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New York City has 8 million people. New York City only had one player in the ESPNU top 150 for this past year’s signing class. New York City had an anemic 19 signings for full scholarships in 2008, 21 the following year, 26 in 2010, and 12 this last February. What’s the deal here? Something is not adding up.

Texas, Florida, and California are all known as football recruiting hot beds. The warm weather mixed with the size of those states make it a prime area for college coaches to pluck top tier talent. I tend to lean more towards the side of the size of those states more than the speed. The more people playing football, the greater chance you have of producing quality athletes. Look at Ohio and Pennsylvania for example, two relatively cold states in the winter produce great football players every year.

So why can’t NYC produce quality football players? Don’t give me the there is no space excuse. There is space for basketball courts, stick ball, Washington Square, Central Park, etc. Besides, when I was growing up in Oklahoma, if there was no grass to play tackle football, we just played two hand touch on the concrete. Also, if you ever venture to Queens, Long Island, and the Bronx the Big Apple starts to open up a little bit in terms of space, which explains why most of the families live in these areas.

Granted there is no dominate college football team in the NYC area. The fact that NYU is not a college football powerhouse with the money they generate is beyond me, and I’ll save that for another day. But there are two NFL franchises in New York City for kids to see and look up to. Take it how you want it, but when I was growing up Deion Sanders and Michael Jordan raised a lot of kids my age. Single parent families are rampant amongst African-Americans. No dad in the home, drug dealers, entertainers, and sports figures become your father figures. You mean to tell me that there isn’t an NYC kid that doesn’t want to be Darrelle Revis or “wanted” to be like Plaxico Burress after his Super Bowl catch? Hell, even the stable families, I’m sure there are some fathers who think their kids could be the next Eli Manning. New York City is the most diverse city in the US as well, I know there are some Latino kids dreaming to be the next Mark Sanchez. Where do these kids go to become their childhood heroes in NYC.

If you can make it in NYC you can make it anywhere, but goodluck making it as a top tier FBS football recruit.

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