HCBE Faculty Articles
An analysis of the geographic origins and migration patterns of elite college football players
ORCID
Thomas Wuerzer 0000-0002-8290-3785
,Jeffrey J. Fountain 0000-0002-2557-6511
,Peter Finley 0000-0003-1947-513X
Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Geographical Review
ISSN
0016-7428
Publication Date
8-11-2023
Abstract/Excerpt
John Rooney’s (1969) seminal geographical work on the origins of U.S. college football players showed how a comprehensive examination of player origins could be analyzed and presented. This study utilizes Rooney’s findings to compare changes in the origin and migration patterns 50 years after his work. The hometowns of 14,937 elite high school football players recruited to play for “Power 5” schools between 2010 and 2020 are analyzed. The findings reveal that substantially more elite players now originate in the southern states and migrate into areas that underproduced elite talent. The methods and results of this study contribute to the merging research fields of sports management and sports geography on geographic patterns and the migration of athletes and how they can change over periods of time.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1080/00167428.2023.2236672
Volume
114
Issue
2
First Page
157
Last Page
179
NSUWorks Citation
Wuerzer, Thomas; Fountain, Jeffrey J.; and Finley, Peter, "An analysis of the geographic origins and migration patterns of elite college football players" (2023). HCBE Faculty Articles. 1187.
https://nsuworks.nova.edu/hcbe_facarticles/1187
