In celebration of America’s semiquincentennial this year, Sports Illustrated set out to name the five best athletes from each of the 50 states, culminating in a list of 250 names in honor of our 250th anniversary.
Editors unearthed an SI project that was featured in our Dec. 27, 1999, issue. At that point, we set out to acknowledge our homegrown talent by ranking the 50 best athletes from each of the 50 states. While the ’99 list acknowledged coaches solely for their clipboard skills, our 2026 version focuses on athletes only. Athletes were considered for each state based on the following criteria:
