Many professional players come from the ranks of the smaller schools and always have. It is said that with today’s advanced communication and media networks, every professional team is aware of every college player in the nation yet it seems as if the past two generations of players have come almost exclusively from the larger programs. “Draftniks” will immediately point to the first and third round players that were taken from Coastal Carolina or another “smaller school” while Hofstra alums will crow about the four or five NFL starters presently in the league but there were numerous players from what could be described as “truly” small colleges that played many seasons in the National and American Football Leagues and proved to be among the very best. There just aren’t as many in this day and age of enhanced communication and information exchange. Some of the small colleges and some of the Little All American players, as they were previously known, became huge stars and/or Pro Football Hall Of Fame members. Roosevelt Brown, Willie Lanier, Rayfield Wright, and Jim Langer come to mind but many universities and colleges can lay claim to a long tradition or a brief burst of a few years where they churned out a number of pro players or those of national recognition. Even ardent fans forget that Vermont, Yankton, and Parsons had viable teams and in the case of the latter two, at one time existed as institutes of higher learning.