DETROIT — The 2024 NFL Draft is set downtown, serving as the glittering center of the football universe this weekend. Just a few blocks away is Ford Field, where the Detroit Lions won two playoff games in January.
Still, if you really want to know why Detroit—long touted as “Hockeytown” and a historic incubator for churning out elite basketball talent—is the boom in American football right now, you need to head to the neighborhood rinks and high school arenas around here. a sprawling city.
That’s where, away from the limelight and celebrity, it comes from the NFL — and they’re coming in numbers that not only outpace the rest of the country and exceed historical norms, but local coaches say are likely to increase.
“It’s completely different than even 20 years ago, Detroit going from a basketball town to a football town,” said Terrell Patrick, head coach at King High School, which has produced a slew of college and NFL stars, including the New York Jets All-Pro cornerback Gardner sauce.
“I’m seeing so much growth right now,” said Marvin Rushing, head football coach at Cass Tech, which had five alumni play in the NFL last season, including New England OL Michael Onwenu and Lions WR Donovan Peoples-Jones. “There is more talent and a real hunger to play at youth level.”
It’s already bubbling. On opening day of the 2023 NFL season, Detroit, America’s 27th most populous city, had more players (19) from its high schools on league rosters than anywhere else. The closest comparison is Houston with 16. It also has a population (2.3 million) that is nearly four times Detroit’s 640,000.
Some of it is obvious. Football is a tough sport. Detroit is a tough city.
“It all comes down to the pillars of our city, the working class, the blue collar, the gritty,” Rushing said.
“You have to go after what you want,” Philadelphia Eagles star Brandon Graham, who played for Detroit Crockett and still runs an annual youth football camp here, said this week. “Nothing is ever a given. About me, [Detroit] raised me and made me who I am today.”
Still, Detroit has always been tough. And it’s not just. Everywhere from Miami to Rock Hill, South Carolina is known for producing incredible amounts of talent per capita. It is believed to be the first time Detroit has had the most NFL players.
Coaches say the reason ranges from rule changes in the youth ranks to encourage more participation among older players to improved facilities and funding for children’s activities that make the sport seem special. This includes converting the old Tiger Stadium into a Detroit Police Athletic League facility where football as well as baseball is played on modern turf.
“We now have the infrastructure that other cities, especially in the south, have had for years,” Patrick said.
Others point out that the popularity of football in general reduces the interest of great athletes in basketball. The latest figures from the Police Athletic League show that 34,944 boys played football, but only 18,803 played basketball.
Only two players, Jamal Kane of the Miami Heat and Isaiah Jackson of the Indiana Pacers, who played at least one season in high school in Detroit are believed to have appeared in the NBA this season. That’s a huge change for a city that once churned out big-time talent — George Gervin, Spencer Haywood, Derrick Coleman, Jalen Rose and so on.
Perhaps not coincidentally, Detroit’s biggest local star athlete isn’t a basketball player, but Gardner, the ultra-talented and equally charismatic cornerback.
Patrick, the King coach who remembers Gardner as a 140-pound sophomore, attended a youth football clinic Sauce held last year. He was overwhelmed by the reaction of the campers.
“The way these kids responded to him was unreal,” Patrick said. “That’s probably how I would have reacted if I’d met Prime Time at that age [Deion Sanders].”
This fosters participation. So does, or should, the recent success of the Lions and the nearby University of Michigan. Meanwhile, some city games—notably the annual Cass-King game—have become anticipated, mass games played before standing-room-only crowds.
Others point to the tradition of NFL stars returning to run youth camps and even college programs working with youth coaches.
“There’s better coaching at the youth level,” Rushing said. “Michigan, Michigan State and Eastern Michigan came and did coaching clinics and it really helped put the kids in a better position.”
Then there was the decision 10-15 years ago for youth leagues to remove weight restrictions on players, which essentially kept older kids out of the sport. Now, almost anyone is welcome, and linemen don’t show up as freshmen in high school with no experience.
“Guys in the trenches have been in the trenches,” Patrick said.
Patrick further points to a generation of black men in Detroit who are determined to improve conditions and spend countless hours mentoring and teaching, including through football.
“You hear about the absence of black men in the family, in the community, but if you look at youth sports here, it’s about black men giving back,” Patrick said. “These are fathers and sons, uncles and nephews. Older men give back to younger men.”
Rushing, for example, grew up in public housing in Detroit — “in the rougher part of town” — but fell in love with football. He attended Cass Tech and earned a scholarship to Eastern Michigan. Injuries ended any chance at the NFL, but he is a district manager for Comerica Bank, overseeing 170 employees. He doesn’t have to coach high school football, but he wants to show kids what sports can do for them.
“Football allows them to express themselves,” Rushing said. “Be a leader when you have to be a leader. Be a follower when you need to be a follower. There are so many life skills in it and more and more kids are coming into it.
“From what I can see, it’s getting bigger here.”
