Every state has their own "hometown hero," that one person who conquered the odds and made it big. This individual could be a musician, actor, or poet — But today we're talking about all-star athletes. Top US Casinos recently compiled a list of the most revered athletes in each state in the country.
About one third of the states (17) ranked an NBA icon as their leading star, which makes basketball the leader in terms of state selections. Football stars also dominate the selection with 14 states. Here's how Top US Casinos compiled their data:
To reveal each U.S. state’s most celebrated sporting hero, we first collected data for each of the fifty states’ most successful and prodigious athletes from Bleacher Report. From here, we analyzed each athlete’s respective Wikipedia page to assess visits during a twelve-month period between March 2020-March 2021. The athlete for each state with the most page views during this period is considered their area’s leading hometown hero.
So, who's the best of the best from Missouri? Jayson Tatum. According to ESPN, Tatum was born in St. Louis on March 3, 1998. He joined the Boston Celtics in 2017 and was the NBA Eastern Conference Finals MVP in 2022.