Florida the greates sports state in the nation

**Fishhead** · 05-30-09, 10:37 PM

Live in Florida and totally disagree.

**Jimmy0607** · 05-30-09, 10:43 PM

Only this decade

Florida Gators , Champs
Gators Hoops, Champs
Heat , Champs
Bucs Champs
Lightning, Champs
Rays , World series
Magic, Finals
Tampa Bay Storm AFL, Champs
Best state period

**Chi_archie** · 05-30-09, 10:47 PM

all time athletes from the state?

prob
cali
texas
pa
fl
oh

**WileOut** · 05-30-09, 10:58 PM

Actually this is not up for debate. Sports Illustrated did a whole issue on this very subject a few years ago. It was found that the southeast as a region (bible belt) was head and shoulders above any other region in terms of producing professional football, basketball, and baseball players. If I remember correctly it did break it down into states and Florida was up there, at least in the top 3. This was done per capita. Louisianna, GA, SC, NC, Alabama, Mississippi, and Virginia were all up at the top too.

All you have to do is look at the yearly college football recruiting ratings to see where all the best football players come from. I think they break it down into players by state now too at rivals.com. The southeast conference plus the southern ACC teams (FSU, Miami, Va Tech, etc.) really completely dominate football. East Texas is up there too, but east Texas (at least the city of Houston) is considered southern.

Rivals also has ratings for basketball players too, not sure about baseball. But the SI study went back 20 or 30 years I think.

California puts a lot of athletes in the pros but there are so many people there, it would be impossible not to. So it wasn't very high on the per capita list.

To get the region with the best athletes, all you have to do is look at the region that has the highest percentage of black people. That is the southeast with about 35% of the entire population being black. The national percentage of black people is about 15 or 20% if I'm not mistaken. Even the white people in the southeast are better athletes than whites in other areas. This explains the high baseball rating in the SI issue.

**Fishhead** · 05-30-09, 11:00 PM

They produce the best athletes because half the population doesn't work.

**big joe 1212** · 05-30-09, 11:12 PM

The weather has something to do with it also!

They can play and practice year round! The people in the north can not.

**TheLock** · 05-31-09, 12:11 AM

Originally posted by Jimmy0607

Only this decade

Florida Gators , Champs
Gators Hoops, Champs
Heat , Champs
Bucs Champs
Lightning, Champs
Rays , World series
Magic, Finals
Tampa Bay Storm AFL, Champs
Best state period

What a gomer. You forgot the 2003 Marlins who won a World Series.

**Chi_archie** · 05-31-09, 08:04 AM

No doubt that the southeast produces mass quantities of college fb and bb recruits and alot of good, very good ones...

I think if you look at all-time elites in bases, basketball, football.... what Pa has produced is pretty amazing...

just look at the QB position

**Fishhead** · 05-31-09, 08:59 AM

Iowa produces the best wrestlers.