The school’s varsity football program has launched a number of professional players, most recently Dominique Barnes, who played briefly with the Detroit Lions this year.
Though the 2007 graduate was cut by the Lions in August, he made it further in the sports world than most do.
Barnes tweeted, “Biggest thing about being in the NFL I’ve learned was handling adversity. When adversity strikes, keep going a little harder. Never give up.”
Besides Barnes, the football program launched the career of Derrick Summers, who graduated in 2006, and now plays defensive end for the Jacksonville Sharks.
Summers, who stopped by a recent Blue Jay practice to help out the team, said, “What you put (in football) is what you get back.”
Gabe Watson, who graduated in 2002, went on to play for the University of Michigan Wolverines, and then the Arizona Cardinals in 2006 but now plays for the New York Giants.
Two current staff members also had football careers beyond high school – math teacher Vernon Burden and Sociology teacher Vince Bean.
Burden graduated in 2000 and played for the University of Findlay in Ohio. After college, he moved on to arena football, which he played while teaching math at Southfield High. He says he plans to retire soon as a fullback and defensive lineman for the Saginaw Stings.
“Southfield introduced a structure of hard work,” says Burden. That structure helped him and others like him earn college scholarships with football careers.
Bean, who graduated in 1980, played ball for the University of Michigan and then the Arizona Cardinals.
Athletic Director Tim Conley says, “We’re just lucky to get these players. They could have gone anywhere, but they chose Southfield High.”
According to the NCAA web site, “Approximately 6 percent, or less than one in 16 of all high school senior boys playing interscholastic football will go on to play football at a NCAA member institution. Approximately one in 50, or 1.7 percent of NCAA senior football players will get drafted by a National Football League (NFL) team. Eight in 10,000, or approximately 0.08 percent of high school senior boys playing interscholastic football will eventually be drafted by an NFL team.”
And it’s a rare football player who then returns to his alma mater to teach and coach his former team, as both Burden and Bean did.