HCBE Faculty Articles
Title
AN ANALYSIS OF THE GEOGRAPHIC ORIGINS AND MIGRATION PATTERNS OF ELITE COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYERS
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
8-11-2023
Publication Title
Geographical Review
ISSN or ISBN
0016-7428
First Page
1
Last Page
23
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
10.1080/00167428.2023.2236672
ORCID ID
0000-0002-8290-3785, 0000-0002-2557-6511, 0000-0003-1947-513X
NSUWorks Citation
Wuerzer, Thomas; Fountain, Jeffrey; 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
