I’m Just Sayin’ … items that fell off my laptop.
Miles Sanders will presumably play in an NFL game this upcoming season. That’s generally what happens with second-round draft picks.
When Sanders plays, Woodland Hills will be one individual away from tying for the most NFL players in WPIAL history. And Woodland Hills has been in existence for only 32 years.
Sanders, a running back from Penn State, would be the 14th NFL player from Woodland Hills. McKeesport has the most of any WPIAL school with 15 and Monessen also has 14. But all of Woodland Hills’ NFL players have been since 1987. Heck, Monessen’s first NFL player was in 1920 and McKeesport’s first in 1940.
No public high school in Pennsylvania history has had 14 NFL players in 32 years. According to Pro Football Reference, the only other Pennsylvania school with 14 or more players over a 32-year period is Kiski School, a private school in Saltsburg that had 21 NFL players from 1921-42.
• Sanders, by the way, is the eighth Woodland Hills player drafted into the NFL. All of them played for George Novak, who retired as Woodland Hills coach two years ago.
The other seven Woodland Hills NFL draft picks besides Sanders have been: Jason Taylor (third round in 1997), Shawntae Spencer (second round in 2004), Steve Breaston (fifth round in 2007), Ryan Mundy (sixth round in 2008), Rob Gronkowski (second round in 2010), Quinton Jefferson (fifth round in 2016) and Ejuan Price (seventh round in 2017).
• While Woodland Hills’ NFL contingent is impressive, St. Thomas Aquinas in Florida had its 18th player drafted since 2009. This year, it was Ohio State’s Nick Bosa, the second overall pick.
• Sanders was one of two WPIAL players selected (Thomas Jefferson’s Chase Winovich was picked in the third round). Pennsylvania had five players drafted, which ties for 15th in the country, according to 247sports.com. Florida had 33 players drafted, Texas 27, California 21, Georgia 14 and Ohio 13.
• The Steelers drafted Michigan linebacker Devin Bush in the first round. Did you know there will be another Devin Bush playing major-college football next year? This Devin Bush is a senior defensive back at Edna Karr in New Orleans who will play at the University of Arkansas.
• Proof that all those stars don’t matter that much and it’s extremely tough to predict future success of high school players: Rivals.com reports that there were 30 players eligible for the NFL draft this year who were rated five stars coming out of high school. Twelve of those five-star players didn’t get drafted.
• Sports job I would never do: Officiate AAU basketball games at the high school level. Coaches and parents make it brutal almost every time I see it.
• The Post-Gazette doesn’t pick Athletes of the Year until June, but Aliquippa’s M.J. Devonshire sure is off and running for the award. Devonshire, a University of Kentucky football recruit, was the P-G co-Player of the Year in football. He averaged 17 points and was all-section in basketball. Now, he is one of the top sprinters in the WPIAL.
Devonshire, a University of Kentucky recruit, won WPIAL Class 2A titles last year in the 100- and 200-meter dashes and also the 400 relay. At the MAC championship meet last week, Devonshire won the 100 in 10.94 seconds and the 200 in 22.03. His 22.03 is better than the 22.42 that won the WPIAL last year.
• A basketball coach pointed this out recently. Think of it: The new boys basketball coach (Brian Urso) at Central Catholic is a Fox Chapel graduate. The coach at Fox Chapel (Zach Skrinjar) is a Central Catholic grad. The new Allderdice coach (Devin Crummie) is a Central Catholic grad who was an assistant at Central. A guy (Buddy Valinsky) who wanted the recently vacant Central Catholic job is Allderdice’s former coach. And the guy (Chuck Crummie) ousted at Central Catholic has a lot more wins (635) than all of those coaches combined. Go figure.
• How long before former Blackhawk baseball star Brendan McKay is in the major leagues? He has been dominant in his first five pitching appearances for the Tampa Bay Rays Class 2A team, striking out 33 in 18⅔ innings.
• It has yet to be determined if Moon basketball player Donovan “Puff” Johnson will be eligible to play his senior year at Moon because of a PIAA rule concerning his repeat of eighth grade. But it doesn’t seem to matter to recruiters. Johnson’s stock seems to be on the rise with colleges. Ohio State, Wofford and TCU all offered him since last weekend. Pitt, Duquesne and Arizona already had offered and more scholarships seem to be on the way for this 6-foot-7 guard-forward.
If Johnson isn’t eligible at Moon, he could still go to a prep school for a year.
• Television station PCN has a nice series going called “PCN Classics,” where the station shows a memorable game from its 20 years of covering PIAA championships. This Saturday at 7 p.m., the series will feature the 2010 Class 3A boys basketball championship between Chartiers Valley and Neumann-Goretti.
It is indeed a memorable game. Neumann-Goretti of Philadelphia was loaded with Division I college recruits, but the Saints couldn’t stop T.J. McConnell, who scored 32 points in a 65-63 loss. Yes, it’s the same T.J. McConnell of the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers. That game was a capper to what I say might be the greatest season ever by a WPIAL player.
McConnell averaged 34.2 points a game in 2009-10 and get this: He scored a WPIAL record 1,062 points. Scoring 1,000 points in one season is surreal. The only other player in WPIAL history to do it was Wampum’s Don Hennon, who had 1,003 in 1955. Hennon became an All-American at Pitt.
Mike White: mwhite@post-gazette.com and Twitter @mwhiteburgh
First Published: May 2, 2019, 11:15 a.m.
