OT: Greatest sports figures from your hometown?

Arlington Heights, IL: Brian McBride, Jonathan Spector, and Tommy Zbikowski 

Glen Rice, Mark Ingram, "The Flintstones", Claressa Shields, Chris Byrd... 

Romeo, MI: Kid Rock is the only person from Romeo anyone would know.  

So yeah...

My mom went to your school.  Muskegon High School class of '65. 

But back to the OP, I'm in Dearborn so I'm going to cheat a little and go just a couple blocks from where the city ends to claim Tyrone Wheatley.  I've driven past his high school many times. 

Gary Danielson also went to high school in Dearborn but I don't think I want to claim him. 

The Gronkowski family. They lived a few  houses down from my family. Chris was in most of my classes in middle school - he's actually fairly intellectual.  One of my friends lived in the house behind them.  Every summer, she would have a pool party for her birthday. And every summer, the Gronkowski's would jump fence and pelt us with water balloons starting a water war. ~15 girls vs Gronkowski brothers? No chance. It freaken hurt to get hit. And they were still kids then.

Jackson, MI. Tony Dungy and Antonio (sigh) Bass

That's about as good as it gets from Hudsonville, Michigan.

I live in Benton Harbor now and it was very cool to see Joique Bell get a TD for the Lions today (BH native and Wayne State alum). Wilson Chandler and Destiny Williams are also BH alums.

Emmitt Smith, Roy Jones Jr., Derrick Brooks, Justin Gatlin, Trent Richardson, Etc... Good ole Pensacola, FL.

Deion Sanders. Fort Myers, Florida

Birmingham michigan, shawn Conway. didnt turn out well

was a year behind me in HS in NY.

LaMarr Woodley. Brandon Graham. Ondre Pipkins.

LLOYD BRADY

J.J Putz

Washington, DC - Kevin Durant, Elgin Baylor, Sugar Ray Leonard

Tampa, FL:

Gary Sheffield, Hulk Hogan, Dwight Gooden, Tino Martinez. Probably some others I'm forgetting.

Clearly it's Carl Tabb/Jeremy Jackson, keeping the #17 Huron tradition alive.

Charlie Lau, Grant Long and Fred Russell were all, at one point, residents of Romulus. Actually, my grandfather was a childhood friend of Lau. 

That being said, I grew up in Saline and graduated two years ahead of Bobby Korecky, who went to Michigan and pitched for the Diamondbacks and Twins for brief stints. I think he is in the Blue Jays organization now. 

West Bloomfield, MI - Devin Funchess. Basically the same town and we want the funch is gona be Michigan's best TE in a very long time

Tony Scheffler, Chelsea Bulldogs.

Chipper Jones, mike gillislee(Gators running back) and Tra Thomas (probowl OT).

Saline, MI

Chris Baker (MSU TE, went on to play in the league for a bit)

Bobby Korecky - UM Baseballer, played in MLB for a bit

QB Sheridan

 a local teen became a legend when he scored four touchdowns in one game... the game winner over Spare Tire Dixon...

jdon

Goose Gossage and Vincent Jackson

Chuck Long. Wheaton, IL

I dunno. Joe Louis?

Buster Mathis Jr. (and Sr.), and Chris Kaman. Knew about Kaman, not the Mathii.

David Schmidt (Baseball)

Other notables,

The Dodge brothers (Auto)

Arron Montgomery Ward (Former Retail chain)

Tommy James (Music)

Derek Jeter and Greg Jennings

Rod Woodson, Anthony Spencer, Bernard Pollard, DaMarcus Beasley and Lloy Ball

Wait, I'm from Saginaw.  Brandon Graham?  Where is that coming from?  He was born and raised in Detroit.  You, sir, are disqualified.

The real Saginaw list is Woodley first.  Yes, Pipkins was here for a while.  I hate to give credit to former Spartans, but Jason Richardson made some money.  Numerous other players, many Spartans, did some nice things in high school/college (like Charles Rogers, DeAnthony Arnett, Stu Schwiegart) but haven't translated it into pro success.  Arnett may still do something special, but he made the same horrible mistake (turning down UM) twice.

Kenyon Martin was born here.  Sam Sword is from here as well.  Maurice Jones is from here.  Probably the least known because he's only 5'7", but he's very exciting to watch on the basketball court.  He's the point guard at USC.  Oh, there was also some Draymond kid here too.

For the Frankenmuth guy.....uh, Brad Redford?  Might be the closest thing you've got.

Joe Staley and Dathan Ritzenhein...Rockford. Oh and of course, Ben Braden.

Columbus, IN - Tony Stewart, Stevie Brown, Gunner Kiel

We have had two pro players. Jared Boll from the Blue Jackets, and Bryan Bulaga from the Packers both are from here.

Bay Village, OH - Brad Friedel

...Nick Sheridan?

Actually it's probably Chris Baker, the Sparty and NYJ TE.

Coach Hoke's daughter was in my graduating class though!  So can we claim him by proxy?

Ken Morrow, played hockey for team USA in 1980 and was part of the miracle on ice. Also won a few stanley cups with the New York Islanders i believe

Paw Paw, MI

Jason Babin- NFL 1st Rounder, Current Philadelphia Eagle

Don Moorehead- Michigan QB, 69-70

Charlie Maxwell- Former Detroit Tigers Great, Michigan Sports Hall of Fame

Born there or played their highschool career there?  Being from NYC I had no idea which athletes were from New York, so I looked it up and found that Michael Jordan was born in New York but moved when he was a little kid.  And then as I was reading further down the wikipedia list of famous people from NYC, I found that Vince Lombardi was born and raised in Brooklyn, so he's probably the biggest sports figure from my home town, no need to read beyond the "L"s.

Cincinnati

Ken Griffey, Jr., Pete Rose, Roger Staubach.

For the U of M from Cincinnati category: Barry Larkin, Vada Murray, B.J. Askew, DeHart Hubbard, Sam Stoller.

There's probably a few others I'm missing.

Johnny Wangs

Lapeer for the win! He's really all we have though. 

Despite going to MSU, Brad Van Pelt is without a doubt the most famous sports figures to make it out of my hometown.

I'm from Detroit this may be kind of hard to answer. Do you want to narrow this topic down to one sport. That might make it a little easier.

Jim Brown

Agree with Tony Dungy. Would add Dave and Mike Hill - both PGA Tour winners. John Hankerd played football for ND - does that even count?

San Anselmo, CA: Vernon "Lefty" Gomez; hall of Famer from the Yankees. Joe DiMaggio also used to play poker in my neighbors pool house, and OJ Simpson was held to just 50 yards rushing in 30 attempts at the local high school back in his day

Midland.  Backus.

Drew Miller is in my middle school yearbook but he moved I think in 7th or 8th grade.

Mark Messner was from here but he played HS football at Catholic Central, which I believe that Wyatt Shallman is actually from Hartland too. It's also rumored that Mike Modano lived in Hartland for a little bit while growing up.

Partial list:

Brent Alexander
Jerome Bettis
Kevin Brooks
Dave DeBusschere
Braylon Edwards
Larry Foote
Jalen Rose
Brian Sikorski
John Smoltz
Bob Welch
Chris Webber

Frank Zombo, and Pete Chryplewicz both from Sterling Heights Stevenson. I played with Frank for one year and he was our top WR and is now a 3-4 LB for the Packers.

Actually I think he was from Lambertville, but whatever. Same township.

Chris Morris (MSU center and currently playing for the Titans)

However not the same high school, as I went to Mona Shores.

I suppose you could also say that Ryan Van Bergen is from Muskegon.  His hometown, Whitehall, is only about 15 miles north of Skeetown.

Dhani Jones

Jason Hansen

Mark Rypien

John Stockton

Ryne Sandberg

Adam Morrison

No one's even heard of my hometown, let alone anyone famous coming from there...

You have Steve Morrison. At least he went to Brother rice. Dont know if he lived there.

I grew up in Oceanside, CA but went to high school in Reynoldsburg, OH so it would have to be Junior Seau and Mike Matheny

Derek Jeter , Greg Jennings, Lindsay Tarpley, T.J. Duckett and Adam Hall all have Kalamazoo roots.

Current: the brothers Bars, Brentwood, TN



Former: Matt House - DB coach for Pitt, Harrison, MI

DOWAGIAC MI!!!   Chris Taylor--NCAA Heavyweight wresting national champ and bronze metal in the 1972 Munich Olympics.  Was the heaviest Olympian ever until just a few years ago.

Dan Majerle, Tom Kozelko, Doug Mirabelli, Mark Brammer, Dallas Drake, ALL of the Bulloughs, Joe Kerridge. A bunch of white dudes from Traverse City

But a couple others from nearby podunk towns....

Rachel Sheffer, Watervliet (UM WBB starting forward)

Latonya Coates, Bangor (National HS softball strikeout leader with 1,999)

Anthony "Pig" Miller, Bobo Brazil, Wilson Chandler, Robert Whaley (the best that never was), Benton Harbor

Jason Babin, Paw Paw

I saw Greg Jennings drop 52 on one of BH's best bball teams ever his senior year.

Oh yeah, Kate Upton.

I went to high school and played football with Paul "the Assasin" Butcher.  He was a WR/DB, then went to Wayne State, physically blew up and became a linebacker/special teams player.  In the pros, he earned his reputation as a special teams kamikaze.  Madden put him on his All-Madden squad.  He played for the Lions, Rams, Colts, Panthers, and Raiders.

Side note:  I just learned that his son is an actor/singer and has appeared in quite a few shows.

Evan Jager, 2012 Olympian. We ran together in HS and now he gets a packed gym, cheerleaders and a band when he comes back home. Still crazy to think about, especially since it's all so new (the really blowing up part, he's been running professionally for a few years now).

Future hall of fame tight end Devin Funchess, epic starer and future quarterback terrorizer Mario Ojemudia, Drew Stanton and many more from Harrison High School. Not to mention Pam Dawber from Mork and Mindy.

Luke, Tyler, and Cody Zeller would have to be mine. Though I wasn't born there and they were, I did move when I was really little to there town though and I've lived there ever since.

Pro gamer from Grandville, Michigan

Richie Jordan and Wes Leonard, who's sad story you may have watched.

I'm from Garrett, Indiana... so Chuck Bavis, who played at Purdue and would have been a top 10 pick in the NBA if not for a drunk driving accident. He held some guy named Lew Alcindor to his lowest carreer points total in college.

Stamford, CT

Jackie Robinson

Desmond Howard, Elvis Grbac, Clark Kellogg, Andy Canniavino, David Lighty, London Fletcher, Mike and Bob Golic all went to my high school here in Cleveland.