Sports in the South - Week 4 Topic - Matthew Orr

When Southerners aren't enjoying a nice plate of BBQ pork, relaxing on an afternoon in a rocking chair in front of the plantation home, or deciding whether or not to attend church for a fourth day in a row, most Southerners love to spend weekends watching sports. In particular, football is most associated with the Deep South. High school football is almost a religion in small towns all across the South. However, what if football wasn't the only sport that the south enjoyed and contributes to the rest of the country?
I read a week or two ago in the Atlanta- Journal Constitution's High School Sports section online about the possibility of Georgia being a basketball state. This intrigued me because not only did my high school, Wheeler High School in Marietta, Georgia, have an AWFUL football team (we haven't won a single game in at least two years), but we have a nationally recognized basketball program that has won four state championships this decade alone. As many high school pack the football stadiums every Friday in the fall, so does the Lipscomb gymnasium sell out at least an hour ahead of tip-off every Friday night in the winter and early spring.
Besides Wheeler High School, there are several other programs across metro- Atlanta alone that are consistently churning out elite prospects into Division-I schools every year, including Norcross, Milton, and Westlake High Schools. The blogger on the AJC where I read this article provided statistics about how many NBA players (currently playing and not currently playing) have come from each state since 2000:
"Alabama: 7
Arkansas: 4
Florida: 23
Georgia: 22
Kentucky: 5
Louisiana: 15
Mississippi: 11
North Carolina: 19
South Carolina: 3
Tennessee: 11
Virginia: 19*

*All but two are from prep schools and academies such as Oak Hill and Hargrave Military.

Other states of note:

California: 62
Illinois: 38
Indiana: 12
Maryland: 22
Michigan: 27
Missouri: 9
New York: 26
Ohio: 20
Pennsylvania: 22
Texas: 43"
-Statistics provided by Todd Holcomb of the AJC.
Other Southern states, like Kentucky, already have basketball as their de facto state past time. So here is the debate question for the week: Should Georgia, and for that matter, the entire South, be considered a football state, or should basketball be known as a major contributor to our culture here in the state?

Below are some highlights of a recent game between Wheeler High School and their archrival Walton. The two players they focus on, Ryan Harrow (#12) of Walton and Jelan Kendrick (#0) of Wheeler are the top two seniors in the state, and two of the best seniors in the country this year: