WPIAL Players

Twenty Five players from the W.P.I.A.L. in the National Football League. There are close to 16000 high schools in this great country of ours that play football and 134 of those are WPIAL schools. There are 1696 players in the NFL on active rosters and 25 are from the WPIAL and 7 are from Woodland Hills HS, probably the most from one high school in the NFL. This is a tribute to what type of high school football that is played not only in this region but across the state of Pennsylvania. Western Pennsylvania has been famous for quarterbacks and there are 3 now in the league in West Allegheny's(Pitt)Tyler Palko with the KC Chiefs, Seton LaSalle's (Toledo)Bruce Gradkowski with the Cincinnati Bengals, and Steel Valley's(Eastern Michigan)Charlie Batch for our Pittsburgh Steelers, but wait there would have been a 4th but his family moved away because of a job transfer. This is Matt Schaub who was ticketed to go to Pittsburgh Central Catholic but played at West Chester, PA East(Virginia)and now with the Houston Texans. This small area of America is really pumping out the football players and a lot of the credit not only has to go to the players who work hard and love the game but to the coaches in this region who are preparing these high school players for college and beyond.