Ranking Jacksonville’s best athletes no easy task
Aquarter-century ago, the Times-Union endorsed moving forward with quite possibly the most fun project during my 43year tenure at the newspaper: identifying and ranking the 100 greatest athletes of the 20th century from the Jacksonville
area.
It was cumbersome, exhilarating research, trying to unearth players from four or five generations who first distinguished themselves at high schools in Duval, Clay, St. Johns, Nassau and Baker Counties.
To make the top-100 list, athletes likely had to become standouts in college, then often make an impact of varying degrees at the highest levels of their respective sports.
Naturally, for people intimately familiar with the history of athletes who came through northeast Florida, this kind of ranking sparks debate. People wonder why some athletes were not ranked higher, placed in the honorable mention category or left off altogether.
With 25 years passing since the original top 100 rankings were published, we decided putting out a sequel was imperative. The proliferation of talented athletes throughout the Jacksonville area in the 21st century is too deep for this list of elite athletes to not be updated.
So starting on Sunday, June 30 — and each subsequent Wednesday and Sunday — the Times-Union will begin revealing the top 100 with biographical boxes. It starts with the bottom 10 (No. 91 through 100) on Sunday, June 30, then publishing another 10 at a time on each Wednesday and Sunday through July 28, plus an accompanying story on one athlete from both the top 20 and top 30.
Once the rankings are down to the top 10, each athlete will have a bio box and feature story. The T-U will roll out No. 9 and 10 on Sunday, August 4, then No. 7 and 8 on Wednesday, August 7, followed by No. 5 and 6 on Sunday, August 11.
Here’s the schedule for unveiling the top four athletes – No. 4 on August 14, No. 3 on August 18, No. 2 on August 21 and ending with No. 1 on Sunday, August 25.
During the slowest period on the sports calendar, this was an ideal time to shine a spotlight on local talent through the years. It should give readers, whether familiar with Jacksonville athletes or not, a greater appreciation for their place in history.
Tough cuts, tougher ranking order
Both T-U high school writer Clayton Freeman, who covered many of the 21st-century athletes as high school stars, and myself compiled the rankings. We must have revised the top 100 at least a dozen times.
It was difficult leaving players out of the rankings who had memorable careers, some of whom are still active professionally and might make this list if it came out two or three years later so they could add to their resumes.
Undoubtedly, the most agonizing part was reaching a consensus on where many of these athletes belonged on the list. Clayton’s exhaustive research turned up two Negro League ballplayers who attended Jacksonville high schools near or after the turn of the 20th century, both meriting a prominent place on our list.
The biggest fear is omitting somebody worthy of inclusion, which can happen when old records are sketchy or not readily available. Clayton and I exchanged multiple phone calls after first compiling the rankings, usually to lobby the other about an athlete we felt strongly about being higher (sometimes lower) on the list.
Those conversations led to a significant move up the board for athletes including one MLB pitcher, a NASCAR driver, an under-the-radar NFL tight end and a college football national champion who is going into his eighth NFL season.
There were so many coin-flip decisions, particularly in the middle of the top 10 and top 20, where one could legitimately argue the order of the rankings be reversed.
Here are just two questions we pondered when trying to compile the rankings: 1. How do you distinguish between a two-time baseball All-Star who played 10 MLB seasons from a two-time Pro Bowler that lasted a decade in the NFL? Or what about separating an NFL cornerback who intercepted 32 passes from an NFL pass-rusher who accumulated 74 career sacks?
From top to bottom, it was one continuous tough call after another. A big dilemma was where to place a quarterback who won a Heisman Trophy and two national titles, but had an abbreviated NFL career. Most folks would easily know the athlete’s identity, but may need a minimum 10 attempts to guess his final ranking.
Since these rankings give 60 percent weight to performance at the highest level of each sport, 30 percent weight to college performance or comparable minor-league level, and 10 percent to high school, athletes had a better chance of moving up by dominating as an NFL/MLB/NBA/Olympic athlete or world-class golfer.
For those athletes who excelled against elite college competition, they still earned a lot of ranking respect. It just didn’t move them up at the same rate as those who succeeded on the biggest stage.
Rankings feature plenty of variety
Over 300 athletes who played high school athletics and established a residence in the five-county area were considered for inclusion in the top 100, highest honorable mention (10 athletes) or honorable mention.
The biggest difference from the 1999 rankings is the quality of depth. Just in the last 25 years, the Jacksonville area has produced double the number of MLB All-Stars, and nearly doubled in NFL Pro Bowlers and firstround draft picks.
It’s not inconceivable to think the next generation of Jacksonville area athletes, whether it’s promising golfer Miles Russell or Georgia quarterback Carson Beck, will relegate half of the current top 100.
How hard was it to make the top 100? Consider that Jacksonville and the four counties bordering Duval have around 250 athletes (as of June 15) who either suited up in the NFL, MLB, NBA or two American pro soccer leagues (MLS/NWSL), earned an Olympic medal and were golfers on the PGA and LPGA Tours.
After the first top-100 rankings in 1999, the next generation of athletes were so accomplished, it forced us to push down more than 40 names to honorable mention. We’ll build up the suspense by making you wonder whether double-gold medal Olympic sprinter and NFL Hall of Famer Bob Hayes will remain No. 1 on the updated list.
The current list doesn’t include athletes like Hall of Fame baseball player Chipper Jones, a native of Pierson who played and was a boarder at the Bolles School, but never established a residence in Northeast Florida to qualify for the top 100.
Jacksonville University legend and basketball Hall of Famer Artis Gilmore, along with many athletes who achieved greatness at JU and the University of North Florida, were also excluded if they never competed for area high schools or lived in the five-county area.
No matter, the top-100 menu features plenty of athletic diversity. The list includes athletes from more than a dozen different sports and 35 high schools — a few that many longtime Jacksonville residents may have never heard of.
There are more than a dozen Olympians, including a pair of gold-medalists who grew up living across the street from each other in San Marco.
The legacies of many on this list will live forever in the minds of fans supporting their respective major pro sports teams. Nine players were on the field for Super Bowl-winning teams and a half-dozen others earned World Series rings.
Among more than 60 athletes in the top 100 that performed in the NFL and MLB, they played every position on the diamond and the gridiron.
Putting together these rankings was like digging for buried treasure. A concerted effort was made to consider athletes from both traditional sports and modern ones like mixed martial arts.
Over the next two months, we hope recounting the accomplishments of the greatest athletes in the history of northeast Florida brings back good memories.
We don’t expect you to agree with all the rankings. The ensuing debate will undoubtedly be a testament to that.