Valdosta? Believe it!

I was very surprised that a city of just 43,000 people won ESPN's Titletown USA contest, but it does make sense once you learn what's happened there. Valdosta, Georgia, is home to two very successful high school football programs, as well as a strong Division II college program. The Valdosta High Wildcats have won 23 state championships, and crosstown Lowndes High Vikings have won three of the last four state titles. And the Valdosta State Blazers have two Division II national championships to their credit.

Of the other cities rounding out the top six, only Boston has more than one professional team, and only Boston and Green Bay have even one. Parkersburg, West Virginia, finished second. My lovely fiancee and I visited Parkersburg earlier this month, and it's a lovely town, but who knew of its robust sports tradition?

But this isn't a blog about southern Georgia sports, northern West Virginia sports or eastern Massachusetts sports, it's a blog about northeastern Ohio sports, and we had a horse in the race too. Massillon finished fourth, with 6.7% of the vote. (Columbus was in the running too, but didn't finish in the top six.)

The following was submitted by an ESPN user named "fgrahamiv":

Massillon, Ohio, is about an hour south of Cleveland and directly west of Canton, home of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Massillon is a blue-collar steel town where high school football has been played since 1894.

Massillon Washington High School has 780 victories, ranking third all-time in the nation, has 22 Ohio state championships and nine national championships.

Massillon has played its longtime rival Canton McKinley 116 times, with a record of 62 wins, 49 losses and five ties.

Massillon has a population of just over 30,000 with a stadium that holds 17,000. It is named after Massillon alum and NFL hall of famer Paul Brown.

The Massillon tradition is so strong that every newborn baby boy is given a miniature football at birth. Massillon has had 23 players go on to play in the NFL such as Horace Gillom, Tommy James, Lin Houston, Jim Houston, Denny Franklin, Steve Luke and Chris Spielman. Not to mention the godfather of football, Paul Brown.

A quote from Ron Maly, Des Moines Sunday Register: "In the beginning when the Great Creator was drawing plans for this world of ours, he decided there should be something for everyone. He gave us mountains that reach to the sky, deep blue seas, green forests, dry deserts, gorgeous flowers, and gigantic trees. Then he decided there should be football, so he gave us Massillon. He created only one Massillon. He knew that would be enough."

That's a little bit melodramatic, but hey, for a town of 31,000 to beat Boston, New York and Detroit in a national poll of this nature is pretty impressive. Congratulations, Massillon.

It seems a great number of the cities that finished high, did so on the basis of high school football. Valdosta, Parkersburg and Massillon are certainly on the list for that reason. As much energy as we spend following sports on the national stage, high school football may well be the most popular level of a single sport in this country. And there's something very cool about that.