re: The reason why recruiting is dominated by the south.

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The reason the south dominates recruiting is because Alabama is in the south. /thread

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#GumpSoHard

Irony:

DeLoss Dodds referred to A&M as only interesting to "a sliver of east Texas". Look at the color of Texas in that map and look at what side of the state it's darkest on.

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The decline in African American percentages in baseball has more to do with the popularity of football and basketball, rather than racism or generational poverty

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Baseball isn't just losing popularity among blacks, but whites, too. Probably because it's boring as hell.

Southeast America definitely has the largest African American population. But the Atlantic sea board and the Great Lakes region have very large AA populations too.

Outside of the South, AAs tend to live in (physically) small counties with large populations, which this map doesn't account for. Same with the 'per capita' point, when not taking into consideration the state's actual population.

For example, three rust belt states, Illinois, Michigan and Ohio, have the same number of African Americans as four deep south states, Louisiana, Misssippi, Alabama and Tennessee. You would never expect that after reading this thread though.

I think the South dominates recruiting because, in addition to its super large AA population, football is played by the best athletes in the South (although baseball and basketball poach a few), unlike in the North where there's more competition. For a number of reasons, kids in Northern cities tend to play basketball over football, except in perhaps Cincy, Cleveland and Pittsburgh.

There are far too many 6-4 small forwards in the MAC, Horizon, etc. leagues, who are too short for pro basketball but could be tall, athletic receivers or speedy pass rushers.