GRIDLOCKED STATE

The two biggest sports in Texas are football and spring football.

High school, college and pro, football is an obsession with most of that state’s sports fans. The Dallas Cowboys were long known as America’s Team. Towns have closed on Friday nights as everyone hits the road with the high school team.

California, Ohio and Pennsylvania have been hotbeds for the sport, but none have been hotter than Texas.

Until now.

America, never impressed with mediocrity, has moved on. Football remains the state pastime in Texas, but the focus of the nation has moved to the Southeast, where Florida has became the football capital of the nation.

Today, two of its NFL teams--the Jacksonville Jaguars and Tampa Bay Buccaneers--will play in conference title games. A victory by each would match them in the Super Bowl next Sunday.

The Miami Dolphins were also in the playoffs, and less than a month ago Florida State won college football’s national championship.

Football excellence has become a fact of life in this state. In the 1972 season, the Dolphins, in only their seventh season, went 17-0, the NFL’s only perfect season.

In the 1980s, the college game began to soar, and Florida schools have won seven national championships in the last 17 years.

The University of Miami won titles in 1983, ‘87, ’89 and ’91. Florida State won a national championship in 1993 in addition to this season and has been ranked among the top four in each of the last 13 seasons. The University of Florida won a national championship in 1996 and has been ranked in the top five the last five seasons.

That college talent has moved up. There were 104 players from the three schools on NFL rosters on opening day. Florida State has the second most of any school with 39. Miami was sixth with 33, followed by Florida with 32.

The talent pool dips into the high school level. There are 26 high schools playing in Florida’s Broward County. Last year, 40 graduates of those schools went on to play at Division I colleges.

But don’t get the idea that Florida football mania is a product of only the last few decades. The fans were always there. It’s the recent success that has caught the country’s attention.

“Football, high school and collegiate, has been a way of life in this state forever,” Florida Athletic Director Jeremy Foley said. “You have Gator fans who have not missed a game for 50 years. The passion for football is phenomenal.

“And that passion can also be seen at the high school level. I don’t care what paper you are reading. On the day after the high school games, there are five or six pages devoted to it. They’ll get 20,000 to 25,000 people to a high school championship game.”

Florida drew about 63,000 people to each of its games in 1979.

“And we didn’t win any of those games,” Foley said. “We finished 0-10-1. But still, people would show up on a Wednesday to start tailgating for a Saturday game.

“People would plan their vacation schedules around the team so they could travel with them.”

Dave Hart, Florida State’s athletic director, thinks there are several factors behind the football interest.

“There is the talent pool,” he said, “the commitment to the programs, the leadership of people like [Florida State Coach Bobby] Bowden and the huge fan base.”

Bowden is one of many high-profile coaches who have led the state into the national spotlight. Others include Steve Spurrier at Florida, Butch Davis at Miami and a group before them that includes Jimmy Johnson, Dennis Erickson and Howard Schnellenberger. At the pro level, it began with Don Shula, an institution with the Dolphins, who was followed by Johnson.

Such coaching talent does not come cheaply. Spurrier makes $1.9 million a year, $600,000 more than Dave Wannstedt, who has succeeded Johnson with the Dolphins. In these heady days of Florida football, the money is flowing.

“Another factor in our success,” Hart said, “is the climate. Here you know that, in all likelihood, you will be able to go through spring football without a weather problem.”

At St. Thomas Aquinas High in Fort Lauderdale, that means a football program that doesn’t stay dormant for long. Next month, offensive linemen will gather to start preparing for next season a full three months ahead of regular spring practice.

College recruiters from all over the country now regard Florida football the way farmers regard rich soil.

“The Big Ten is all down in this area now,” said George Smith, football coach at St. Thomas for a quarter of a century, “along, of course, with the Big East, the SEC and a lot of other schools.”

Don’t forget the media hordes, Hart said. They have done their part.

“With all the 24-hour news and talk shows around now, the success of the Florida teams has further magnified the sport,” he said. “You have good high school teams, you have the successful college teams and now you have the pro teams having success. People read about or hear about it at one level, then they read about or hear about it at the next level. There is a consistent thread and it just further escalates the interest.”

No argument from Foley.

“[The University of] Miami was the team of the ‘80s,” he said. “Florida State is the team of the ‘90s. People like winners.”

And there may soon be more to like. Central Florida has had some recent success, and two more schools--Florida International and Florida Atlantic--are planning to begin football programs.

So eat your heart out, Texas. This state now has professional baseball, basketball and hockey, but there are some fans who would tell you that the three most popular sports in Florida are high school football, college football and pro football.

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Sunshine Stars

Of the 24 NFL players named to the Associated Press All-NFL team this season, nine played high school football in Florida:

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Player NFL team College Fla. hometown Warren Sapp, DL Tampa Bay Miami Apopka Trevor Pryce, DL Denver Clemson Winter Park Jevon Kearse, DL Tennessee Florida North Fort Myers Kevin Carter, DL St. Louis Florida Tallahassee Derrick Brooks, LB Tampa Bay Florida State Pensacola Ray Lewis, LB Baltimore Miami Lakeland Sam Madison, DB Miami Louisville Monticello Edgerrin James, RB Indianapolis Miami Immokalee Olindo Mare, PK Miami Syracuse Cooper City

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