???Buffalo is a hockey town.
???Patrick Kane. Patrick Kaleta. Todd Marchant. Each of these players define those whose hockey roots stemmed from the Buffalo area.
???They played for area high schools, developed as they went to college and then entered the National Hockey League and began to make positive impacts on their team.
???Buffalo-bred football players? Not so much... until now.
???The Bulls football team is currently in first place in the Mid-American Conference East Division and is bowl-eligible for the first time since joining Division I-A, thanks to what head coach Turner Gill has done for the program.
???Along with bringing the team to highs it has never experienced before, Gill has done something that no coach has ever done before: he's making his players look good. Scary good.
???After Thursday's game against Akron, three Bulls are at the top of the Division-I A rankings regarding a variety of statistics.
???Junior wide receiver Naaman Roosevelt is 17th in the nation in receiving yards, earning an average of 95.40 yards per game. ???Junior running back James Starks is currently fifth in the nation in running yards, running an average of 128.50 yards per game, while sophomore cornerback Domonic Cook is currently second in the nation with his four fumble recoveries.
???What's the catch? They are all Western New York-bred football players.
???"That's showing you that there's talent in Buffalo," head coach Turner Gill said. "That's the nation, it's not just the MAC. These are young guys and they still will be an instrumental part of our football team."
???The play of these three men only show the talent that is in the Buffalo area, whether it is underdeveloped or otherwise. If the area put more emphasis on football like it does hockey, perhaps there'd be more big names pushing through NCAA football and beyond.
???Take the Harvard Cup League, for example. The Buffalo Public School District's joke of a high school league draws little to no attention in WNY, while suburban and Catholic schools take the forefront. I only say this because I, myself, played in the league in high school.
???There was little, if any, media coverage. The league was barely looked at. There was never over a few hundred fans at a game, if that, with the exception of the Harvard Cup game on Thanksgiving Day. The game was the only one in town.
???During my tenure on the South Park Sparks, our team was fortunate enough to play against Mike Williams of the Riverside Frontiers. The 6-foot-2-inchWilliams was a terror on the field, with 970 receiving yards and 15 touchdowns in his senior year. The dismal Syracuse Orange picked him up and, after fumbling academics, he swiftly left the school.
???If the poor school district could make athletics mean something for once, perhaps the Harvard Cup League, like its suburban brothers, could mean something in the world of collegiate sports.
???Perhaps years from now, the Bulls could have even more players from the city of Buffalo helping the team become bowl-eligible again and again and again.
Perhaps.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
