
5 Colleges That Produce the Most Professi
onal Athletes
Most students earn college degrees to help launch careers, but many graduates admit that their f
ondest memories of school were formed in a stadium, not a library. Legi
ons of college kids b
ond together every year as they pack the seats in major venues like the University of Michigan’s "Big House" football stadium or Duke University’s Camer
on Indoor
basketball arena. The athletes who compete in those games can gain fame
on campus, and some of them even go
on to make careers out of their skill in handling a ball or puck.
To find the schools that produce the most professi
onal athletes, Forbes magazine recently counted the college affiliati
ons of sports stars in American men’s professi
onal football, baseball, hockey, soccer and
basketball leagues:
The University of Michigan. The college with the most active sports pros was Michigan, with 68 professi
onal athletes in the five major leagues as of 2008. The list is loaded with football players like champi
on quarterback Tom Brady of the New England Patriots, and goes
on to include
basketball players like Juwan Howard and hockey players like Marty Turco. Still, aspiring jocks should beware that the statistics are against them. The Wolverines award almost 6,500 bachelor’s degrees every year, which means that
only
one in every 1,000 students who graduated in the last decade is making his living as an athlete.