LeBron James isn't the only one with talent down in South Beach.
With National Signing Day drawing to a close late Wednesday afternoon, the city of Miami was the clear winner when it came to calculating which city in the United States had the most Division I signees. And it wasn't even close.
Despite being ranked the 42nd largest city in the country, Miami still managed to send 44 athletes off to Division I schools Wednesday. That number could rise since there were still a number of recruits who had yet to sign their national letters of intent.
No other city outside of Florida even comes close to Miami, including the largest cities in the country and the hotbed areas in Texas and California.
In fact the city with the second highest number of Division I athletes signed is Cincinnati, with 21. The Ohio town, which was recently ranked by MaxPreps as the
best high school football city in the United States, is only the 57th largest city in the country.
Meanwhile the largest cities in the United States, aside from those in Texas and Florida, fared poorly on signing day. The nation's largest city, New York, had eight signees among the various boroughs while Los Angeles had just seven. The No. 3 city, Chicago, had just two signees while No. 5 Phoenix had three, No. 6 Philadelphia had one, No. 8 San Diego had seven, and No. 10 San Jose had eight.
Dallas and Houston did the best of any of the major cities in Texas. Houston, the No. 4 largest city in the country, had 19 players sign while Dallas, the No. 9 largest city, had 16.
The rest of Florida also had an incredible day. Jacksonville, the nation's No. 13 largest city, had 20 players sign while Tampa, which ranks No. 54 in the country, also had 20. Fort Lauderdale, which ranks No. 126 in size, had 15 players sign while Orlando, the 80th largest city, had 14.
The only other cities among the nation's 100 largest with more than 10 players to sign were Memphis (ranked 19th) with 11 and New Orleans (ranked 53rd) with 16.
Among the top leagues in the nation, MaxPreps recently ranked the Greater Catholic League South in Ohio as
the toughest league in the country. However the GCS had just five players sign on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Florida's 6A District 13 had a whopping 23 players send in their national letter of intent.
Central (Miami) had a national best 14 players sign while
Northwestern (Miami) had six.
The second-best league in the country, as far as signings are concerned, was the AAAAA Region 2 in Georgia.
Stephenson (Stone Mountain, Ga.), which had the most players sign a national letter of intent in Georgia, according to the MaxPreps database, leads the region with 10 players signed. Stephenson has had 18 players sign a letter of intent the past two seasons combined.
Ten of the 6A districts in Florida had at least five players sign while four of the 5A districts had at least five, led by 5A District 16 with 12.
St. Thomas Aquinas (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) accounted for eight of those signatures.
In Texas, 14 of the 5A districts had at least five players sign. Five of those districts, located mostly in the Dallas and Houston areas, had at least 10. Districts 11, 6 and 4 all had 12 each. No team in any of the districts had more than four players sign.
Steele (Cibolo, Texas) is believed to have had the most signees in Texas with five, led by Texas signee
Malcolm Brown at running back.
In California, the Trinity League, the South Coast League and the Serra League are generally considered the three toughest football leagues in the state. However the Big VIII led the entire state for the most players signed with nine. The Moore League was second with eight while the Southwest Yosemite League of the Central Section had six. The Serra League had five players sign while the Trinity League had four and the South Coast League just three.
