Who is the greatest football player from Maryland?

Let the debate begin.

As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, USA TODAY Sports will celebrate the 250 greatest American sports figures of all time. Alongside that national recognition, the USA TODAY Network will spotlight the roots of the country’s sports culture: the high school athletes and sports figures who shaped communities and defined their states. 

First up, we’re honoring the stars of the gridiron. Here are our selections for the football players who defined the state of Maryland. While accomplishments at the college and professional level undoubtedly influenced which standouts cracked the top-10 list, we are primarily looking to highlight those who starred at the high school level and dominated local headlines.

Now it’s your turn to pick the best of the best.

Be sure to vote in the poll below until it closes on Friday, May 15 at noon.

Print readers can find the poll at heraldmailmedia.com.

If you feel we’ve left somebody out, feel free to write in a candidate.

Tavon Austin, Dunbar

Austin led the Poets of Baltimore to three straight Class 1A state championships from 2006-08 and finished his high school career as Maryland’s all-time leader in career offensive yards (9,258), rushing yards (7,962), touchdowns (123) and points (790). He was a two-time Maryland Offensive Player of the Year and all-state first-team honoree. He played for West Virginia in college, totaling 288 receptions for 3,413 yards with 29 TD catches and rushing for 1,033 yards and six TDs. He was drafted eighth overall by the St. Louis Rams and played for six NFL teams over 10 seasons, finishing his NFL career with 244 receptions for 2,239 yards, 1,361 yards rushing, 1,934 return yards and 29 total TDs.

NaVorro Bowman, Suitland

Bowman starred as a linebacker and running back at Suitland in his junior year in 2004. He had 165 tackles, nine sacks and three fumble recoveries on defense and rushed for 1,200 yards and 22 TDs on offense. He was the Maryland Defensive Player of the Year and an all-state first-team honoree. He missed most of his senior season with an injury. He played college ball at Penn State, made the All-Big Ten team in 2008 and 2009 and was a second-team All-American in 2009. He was drafted in the third round by San Francisco in 2010 and played in 89 games with the 49ers and 10 with the Oakland Raiders over seven seasons, finishing his NFL career with 798 tackles, 14 sacks, seven forced fumbles, six recoveries and five interceptions. He made the All-Pro first team four times and was the 2013 Butkus Award winner.

Questions about Maryland Gov. Wes Moore’s military record have centered largely on the Bronze Star Medal — first on his 18-year-long false claim that he had received it, and then on the controversial circumstances of the award’s presentation in 2024.

But a Spotlight on Maryland investigation has uncovered unexplained gaps and delays in his training that also warrant explanation, according to military personnel.

Spotlight reviewed more than 38 pages from Moore’s official military personnel file, obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, along with his public statements and prior reporting. To interpret the records, Spotlight consulted with eight retired Army officers.

They say a series of irregularities within the records raises a broader question: Did Moore treat Army service as a ticket-punch from which to build a political career, despite the obligation he accepted when he took the oath of office as a commissioned officer?

A July 3, 2006, Baltimore Sun article quotes Moore as stating he had political ambitions and that a mentor and senior officer advised him that a military deployment would help his resume toward that objective.

When asked directly, Moore did not answer Spotlight’s questions.

The retirees who spoke with Spotlight include a retired brigadier general, a colonel and two retired lieutenant colonels, who also served as Army ROTC professors of military science — Moore was commissioned from a junior college ROTC program. They asked to remain anonymous out of concern that they would be doxed or attacked on social media for providing their professional opinions on an elected official’s military record.

‘Professional non-participant’

On paper, Moore served in the U.S. Army Reserve from Sept. 13, 1996, to Jan. 1, 2014 — 17 years, 3 months and 19 days. But an analysis done by Spotlight on Maryland concludes that, except for one roughly seven-month period of active duty for a deployment to Afghanistan, Moore’s record reflects what a retired brigadier general described as that of a mostly “professional non-participant.” This is an officer whose name remained on the rolls, but who did not fully meet the responsibilities expected of junior officers by the Army.

Moore did not respond when asked if he fully met those responsibilities.

The gaps in training begin near the start of Moore’s career.

Moore attended Valley Forge Military Academy and College in Wayne, Pennsylvania, for junior high, high school and his first two years of college, graduating in 1998 with an associate’s degree. While there, he participated in Army ROTC under a contract that required him to enlist in the Army Reserve. He enlisted on Sept. 13, 1996.

Because he remained an ROTC cadet pursuing a commission, he did not have to attend basic training. His military records also show the Army paid Valley Forge $25,626 in tuition over two academic years through an ROTC scholarship.

Valley Forge is one of four military junior colleges in the country that offers the Army’s Early Commissioning Program, which allows students to become reserve officers after two years of college. The commission is conditional under Army ROTC program requirements. Officers in this program are generally required to complete a bachelor’s degree at an accredited college or university within 24 months and then attend initial entry officer training within three years of appointment. Moore received his commission as a second lieutenant on May 11, 1998, while he was still 19 years old.

In a 2006 résumé submitted during his bid for a White House Fellowship, Moore would later write, “At 19 years old, I was the youngest U.S. Army Officer in 1998.” Spotlight was unable to independently verify that claim, making it one of the earliest examples of Moore’s story not being easily verified in public records.

Marion Military Institute in Alabama, Georgia Military College and the New Mexico Military Institute also commission 19-year-olds annually through the same Early Commissioning Program. Without commissioning records from all four schools for 1998, there is no way to establish that Moore was the youngest officer in the Army that year.

When asked how he knew he was the youngest, Moore did not answer.

Academic delays, missed training

In the fall of 1998, despite the claim he grew up in Baltimore made in his book, “The Other Wes Moore,” he moved to Baltimore for the first time to attend Johns Hopkins University and complete the bachelor’s degree required under the terms of his commission.

Army orders, obtained through a FOIA request, placed 2nd Lt. Moore in “delay status for a period not to exceed 24 months to complete requirements of a baccalaureate degree.” During that period, the Army was supposed to determine whether Moore would continue in the active Army, Army Reserve or National Guard; assign him to a branch of the Army; and set the date for his initial entry officer training, then known as the officer basic course.

That course is mandatory. All newly commissioned officers are required to complete branch-specific training. Depending on the branch, the course can run from 12 weeks to 19 weeks. For the Military Police Corps — the branch to which Moore was eventually assigned — the course is 18 weeks. Reserve and National Guard officers must attend in an active-duty status, meaning they are expected to pause civilian work or schooling to do so.

Records released by the Army verify that Moore could not complete his bachelor’s degree at Johns Hopkins within the Army’s authorized 24-month academic delay period.

At that point, Army regulations would typically require an officer to apply for a waiver to further delay attending his officer basic course by up to 36 months, the maximum delay time allowed by regulation. The Army has confirmed to Spotlight that no such waiver authorization exists in Moore’s records.

Moore did not respond when asked if he applied for a waiver or how he continued his civilian education beyond the Army’s authorized 24-month academic delay in military training.

It ultimately took Moore the full 36 months — from the fall 1998 semester through spring 2001 — to complete his degree at Johns Hopkins. At any point in the last 12 months of delay, which was never authorized, the Army could have forced Moore to pause his civilian education to attend his required entry-level military schooling.

It didn’t happen.

When Moore graduated in May 2001, retired Army officers Spotlight consulted said that he should have attended his officer basic course immediately, just as he had agreed to do, and had been ordered by the Army to do.

A review of Moore’s military education transcript from the Army Training Requirements and Resources System (ATRRS) confirms that Moore was registered to attend the officer basic course at the U.S. Army Military Police School with a report date of June 3, 2001. Moore’s ATRRS transcript also confirms that he never reported.

Spotlight asked Moore for any information that explains how he was able to sidestep this obligation. To date, Moore has not responded.

Instead, Moore turned to Oxford University, where he decided to attend graduate school after learning he had been selected for a Rhodes Scholarship in January 2001. He made this decision despite his military orders explicitly stating: “Academic delay for graduate study is not permitted.”

Retired officers Spotlight consulted point out that Moore’s decision to do this violated the oath of office, as he was failing to well and faithfully discharge the duties he willingly accepted when he was appointed as a second lieutenant in May 1998.

For a newly commissioned officer in Moore’s circumstances, the Rhodes Scholarship should have presented an obvious conflict.

The Army had already funded his first two years of college through ROTC. His orders authorized a delay time to complete a bachelor’s degree, not graduate study overseas in the United Kingdom. Yet Moore accepted the scholarship, and the Army told Spotlight it did not identify a waiver in the records that would have allowed Moore to further delay attendance at his Army officer’s basic course.

He departed for Oxford despite the plain language of his orders prohibiting a delay for graduate school.

Had Moore applied and the Army approved such a request, as governed by Army Regulation 601-25, it would have been an extraordinary waiver, retired officers said.

The Rhodes Scholarship is ordinarily a two-year commitment. That would have pushed Moore five years past his commissioning date and two years beyond the Army’s maximum allowed academic deferment for civilian education (that isn’t medical or law school related) of three years, with the last 12 months requiring a waiver.

Even then, Moore did not finish his Oxford master’s on the usual two-year timetable.

According to reporting in December by the Washington Free Beacon, Oxford confirmed that it took Moore nearly four and a half years to earn his Master of Letters (MLitt) degree.

Moore’s degree was completed in November 2005, while he was on active duty, but it was not formally conferred because he never submitted his thesis for publication in Oxford’s world-famous Bodleian Library, which, according to the Free Beacon, is a requirement for formal conferral by the college.

When asked why he missed military training for Oxford and how he attended school in the United Kingdom for up to four additional years without Army waivers, Moore did not respond.

‘Erroneous enrollment’

One additional curiosity from Moore’s Army ATRRS transcript is that there was an attempt to change his Army branch and enroll in a March 2003 Infantry officer basic course at Fort Benning, Georgia. The transcript indicates that Moore may have reported to Fort Benning but was quickly withdrawn from the course for an unknown reason. The code used for the withdrawal was “erroneous enrollment.”

Moore did not respond when asked why he was withdrawn from the course.

Army records confirm that Moore left Oxford before completing his graduate degree, so he could belatedly attend his mandatory Army training.

On Feb. 22, 2005 — six years, nine months and 15 days after receiving his commission — 1st Lt. Wes Moore reported to the U.S. Army Military Police School at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, to complete the basic course required to become a Military Police commissioned officer. It was nearly four years later than the Army’s maximum delay time allowed for.

Retired officers told Spotlight that, by then, Moore had become a sunk cost for the Army. Until he completed initial entry training, he was a non-branch-qualified officer and, therefore, a non-deployable asset while the nation was at war. That’s part of the reason they said an academic delay approaching seven years is unheard of. They agreed it was inconsistent with what they know about law, Army policy and Army regulation. And further agreeing, that even serving in a reserve unit performing part-time duty, an officer without formal branch training would have had limited value and little meaningful ability to lead troops.

Analogous to this would be having only a basic pilot’s license but being asked to fly a commercial airliner without having the appropriate follow-on certificates, ratings and flight experience that always accompany being an airline pilot. Moore had his Army commission and the Army’s pre-commissioning level of military education, but nothing more.

This is why any delay for civilian education beyond 24 months would have required written approval from the commanding general of U.S. Army Human Resources Command (then called Army Personnel Command – PERSCOM), and a delay beyond 36 months would have required annual extensions approved at the same level. The Army confirms that it did not identify such records.

At some point, the Army could have moved to separate Moore administratively for unsatisfactory participation and recoup the $25,626 spent on his ROTC scholarship. Under Army Regulation 135-100, newly appointed officers are required to acknowledge in writing that they must complete a resident officer basic course within 36 months of appointment or face discharge under Army Regulation 135-175 for failing to complete a basic branch course.

When asked how he had a seven-year academic delay without waivers or annual extensions, Moore did not respond.

Unanswered questions

Spotlight sent Moore a letter by overnight UPS, return receipt requested, on Feb. 25, asking six direct questions regarding his academic delay time and his inability to attend his officer basic course for most of the first seven years of his Army career.

The governor has not responded despite his communications team acknowledging receipt of the letter.

Those questions were:

Did you attend another Army branch’s Officer Basic Course before attending the Military Police course in 2005?

Did you obtain the waiver required to extend his original 24-month academic delay to 36 months while finishing his bachelor’s degree at Johns Hopkins?

Did you receive Army permission to disregard his commissioning orders stating that graduate study was not authorized and attend Oxford anyway?

If you did receive permission to attend Oxford, how long did the Army approve the delay before Officer Basic Course attendance could no longer be postponed — 12 months, 24 months or 36 months?

If the Army granted an extension, when did it finally tell you that no further delay would be allowed?

And did then-Maj./Lt. Col. Mike Fenzel [Governor Moore’s friend and mentor] intervene on your behalf in any way — including through his role at the time as a White House Fellow in 2000-01 — to help Moore obtain academic-delay waivers beyond the Army’s 36-month limit?

The Army has confirmed that, other than the initial authorized 24-month academic delay to earn a baccalaureate degree, no additional academic delay waivers exist in Moore’s records; and, to date, Moore has refused to explain how he was able to avoid attending his officer basic course within the required 36 months to attend civilian schooling.

This leaves two central questions in this first chapter of his military career:

How was a reserve officer commissioned in 1998 permitted to go more than seven years before completing the basic officer training the Army required him to finish within three?

And how did he manage to stay in the Army when the service would have been fully justified in separating him for unsatisfactory participation and considering recoupment of his ROTC scholarship?

Had Moore been separated from the Army Reserve, as some military experts think he should have been, he never would have been in a position to deploy to Afghanistan, an experience he has since used to shape his political identity, emphasizing leadership, service and the motto “leave no one behind.”

Drew Sullins can be reached at dpsullins@sbgtv.com. Spotlight on Maryland is a joint venture by FOX45 News, The Baltimore Sun and WJLA in Washington, D.C. Send story tips to spotlightonmaryland@sbgtv.com or call our hotline at (410) 467-4670. Follow us on X at @SpotlightMDNews, and on Instagram and Facebook at Spotlight on Maryland.