In one year, Brooklyn will produce as many All-Americans in football as the entire city has managed to develop in basketball over the past five years.
Though the five boroughs’ reputation as a hardwood breeding ground has taken a hit, it’s soaring on the gridiron — and Brooklyn is the fertile ground.
“There’s a change coming,” Lincoln All-American defensive tackle Thomas Holley said. “There’s a lot of great talent now and there’s a lot of great talent to come.”
The borough is home to New York State’s top three prospects — Holley, Poly Prep defensive end Jay Hayes and Erasmus Hall wide receiver/running back Curtis Samuel.
The electric 6-foot Samuel, who has committed to Big Ten powerhouse Ohio State, and Holley will play in the Under Armour All-American Game in January and are ranked in the top 70 nationally by Rivals.com. The hulking Hayes held
53 scholarship offers when he committed to Notre Dame as a junior.
Samuel is coming off a remarkable junior season as arguably the best player in the city, and led
Erasmus Hall to its first city championship.
“Curtis’ highlight film was one of the best ones out there,” Rivals.com national recruiting analyst Mike Farrell said.
Holley, who turned his focus to football after spending much of his adolescent life as a basketball player, saw his recruitment explode after film of his first — and only — eight varsity games circulated, showing the 6-foot-4, 300-pounder’s unique combination of size and quickness. Ohio State, Notre Dame and Florida are among his many suitors.
“I remember his first game, he was raw and you couldn’t block him,” E-Hall coach Danny Landberg said.
Yet one college coach who has recruited all three said the refined 6-foot-4, 265-pound Hayes “might be better than both of them.”
The landscape obviously has changed in recent years for New York City high school football, particularly in Brooklyn. The area has produced eight All-Americans over the past five years — six from Brooklyn — beginning with former Curtis student Dominique Easley, a star at the University of Florida, continuing with current Notre Dame outside linebacker Ishaq Williams (Lincoln) and Clemson defensive end Ebenezer Ogundeko (Thomas Jefferson).
“It takes guys to come before you,” Farrell said. “School aren’t just going to stop at high schools in Brooklyn for fun.”
A decade ago, Lincoln coach Shawn O’Connor remembered how difficult it was to get star receiver Nyan Boateng noticed. They traveled to camps across the country and O’Connor spent hours upon hours on the phone trying to convince recruiting analysts and college coaches his star pupil was worthy of a longer look.
“We had to beg and plead people,” O’Connor recalled. “You would always get, ‘Brooklyn, you have football? Thought they only had basketball there.’ ”
O’Connor merely had to make a few calls on Holley’s behalf and send out his film before the scholarship offers began pouring in.
A decade ago, O’Connor pointed out, Brooklyn had two major Pop Warner programs, the Mo Better Jaguars — where Samuel got his start — and Brooklyn Skyhawks. The borough now has more variety, programs in the double figures, and high school teams don’t have teach the sport’s basics as much as refine talent. The college coach who recruits the city said the coaching in Brooklyn has improved, and as a result the programs are stronger.
The PSAL, as currently constituted, is dominated by Brooklyn. Fort Hamilton, Lincoln and Erasmus Hall have won the City Championship division title at Yankee Stadium each of the past three years, and Lincoln and E-Hall are preseason favorites to meet in The Bronx again this December.
“We’ve closed the gap,” O’Connor said. “I think that football is definitely on the radar in Brooklyn now.”
Holley is an acute example of how times have changed. He grew up playing basketball, a bruising forward for Christ the King in Queens, which owns a nationally ranked basketball program. Though he still plays the sport, and likely would be a mid-major prospect, he was drawn to the gridiron once he stopped growing and saw his limitations in basketball.
“It’s been the greatest change I ever made,” Holley said.
That doesn’t mean the area is all of a sudden flooded with five-star recruits, Farrell said. Though New York City now produces All-Americans yearly, there isn’t necessarily depth of talent, he said.
This group can only help to continue to cultivate the notion there are elite players in Brooklyn. But what will really tip the scales is production at the next level at major programs, according to Farrell.
It already has begun.
Williams, the former Lincoln star, appeared in last year’s championship game for Notre Dame and is expected to make an impact this fall, and Ogundeko is in the mix for eighth-ranked Clemson’s defense as a freshman.
That the latest wave of top prospects from Brooklyn also may be all headed to programs that are expected to be in the national title picture only will help future hopefuls.
“To see three players in the same class have that option to go Division I-A and play for a national championship, it sends a message it can happen,” Hayes said. “There’s a lot of kids thinking, ‘I can be a big-time football player.’
“Right now New York is still a basketball city, but football is on the rise.”