. As far as the datablog goes, the map of recruits represents where the highest populations of people are. More people equals more recruits. It is simple statistics. Not much to discuss in my opinion. Maybe I should have been clearer and said a more interesting debate question for a blog is “Who has not been discovered that is worthy of playing big time college football?” Why don’t you post a more interesting blog question? Think about that.
We do agree that the Salem program is admirable. I can’t speak for all Salem fans but I admire a number of other programs in the Valley. Fleming and Pulaski are at the top of my list. Am I missing a program that has had Salem like success? I do feel like a lot of non-Salem fans display hateful attitudes towards Salem. I have heard it. That just makes the situation worse since Salem usually wins the game and more jealousy and hatred come out of other fans. Salem fans sometimes fight back with similar cheers. Who started it does not matter but at least we recognize a problem there.
John
Comment by John Crews — November 16, 2008 @ 12:11 pm
John, Finally common ground! And you hit the nail on the head as far as the answer. You all have a great program that the rest of the Valley should be proud of and learn from. I’m not as bad as I come off in the blogs, I just like stirring it up and getting folks thinking. And by the way, when I was razzing one of my best friends from Salem (Mike Austin) about our “battle of the blogs” he laughed and told me that your stepson was an up and comer at quarterback. Maybe we’ll get to see him under the Friday night lights some day. Peace out, and keep up the good work with the little ones. Doug
Comment by Doug Chittum — November 17, 2008 @ 3:34 pm
DC,
Mike is a great guy. He is my stepson’s basketball coach this year and I am happy that he is. As for the blog, someone has to stir it up. Life would be boring without meaningful debate. For Salem, I will be wrapped up on Friday night in Pulaski. It will be a great game with two positive programs. See you around.
John
Comment by John Crews — November 18, 2008 @ 8:42 am
All,
The biggest problem you have is that a number of the AA schools need to be combined to AAA status in order to be compared to those other areas. Just imagine a W. Fleming-PH combo; Cave spring-Hidden valley; Salem-Glenver; Northside-Lord B. That would create 4 powerhouses every year that could beat anyone in the state. The Roanoke talent is currently spread too thin. Also there are no prominent coaches in the area that teach the fundamentals of the game at the pop warner level. The days of coach ragland, coach deeds and coach maynard are gone. The talent is still in the valley; just watered down.
Money
Comment by Money — May 15, 2009 @ 12:18 am