Delaware
Who is Delaware’s all-time best high school football player? VOTE now
Delaware has had no shortage of football players who excelled at the high school level, sparking their teams and earning fans’ admiration.
The best of them went on to collegiate and pro success.
With the United States nearing its 250th anniversary of gaining independence, USA TODAY Sports will celebrate the 250 greatest American sports figures of all time.
At the root of that are the high school athletes who became familiar names in their schools, communities and the state of Delaware while making headlines with their athletic exploits. The USA TODAY Network hopes to first spotlight those individuals.
Here in Delaware, we’re compiling lists of the best players in several sports. We begin with football, which has long garnered the most attention.
These are our choices for Delaware’s 10 greatest football players, listed alphabetically:
Jamie Duncan, Christiana
Duncan was a central figure in Christiana’s rise to power. He was 1992 state Defensive Player of the Year after also being first-team All-State at linebacker as a junior in 1991. He also starred as a tight end and running back. At Vanderbilt, he was a second-team All-American linebacker in 1997 and made 425 career tackles while earning SEC Defensive Player of the Year. Duncan then appeared in 96 NFL games with 56 starts over seven seasons.
Chris Godwin, Middletown
The wide receiver sparked Middletown to the 2011 and 2012 state titles and was a state Player of the Year honoree. He then starred at Penn State, catching 154 passes for 2,421 yards and 18 TDs. He was a third-round 2017 draft pick of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Godwin was All-Pro in 2019 and won the Super Bowl after the 2020 season. He’s caught 612 passes for 7,626 yards and 41 touchdowns in nine NFL seasons, all with the Bucs.
Duron Harmon, Caesar Rodney
Harmon was state Defensive Player of the Year while sparking the Riders to the 2008 state championship. He then played in 50 games at Rutgers, starting his last two seasons and intercepting six passes while earning All-Big East at safety. Harmon was then a key part of the New England Patriots’ secondary, spending seven of his 11 seasons there and winning three Super Bowls. He played in 168 NFL games and had 24 interceptions.
Kwame Harris, Newark
Harris was the state’s most heavily recruited high school football player ever while being a three-time first-team All-Stater and Lineman of the Year. He went to Stanford and was a three-year starter and first-team All-Pac 10 choice as a senior. Harris was a first-round draft pick, 26th overall, by the 49ers and played 86 games with 55 starts in six NFL seasons.
Bilal Nichols. Hodgson
Nichols was All-State as both a defensive lineman and tight end for the Silver Eagles. He then was a three-time All-Colonial Athletic Association choice at Delaware, making 104 career tackles, with 17½ for lost yardage, in 44 games, along with three forced fumbles, two interceptions and several blocked kicks. The Bears chose him in the fifth round of the 2018 draft. Nichols has now played in 104 NFL games with 88 starts for Chicago, Las Vegas and Arizona.
Brian O’Neill, Salesianum
O’Neill was a first-team All-State defensive end at Salesianum and recruited to Pittsburgh as a tight end, which he also played at Sallies. O’Neill moved to offensive tackle as a red-shirt freshman and ended up starting 37 games from 2015-17 and was first-team All-Atlantic Coast Conference as a senior. A second-round 2018 draft choice, O’Neill has been the Vikings’ starting right tackle ever since.
Luke Petitgout, Sussex Central
Petitgout parlayed his stellar career with the Golden Knights into a scholarship to Notre Dame, where he started his last two years at offensive tackle. Chosen 19th overall by the Giants in the 1999 NFL Draft, Petitgout played in 117 NFL games with 110 starts over eight years with New York and another with Tampa Bay.
Darnell Savage, Caravel
Savage bounced back from a broken leg that cost him most of his junior season to rush for 1,298 yards and 13 touchdowns and make 54 tackles as a Caravel senior. He then started every game in the Maryland secondary from the season finale of his freshman year through his senior season, intercepting eight passes and making 182 tackles. He was then a first-round pick, 21st overall, in the 2019 NFL Draft by the Green Bay Packers. Savage has played in 97 NFL games with 83 starts in seven seasons, the first five with the Packers, and intercepted 10 passes.
Steve Watson, Saint Mark’s
Watson was a first-team All-State wide receiver for the Spartans’ 12-0 1974 state championship team. He then starred at Temple, catching 98 passes for a then-school-record 1,629 yards from 1975-78. The free-agent signee then had a prolific pro career with the Denver Broncos, making the Pro Bowl after the 1981 season, when his 13 touchdown catches led the NFL, and winning the Super Bowl after the 1987 season. Watson’s 353 career catches netted 6,112 yards and 36 touchdowns.
Randy White, McKean
White was just a second-team All-State running back at McKean High, though he also excelled on defense for the Highlanders. He then became a College Football Hall of Famer at Maryland and a Pro Football Hall of Famer with the Dallas Cowboys. The defensive end won the Outland Trophy as college football’s top lineman in 1974. Drafted second overall by Dallas, he was a 9-time Pro Bowl pick in 14 NFL seasons, getting 111 sacks in 209 games. White was MVP of the Cowboys’ Super Bowl XII win.
USA TODAY 250 for 250: Who do you think is the best of the best?
Contact Kevin Tresolini at ktresolini@delawareonline.com and follow on Twitter @kevintresolini. Support local journalism by subscribing to delawareonline.com and our DE Game Day newsletter.
A fire tore through a church in Wilmington, Delaware, leaving most of the historic structure in ruins.
Battalion Chief of the Wilmington Fire Department, Robert Pryor, told NBC10 that the fire broke out around 3 a.m. on Sunday, May 17, 2026, at the Mother African Union Church along North Franklin Street.
Pryor said the fire spread throughout the entire church, shooting flames 20 to 30 feet into the air.
It took crews over an hour to get the fire under control.
Wilmington Fire Department
Wilmington Fire Department
Wilmington Fire Department
Wilmington Fire Department
While firefighters battled the flames, they also evacuated the surrounding homes due to falling embers, according to Pryor. Those residents have since returned to their homes.
Residents in the area told NBC10 that they smelled the fire before they saw it.
“I looked up the street and the flames were higher than that steeple,” said neighbor Kathleen Brawders.
Wilmington Fire Department Wilmington Fire Department 
The building is now structurally unstable, and no one is allowed inside, Pryor shared.
The cause of the fire is now under investigation.
NEW CASTLE COUNTY, Del. – A Wilmington man was arrested and charged in connection with three armed robberies in New Castle County earlier this month, police announced.
What we know:
Michael Reynolds was charged on Friday with eight felonies, including three counts each of robbery and possession of a deadly weapon during the commission of a felony, according to the Delaware State Police.
The first robbery happened on May 3, at a Shore Stop on South Old Baltimore Pike in Newark. According to police, Reynolds walked into the store around 8:15 p.m., armed with a knife and wearing a mask. He demanded money from the clerk, police said, then walked off.
SUGGESTED: Multiple shootings, robberies and stabbings reported overnight in Philadelphia
The next robbery happened less than 24 hours later. Around 7:30 p.m. Reynolds is accused of doing the same thing at a Shell gas station on New Castle Avenue in New Castle. Police say he walked in with a knife and demanded money from the cash register.
After this robbery, officers were able to identify the suspect’s car, a white Ford Taurus, and appeared to find it in Wilmington. Officers tried to chase the car, but the driver got away. Police found the car abandoned.
Reynolds was arrested shortly after that. Once in custody, police said they connected Reynolds to “additional incidents” New Castle County that are currently under investigation.
What we don’t know:
Police did not say what those other incidents were.
The Source: Information in this story is from the Delaware State Police Department.
How AI can help you find a new apartment
Finding a new place to live can be an overwhelming task. These tech tips can help.
Problem Solved
Newly released data from Realtor.com for February shows that potential buyers and sellers in New Castle County saw lower home sale prices than the previous month’s median of $335,000.
The median home sold for $325,000, an analysis of data from Realtor.com shows. That means February, the most recent month for which figures are available, was down 3% from January.
Compared with February 2025, the median home sales price was up 2.2% compared with $318,000.
Realtor.com sources sales data from real estate deeds, resulting in a few months’ delay in the data. The statistics don’t include homes currently listed for sale and aren’t directly comparable to listings data.
Information on your local housing market, along with other useful community data, is available at data.delawareonline.com.
Here is a breakdown on median sale prices:
- Looking only at single-family homes, the $395,000 median selling price in New Castle County was down 2.9% in February from $407,000 the month prior. Since February 2025, the sales price of single-family homes was up 11.3% from a median of $355,000. Five single-family homes sold for $1 million or more during the month, compared with four recorded transactions of at least $1 million in February 2025.
- Condominiums and townhomes increased by 6.1% in sales price during February to a median of $255,000 from $240,360 in January. Compared with February 2025, the sales price of condominiums and townhomes was up 11.9% from $227,940. No condominiums or townhomes sold for $1 million or more during February.
About recorded home sales in New Castle County in Delaware
In February, the number of recorded sales in New Castle County dropped by 19.9% since February 2025 – from 347 to 278. All residential home sales totaled $101.6 million.
Across Delaware, homes sold at a median of $380,000 during February, a slight decrease from $381,000 in January. There were 631 recorded sales across the state during February, down 33.4% from 947 recorded sales in February 2025.
Here’s a breakdown for the full state:
- The total value of recorded residential home sales in Delaware decreased by 13.8% from $351.3 million in January to $302.8 million this February.
- Out of all residential home sales in Delaware, 6.18% of homes sold for at least $1 million in February, up from 4.01% in February 2025.
- Sales prices of single-family homes across Delaware decreased by 2.4% from a median of $410,000 in January to $400,000 in February. Since February 2025, the sales price of single-family homes across the state was up 4.2% from $383,757.
- Across the state, the sales price of condominiums and townhomes rose 3.1% from a median of $303,000 in January to $312,500 during February. The median sales price of condominiums and townhomes is down 6.7% from the median of $335,000 in February 2025.
The median home sales price used in this report represents the midway point of all the houses or units listed over the given period of time. The median offers a more accurate view of what’s happening in a market than the average sales price, which would mean taking the sum of all sales prices then dividing by the number of homes sold. The average can be skewed by one particularly low or high sale.
USA TODAY Co. is publishing localized versions of this story on its news sites across the country, generated with data from Realtor.com. Please leave any feedback or corrections for this story here.
-
Entertainment5 minutes agoHow Hollywood’s production crisis became a key issue in the L.A. mayor’s race
-
Lifestyle11 minutes agoFor Tory Burch, a 20-year fashion career is a sport driven by endurance, discipline and grit
-
Politics17 minutes agoCommentary: Californians on a confounding race for governor: ‘I haven’t … a clue who I’m going to vote for’
-
Sports29 minutes agoLoyola wins Southern Section Division 1 lacrosse championship
-
World41 minutes agoTerrorism scenario excluded following Modena car attack
-
News1 hour agoBus riders to Montgomery retrace old steps while fighting a new fight
-
New York3 hours agoVideo: Debris Falls Onto Car on Busy New York City Highway
-
Los Angeles, Ca3 hours agoLong Beach to hold new pride festival after previous one canceled
