John Reaves

He was a first-round pick in the 1972 NFL draft, and played professionally for the Philadelphia Eagles, Cincinnati Bengals, Minnesota Vikings, Houston Oilers, and Tampa Bay Buccaneers of the NFL, and the Tampa Bay Bandits of the USFL. Reaves was born in Anniston, Alabama, in 1950, and moved to Tampa, Florida, with his mother and grandmother after his father died when he was 9 years old. He attended T.R. Robinson High School in Tampa, where he was a star high-school football quarterback for the Robinson Knights. As a senior in 1967, he led the Knights to the Florida Class 2A football semifinal game before losing to the Coral Gables Cavaliers, who won the state championship and were ranked as the national champions afterward. Reaves was lauded as the State Player of the Year. He also played basketball and baseball and ran track for the Knights, and once scored 52 points in a high-school basketball game. In 2007, 39 years after he graduated from high school, the Florida High School Athletic Association recognized Reaves as one of the "100 Greatest Players of the First 100 Years" of Florida high school football. After graduating from high school, Reaves accepted an athletic scholarship to attend the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, and played quarterback for coach Ray Graves and coach Doug Dickey's Gators football teams from 1969 to 1971.