Packers' roster is California-centric

GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Center Evan Dietrich-Smith likes to say that if you've had a salad or a leaf of lettuce on your burger today, it came from his hometown of Salinas, Calif. He said it produces 30 percent of the world's lettuce, cultivated from "a lot of rich farmers."

He says this as he walks through his Green Bay locker room, passing Jeremy Ross and David Bakhtiari, Jarrett Bush, Johnathan Franklin and Davon House, James Jones and Datone Jones, Clay Matthews and Aaron Rodgers.

They're about one-fifth of the Packers roster, and they aren't from rough Michigan and rugged Pennsylvania. They're not from one of the eight Division I football programs of Ohio.

They're all from California, and this year's class is a bumper crop.

"When I went to Florida to train, I met a lot of guys who swear it's the best," said Compton's Datone Jones, Green Bay's first-round draft pick. "I could easily argue that California is bigger. We have more high schools, which means there's more talent.

"Southern California is on a different level. There are probably 15 guys that I played with in high school that are in the NFL."

The state offers badminton, field hockey, lacrosse and water polo as high school sports. Many California boys turn out for baseball and soccer; there are so many fields and such great weather.

But football rules.

There were 102,505 high school football players in California last year - more than any other sport, and double that of soccer or baseball - according to the California Interscholastic Federation.

An additional 2,114 kids from small schools participated on eight-player teams. That means 104,619 boys suited up for California high school football a year ago, a nuber just shy of the population of Green Bay.

Little Big Time

The first time Franklin knew he was a big deal was in 1999. He was about 10 years old playing in a youth football game.

"The whole high school stadium at Crenshaw filled up," said the rookie running back from South Central Los Angeles. "It just gets you excited. It helps you understand how important this game of football is and it makes you fall in love with it that much more."

By the time he was playing against Crenshaw in the Dorsey-Crenshaw rivalry game, "the whole city shut down. There'd be police blocking streets. Everybody in the whole community came out," said Franklin.

Jones' had a similar experience. Even though basketball was the game of choice for so many of his peers, Compton High School had enough talent to field a strong football team every year. There was only one disadvantage.

"There were probably 27 kids on my team, so everyone had to play both ways," said Jones. "When we came up against a powerhouse team, we couldn't survive because they'd have 80 and they could rotate."

But you couldn't beat the atmosphere.

"The biggest crowd I think was my homecoming. We got roughly around 15,000 people," said Jones. "The stadium is a small stadium so they had to bring in extra stands on a semi truck."

Bakhtiari, the rookie who will start at left tackle - protecting Chico's own Aaron - when the Packers open the season Sunday at San Francisco. No big deal, right? Bakhtiari is from nearby Burlingame. He went to Junipero Serra High School, an all-boys Catholic school in San Mateo known for both its athletic program and academics. Alumni include Tom Brady, Lynn Swan and Barry Bonds.

Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/09/04/3604689/packers-roster-is-california-centric.html

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