I started a topic on another website last week "Louisiana vs Tennessee" in HS Football...Coach Derek Dooley(Tennessee) said he had to recruit O-O-S bec he could NOT sign 15 players per year in home state...my question was WHY? With a pop. of over 6.2 million...where LSU never has problems signing 15 players from their home state with pop. of only about 4.5 million...got some interesting replies back...some of it turned to race.
HERE are some of the replies I wanted to share....
*What is the african-american population in Tennesee? (no I am not being racist) but as you go further north the demographics change and the common theme of florida, Mississippi, Texas, Louisiana and Alabam is a good-sized African-american population that produces some damn good football players.
*C you're not being racist asking about the African American population in Tenn.you're being realistic. Look at the rosters of the NFL to see how the breakdown is between White and Black players. One must also figure the warm vs cold weather to understand why northeastern areas fail t produce as many D-1 players per capita
*agree completely about weather; May be part of the reason Louisiana produces low numbers of hockey players
*It's just the culture. High school football is a more important part of the culture in La. than in Tennessee. Maybe more kids play basketball there.
And HERE was an interesting response from a black poster.....
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What is wrong with asking about the african american population in any state? This is rdiculous. All kinds of -isms exist but people can ask intelligent questions. if you're a racist then I'm a freaking elitist. Let's also remember that all over the world(regardless of color) for the most part, kids who grow up in economically challenged areas excel in sports simply because if you can' afford a quality education like most people in these areas can't....sports presents a much cheaper(though much much more riskier)options. This is a general realism...
In America Most(notice i said most) of our sports stars(NBA, NFL, MLB, Hockey) are minorities, immigrants, and some whites who are economically disadvantages. Asians are slighlty diff in that they either sacrifice all for either education or business.
In spain you see tennis, soccer, etc stars coming from the slums, poor areas
In England you see a lot of poor whites and imigrants turning to soccer, tennis, boxing, etc
Whether we admit it our not success via education will alwasy trump success by sports for a number of reasons. Some of these reasons are that If two individuals spent 4 hrs a day, one on sports and the other on a decent eductation, the one geting an education would have a very very high probability of sucess and quality of life over a 30 yr period.ut a 70% success rate) The one pursing sports has a very very high probability for failure (Less than 5%!) over a 30yr period. Its the lottery..and which population demographic makes plans of the future based on the lottery?
And this reply ticked me off...
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*It's simply a lack of athletes... HS football is very big here but Tennessee doesn't produce the level of athlete that Louisiana does. I've seen 15 years of HS football in this state and the athletes just aren't the same. It has a lot to do with demographics, there is a much larger minority population in LA than TN (if you think saying African Americans are more athletic than caucasians is racist you simply don't watch sports). Only a handfull of players from TN go D-1 each year and most of those come out of Memphis. Just the way it is and is a reason TN will be at a disadvantage in football for years to come. Even back in the 90's when the Vols were at their prime most of the roster was from out of state.
Edited by: TwentyTwo