McCoy and Shipley

As the college football season begins, much is being made of the relationship between Texas Longhorn players Colt McCoy and Jordan Shipley. This week, ESPN aired a feature on the two, and ran an article about them on its website.

The premise of these stories is simple: the two boys grew up together and now are one of the most powerful tandems in college football. Most people have heard the part about the two boys' dads playing college football together at Abilene Christian. But ESPN chose to focus on another aspect of their relationship: how growing up in small cities helped develop them.

Both the boys' fathers were high school coaches. McCoy played for his dad in Tuscola (just under 1000 in population) and now lives with his family in the summer in Graham (population 8700). Meanwhile, Shipley played for his day at Burnet (population 4700).

During the summers, the two boys would often get together and go hunting, fishing and camping.

According to McCoy, growing up in a smaller place helped expose him to the outdoors, and this taught him many important lessons: "I learned how to work. Hunting, fishing, working on the farm with my grandpa … I developed a passion for work and it carried over to the field."

And so the two most important players on one of college footballs most talented teams come from mid-sized cities in Texas. And the cities that produced the two young men can be proud. Click on the video below to watch the two as they talk about football, fishing and life.

Cities that produce kids like this are cities worth knowing about.

http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/fishing/news/story?id=4435439