St. Thomas (Minn.) Sports Information Director
Gene McGivern is working on an extensive research project - with lots of growing media interest - on the phenomenom of college football QBs who hail from the smallest hometowns. McGivern has found 29 players among the 800-plus four-year college football teams who come from towns with less than 1,400 residents. Please check the list and contact McGivern if you see any omissions (
ejmcgivern@stthomas.edu).
His finalized feature story will appear on CoSIDA.com at a later date.
pictured: St. Thomas quarterback Dakota Tracy in his hometown of Geneva, Minnesota - population 449.
(photo courtesy of Greg Smith)
Where's Waldo?
You might be surprised to learn that so many of America's smallest towns are producing so many big-play quarterbacks this 2010 college football season. Towns like Attapulgus, Ga., Waldo, Ohio, Iron Ridge, Wis., and Chinook, Mont., are too small to attract the golden arches of a McDonald's restaurant, but they have their own golden boys who have moved on to play quarterback for college teams.
Research to date has found 29 starting quarterbacks at four-year colleges who hail from towns of
1,300 or less residents. Among major-college teams, three starters of top-20 ranked teams come from towns of 10,000 or less. We hand checked all Division I and II programs, sent emails to all conference offices and used the NAIA and D3 questions list to gather the data.
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f you have a starting quarterback who should be included on the lists, please contact Gene McGivern at St. Thomas (Minn.) at ejmcgivern@stthomas.edu.
Small-Town Value: 2010 college football starting QBs/hometowns of 1,300 residents or less
Pop= Population of town
Pop. Town (HS) ......... Player/Team .................................................................. Affiliation
100 Elwell, Mich. (Alma), Dan Wernick, Culver-Stockton (Mo.) NAIA
186 Easton, Minn. (Blue Earth Area), Logan Becker, Gustavus (Minn.) NCAA III
275 Talala, Okla. (Oologah-Talala), Jordan Barrett, Southwestern (Kan.) NAIA
311 Waldo, Ohio (Marion Pleasant), Cody Harris, Edinboro (Pa.) NCAA II
339 Sharpsburg, Ga. (East Cowetta), Brandon Behenna, West Georgia NCAA II
363 Evant, Tex. (Evant), Aaron Doyle, Tarleton (Tex.) State NAIA
449 Geneva, Minn. (New Richland-Hartland-Ellendale-Geneva), Dakota Tracy,
St. Thomas (Minn.) NCAA lll
468 Attapulgus, Ga. (Attapulgus), Pat Riley, Benedict (S.C.) NCAA II
508 Goessel, Kan. (Goessel), Garrett Hiebert, Bethel (Kan.) NAIA
515 Edgeley, N.D. (Edgeley), Trent Kosel, Valley City (N.D.) State NAIA
548 D'Hanis, Tex. ( D'Harris ), Paden Lynch, Incarnate Word (Tex.) NCAA II
642 Pembina, N.D. (Pembina), Tanner Carpenter, Mayville (N.D.) State NAIA
654 Fairfield, Mont. (Fairfield), Derek Lear, Montana State-Northern NAIA
692 Hancock, Minn. (Hancock), Derrick Foss, Minnesota-Morris NCAA III
704 Adair, Okla. (Adair), Kenny Davis, Northeastern (Okla.) State NCAA II
848 Arendtsville, Pa. (Biglerville), Kyle Whitmoyer, Gettysburg (Pa.) NCAA III
876 Bremond, Tex. (Bremond), LiDarral Bailey, Mary-Hardin-Baylor (Tex.) NCAA III
994 Iron Ridge, Wis. (Hustisford), Austin Neu, UW-Eau Claire NCAA III
1,000 Skidmore, Tex. (Skidmore-Tynan), Darby House, Bethany (Kan.) NAIA
1,149 Caddo Mills, Tex. (Caddo Mills), Jeremy Fowler, SW Assemblies of God (Tex.)
NAIA
1,169 Battle Creek, Neb., (Battle Creek), Curtis Thompson, Peru (Neb.) State NAIA
1,190 Green Springs, Ohio (Clyde), Alex Gillett, Eastern Michigan NCAA I
1,230 Dierks, Ark., (Dierks), Will McLaughlin, Louisiana College NCAA III
1,233 Byers, Colo. (Byers), Bobby Adamson, Ottawa (Kan.) NAIA
1,244 Camp Point, Ill., Mitch Neikamp, Illinois College NCAA III
1,250 Gunter, Tex., Travis Zambiani, Austin (Tex.) NCAA III
1,272 Chinook, Mont. (Chinook), Adam Hayes, Crown (Minn.) NCAA III
1,276 New Sharon, Iowa (North Mahaska), Brad Boyle, Coe (Iowa) NCAA III
1,341 Dawson, Minn. (Dawson-Boyd), Josh Aakre, Bethel (Minn.) NCAA III
Others/Interesting Town Names
1,979 Blooming Prairie, Minn. (Blooming Prairie), Spencer Ohm, NCAA ll
Concordia-St. Paul
2,768 ** Eufaula, Okla. (Eufaula), Ethan Sharp, Central Oklahoma NCAA II
4,247 Muleshoe, Tex. (Muleshoe), Wesley Wood, Eastern New Mexico NCAA II
4,393 Coldwater, Ohio (Coldwater) Keith Wenning, Ball State NCAA I
4,745 Peculiar, Mo. (Raymore-Peculiar), Carson Coffman, Kansas State NCAA I
4,989 Locust Grove, Ga. (Luella), Cody Haffly, Wingate NCAA II
8,790 Mechanicsburg, Pa. (Mechanicsburg) Zach Frazer, Connecticut NCAA I
9.741 Union, Mo. (Union) Jordan Webb, Kansas NCAA I
** Eufaula is the home of ex-Sooner standouts J.C. Watts and Lucious, Lee Roy and
Dewey Selmon
Miscellaneous notes:
-- A similar list of Division I starters includes three players from top-15 ranked teams who hail from towns of less than 10,000 residents -- Ohio State's Terrelle Pryor (Jeannette, Pa, 9,800 pop.), Boise State's Kellen Moore (Prosser, Wash., pop. 5,282) and Lousiana State's Jordan Jefferson (St. Rose, La.). The D-I list also included starters from Penn State (Rob Bolden, Orchard Lake, Mich., pop. 2,225) and Kansas State (Carson Coffman, Peculiar, Mo., pop. 4,745).
-- Legendary coach John Gagliardi of Division III power St. John's has developed a parade of small-town standouts over the years. Ironically, Gagliardi has lost four of his last seven games dating back to 2009 -- all four to teams quarterbacked by players on the above list (Coe, Eau Claire, St. Thomas, Bethel)
-- Four teams with players on the above list are currently ranked among the top 20 in the Division III polls (St. Thomas, Mary Hardin Baylor, Coe, Bethel)
-- Three of the players from Minnesota play each other head-to-head on Oct. 16, 23 and 30
-- The above list includes six players from Texas and four from Minnesota, and includes 11 NAIA players and 18 NCAA players
-- Four of the nine teams located in Minneapolis and St. Paul or their suburbs have starting QBs from towns of less than 2,000
-- The 2009 Heisman Trophy finalist, Colt McCoy, played his high school ball at Jim Ned High School in Tuscola, Tex., (pop. 714)
-- Waldo, Ohio -- on the above list with 311 residents -- is well known for its fried bologna sandwiches served at G&R Tavern
-- Chinook, Mont. -- on the above list with 1,271 residents -- now has an 8-man high school team. It's school mascot is the Sugarbeeter, because the local sugar beet factory paid for the football jerseys back in the 1950s.
-- Edgeley, N.D. -- on the above list with 515 residents -- is coined "The Gateway to Wind Energy" as it is the home of the first wind farm in North Dakota.
-- Arendtsville, Pa. -- on the above list with 848 residents -- is located in Adams County, one of the nation's leaders in apple production. Arendtsville is the site of the annual National Apple Harvest Festival. Students from Arendtsville attend Biglerville High School, which has the nickname of "Canner," named after the town's canning plant.
-- Small-town stories are all over the NFL -- from Parkersburg, Iowa (pop. 1,900), having four alums in the league; to Vikings linebacker Chad Greenway (Mount Vernon, S.D., pop. 477) to QB Brett Favre (Kiln, Miss., pop. 2000). Other NFL quarterbacks include Joe Namath from Beaver Falls, Pa., (pop. 9,900), Jason Campbell from Taylorsville, Miss (pop. 1,341), Brad Johnson from Black Mountain, N.C. (pop. 7,800), Sage Rosenfels from Maquoketa, Iowa (pop. 6,100), Gus Frerotte from Ford City, Pa. (pop. 3,400), Kelly Stouffer of Rushville, Neb. (pop. 999) and Todd Bouman from Ruthton, Minn., (pop. 284).
--
A recent Wall Street Journal article cites a study that points out that while only one-fourth of Americans come from towns with populations under 50,000, nearly half of the NFL players do. About 10 percent of the US population is born in cities of over 5 million, but only one-tenth of 1 percent of NFL players are.
"Small towns are better breeding grounds for athletes than cities," the article states. The study attributes the over-representation to several factors including the accessibility of sports role models, cultural values placed on sport, the "big fish little pond" effect and even the "boredom" factor - not much else to do but "throw a football at trees" said one NFL player.
-- CBS's
60 Minutes recently aired a feature on "Football Island" - aka American Samoa - where a population of 65,000 has more than 30 players in the NFL, and more than 200 in Division I college football. 60 Minutes' Scott Pelley noted that in the last five years the six high schools on the island have produced 10 NFL linemen, and that a child born to Samoan parents is 56 times more likely to get into the NFL than any kid in America.