Famous Athletes from Jacksonville, Florida

Jacksonville has produced three Pro Football Hall of Famers, a first-ballot Baseball Hall of Famer, and Olympic medalists in swimming, track and field, and softball. The names most people know: Bob Hayes, Brian Dawkins, Harold Carmichael, Chipper Jones, Caeleb Dressel, Ryan Murphy, Chandra Cheeseborough, Derrick Henry and David Duval.

Two of those Hall of Famers went to the same public high school on the Northside. So did a two-time Pro Bowl cornerback, and a guy who led the National League in stolen bases six years in a row. Philadelphia has basically been running a Raines alumni program since 1971.

Here's the thing about Jacksonville sports talent. It rarely gets counted. Anyone fast out of Florida gets filed under Miami, and the 904 keeps stacking gold medals and gold jackets with nobody writing it down. So let's write it down.

Bob Hayes is the only athlete with an Olympic gold medal and a Super Bowl ring

Still the only one. Nobody has matched it in sixty years.

Robert "Bullet Bob" Hayes grew up on the Eastside and played backup halfback at Matthew Gilbert High School. In 1958 that Gilbert team finished 12-0 and won the Florida Interscholastic Athletic Association title, the first all-Black school in Florida to win a state football championship. Segregation meant almost nobody outside the neighborhood heard about it. The FHSAA didn't formally recognize the team until 2008. Fifty years later.

Then Florida A&M. Then Tokyo. At the 1964 Games he tied the world record in the 100 meters and anchored the 4x100 relay to gold, taking the baton four meters down and finishing three meters up. His leg was clocked at an estimated 8.6 seconds. People still argue about that number.

Dallas drafted him in the seventh round and he led the NFL in receiving touchdowns his first two seasons. He's widely credited with pushing defenses toward zone coverage, because putting one man on Hayes was a losing proposition. Super Bowl VI ring. Cowboys Ring of Honor in 2001. Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2009, seven years after he died in Jacksonville at 59.

Raines High School has as many Pro Football Hall of Famers as the University of Florida

Two apiece. One is a public high school on the Northside. The other is a flagship state university.

Harold Carmichael played quarterback at Raines and trombone in the band. He grew to six foot eight, walked on at Southern University, and the Eagles took him in the seventh round in 1971. He's believed to be the tallest wide receiver in NFL history. From 1972 to 1980 he caught a pass in 127 consecutive games, an NFL record until Steve Largent broke it. Four Pro Bowls, Super Bowl XV, and every major Eagles receiving record. He was never even a Hall of Fame semifinalist on the modern-era ballot. The 2020 Centennial Class finally got him in.

Brian Dawkins left Raines in 1991 with a state basketball championship, went to Clemson, and turned into "Weapon X" in Philadelphia. Nine Pro Bowls. Four first-team All-Pro seasons. He's the only player in NFL history with at least 25 interceptions, 25 sacks and 25 forced fumbles. The Eagles retired his number 20 in 2012 and Canton called in 2018.

Lito Sheppard came out of Raines too, led the Vikings to an undefeated season and a state title in 1998, went to Florida, and Philadelphia drafted him 26th overall in 2002. First-team All-Pro in 2004, two Pro Bowls, 19 career interceptions, three returned for touchdowns.

More than two dozen Raines alumni have played in the NFL. Six of them were honored on the NFL's Super Bowl High School Honor Roll, tied for second most of any high school in the country.

Vince Coleman went to Raines too, and stole 752 bases

Raines is not strictly a football school.

Vince Coleman graduated in Jacksonville, went to Florida A&M, and put up 65 stolen bases in 1981 to lead all of Division I. Seven of them came in a single game. The Cardinals took him in the 10th round the next year.

Then he led the National League in steals six straight seasons from 1985 to 1990, won Rookie of the Year in 1985, and made two All-Star teams. He finished with 752 career stolen bases, sixth on baseball's all-time list.

Caeleb Dressel and Ryan Murphy have 19 Olympic medals between them

Caeleb Dressel grew up in Green Cove Springs and swam for Clay High School while training with the Bolles School Sharks club in Jacksonville. Ten Olympic medals across Rio, Tokyo and Paris: nine gold, one silver. His five golds in Tokyo put him in a group of four with Mark Spitz, Matt Biondi and Michael Phelps.

Ryan Murphy moved to Jacksonville as a baby and graduated from Bolles in 2013. Nine Olympic medals: five gold, two silver, two bronze. He swept the 100 and 200 backstroke in Rio, then won both events at three straight U.S. Olympic Trials, which no swimmer had done before. Making the Paris team also made him the first athlete from Jacksonville or its neighboring counties since Dannette Young-Stone to qualify for three Olympics.

Bolles has also sent swimmers to the Games for Singapore, Italy, Austria, Jamaica, Guatemala and Peru. Joseph Schooling, class of 2014, won Singapore's first Olympic gold medal in the 100 butterfly in Rio. He did it by beating Michael Phelps.

Nancy Hogshead-Makar won three golds in one week, then rewrote how Title IX gets enforced

She moved to Jacksonville at 11 and came up through the Episcopal School of Jacksonville. By 14 she was ranked number one in the world in the 200 butterfly. The 1980 boycott cost her a first Olympics. She left home to train with Florida's program while still in high school and finished at Gainesville High, which is why you'll see both schools attached to her name.

Los Angeles in 1984 made up for it. She tied Carrie Steinseifer for gold in the 100 freestyle, the first tie in Olympic swimming history, then swam two relays to gold and took silver in the 200 IM. Four medals in five finals.

She has a Georgetown law degree, runs the nonprofit Champion Women, and Sports Illustrated named her one of the most influential people in the history of Title IX.

Ribault High School produced two Olympic sprinters

Chandra Cheeseborough set national high school records in the 100-yard (10.3) and 220-yard (23.3) dashes that still stand, partly because the federation switched to metric distances right after. She won two Pan American Games golds at 16. She made the Montreal Olympic team at 17. She qualified again in 1980 and got boycotted out.

Then Los Angeles: gold in the 4x100, gold in the 4x400, run less than an hour apart, plus silver in the 400. She has coached at Tennessee State since 1999.

Dannette Young-Stone followed her out of Ribault, ran at Alabama A&M, and made three U.S. Olympic teams. Gold in the 4x100 in Seoul in 1988. Silver in the 4x400 in Barcelona in 1992. Back again in Atlanta in 1996.

Chipper Jones went first overall out of Bolles

Born in DeLand, raised in Pierson. His family moved him about 95 miles north to The Bolles School, and he turned into the best high school baseball player in the state. As a senior he went 7-3 with a 1.00 ERA on the mound while hitting .488.

Atlanta took him first overall in 1990. Nineteen seasons, all with the Braves. A .303 career average, 2,726 hits, 468 home runs, the 1999 NL MVP, a batting title at age 36, and the 1995 World Series. He's the only switch-hitter in history with 450 home runs and a .300 career average.

Cooperstown took him first ballot in 2018 with 97.2 percent of the vote.

Jonathan Papelbon went from Bishop Kenny to 368 career saves

Born in Baton Rouge. His family moved to Jacksonville when he was nine, and he grew up playing first base and pitching at Bishop Kenny, where he was an all-city pick three times.

Oakland drafted him in the 40th round in 2002 and he turned it down for one more year at Mississippi State. Boston took him in the fourth round the next June, which worked out better for everybody involved.

He finished with 368 saves, six All-Star selections, a 2.44 career ERA and the 2007 World Series. He is still the Red Sox franchise saves leader and a member of their team Hall of Fame.

Jacksonville University put a 7-foot-2 center in the 1970 NCAA title game

Enrollment: 2,200. A few seasons earlier the school's entire annual recruiting budget was $250.

Artis Gilmore averaged 26.5 points and 22.5 rebounds, and Jacksonville became the first team in NCAA history to average more than 100 points a game. The Dolphins beat Western Kentucky, Iowa, Kentucky and St. Bonaventure, then lost to John Wooden's UCLA 80-69 on March 21, 1970. Ten thousand people met the team at the Gator Bowl anyway. JU is still the smallest school ever to reach an NCAA championship game.

Gilmore is from Chipley, not Jacksonville, but he's in the Naismith Hall of Fame and he stayed in town.

Two JU guards from Jacksonville made the NBA and both had their numbers retired by the school. Otis Smith came out of Forrest High School, played six NBA seasons, and later ran the Orlando Magic as general manager. Dee Brown went to Bolles, went 19th overall to the Celtics in 1990, and won the 1991 Slam Dunk Contest with the no-look dunk that turned Reebok Pumps into a national event.

Derrick Henry needed ten NFL seasons to out-rush his high school career

Yulee sits in Nassau County, about 25 minutes north of downtown.

Henry ran for 12,124 yards there and broke a national record that had stood for 59 years. As a senior he put up 4,261 yards and 55 touchdowns, averaging 327.8 rushing yards a game. He once ran for 510 against Jacksonville's Jackson High, a state record.

Then Alabama, the SEC single-season rushing record, the 2015 Heisman, and a national title. Then Tennessee and Baltimore. In November 2025, in his tenth pro season, he ran 75 yards against Minnesota and finally passed his own high school total.

Tim Tebow's Jacksonville story is more complicated than the version people tell

His family lived on a farm in Duval County. He was homeschooled and never enrolled in a high school at all.

He first played tight end for Trinity Christian Academy in Jacksonville. Then he and his mother moved into an apartment in St. Johns County so he could play quarterback at Nease, using a 1996 Florida law that lets homeschooled students play for the public school in their district.

It worked. State title as a senior, Florida's Mr. Football, then two national championships at Florida and the 2007 Heisman, which made him the first sophomore ever to win it. Denver drafted him 25th overall in 2010. He later played minor league baseball in the Mets system and signed with the Jaguars as a tight end in 2021 without making the regular season roster.

Rashean Mathis is still the Jaguars' all-time interception leader

Born in Nashville, Georgia. Raised here. A two-sport star at Englewood High School who broke his leg his senior year after eight interceptions in six games, which sent the big programs elsewhere and sent him to Bethune-Cookman.

He picked off 14 passes in 2002. That's still the FCS single-season record. He won the Buck Buchanan Award as the best defensive player in Division I-AA, then his hometown team drafted him 39th overall in 2003.

Ten seasons in Jacksonville. A Pro Bowl and first-team All-Pro nod in 2006 off a franchise-record eight interceptions. Thirty career picks that no Jaguar has touched since. He signed a one-day contract to retire in teal in 2016 and was elected to the Black College Football Hall of Fame in December 2024.

Mathis is one of the few people on this list who did the whole thing at home: local high school, in-state HBCU, hometown team. He's also the reason a nonzero number of Jaguars game day closets in Duval still have a 27 hanging in them.

Golf, racing, soccer and softball

David Duval grew up in Jacksonville and graduated from the Episcopal School of Jacksonville in 1989, the same year he won the U.S. Junior Amateur. Thirteen PGA Tour wins between 1997 and 2001. Fifteen weeks at world number one. A 59 at the Bob Hope in 1999, closed out with an eagle to win. Then the 2001 Open Championship at Royal Lytham, three shots clear.

LeeRoy Yarbrough won his first race at Jacksonville Speedway at 16, in a 1933 Ford he built himself. In 1969, driving for Junior Johnson, he won seven races including the Daytona 500, the World 600 and the Southern 500, the first driver ever to take all three in one season. Crash injuries ended his career three years later. NASCAR has named him to both its 50 Greatest and 75 Greatest Drivers lists.

Carson Pickett won three state championships at St. Johns Country Day in Orange Park and Florida's Gatorade Player of the Year award in 2012. At Florida State she anchored a defense that gave up zero goals across the entire 2014 NCAA tournament and won the program its first national title. In June 2022 she became the first player with a limb difference to appear for the U.S. Women's National Team, and she played all 90 minutes of a 2-0 win over Colombia.

Michelle Moultrie learned the game at the Mandarin Sports Association, played at Mandarin High School, and walked on at Florida with almost no recruiting interest. She left as the Gators' career batting average record holder and the 2012 SEC Player of the Year. In Tokyo she became the first Jacksonville-area player to medal in Olympic softball.

Athletes Jacksonville can't quite claim

A few names get attached to this city in almost every list online. They shouldn't be.

• Vince Carter is from Daytona Beach and played at Mainland High School.
• Bobby Bowden coached at Samford, West Virginia and Florida State, and lived in Tallahassee. The Jacksonville connection is the Gator Bowl, where he coached his last game on January 1, 2010.
• Larry Csonka was born in Ohio and made the Hall of Fame in Miami. He did run the USFL's Jacksonville Bulls in the mid-1980s, first as scouting director and then as general manager.
• Jim Furyk is from Pennsylvania. He has lived in Ponte Vedra Beach for decades and captained a Ryder Cup team from here, but he grew up outside Lancaster.
• Fred Taylor grew up in South Florida. He's the Jaguars' all-time leading rusher with 11,271 yards and has been a Hall of Fame semifinalist seven straight years, but he isn't from here.

Quick reference: the Jacksonville sports roster

Athlete	School	Sport	The headline
Bob Hayes	Matthew Gilbert	Track / NFL	Only athlete with an Olympic gold and a Super Bowl ring
Harold Carmichael	Raines	NFL	Pro Football HOF 2020, 127 straight games with a catch
Brian Dawkins	Raines	NFL	Pro Football HOF 2018, nine Pro Bowls
Lito Sheppard	Raines	NFL	First-round pick, All-Pro in 2004
Vince Coleman	Raines	MLB	752 steals, 1985 NL Rookie of the Year
Chipper Jones	Bolles	MLB	Baseball HOF 2018, 1999 NL MVP
Jonathan Papelbon	Bishop Kenny	MLB	368 saves, 2007 World Series, six All-Star nods
Caeleb Dressel	Clay	Swimming	Nine Olympic golds
Ryan Murphy	Bolles	Swimming	Nine Olympic medals across three Games
Joseph Schooling	Bolles	Swimming	Singapore's first Olympic gold
Nancy Hogshead-Makar	Episcopal	Swimming	Three golds and a silver in 1984
Chandra Cheeseborough	Ribault	Track	Two relay golds in one hour, 1984
Dannette Young-Stone	Ribault	Track	Three Olympic teams, gold in 1988
Derrick Henry	Yulee	NFL	2015 Heisman, national high school rushing record
Tim Tebow	Nease	NFL	2007 Heisman, first sophomore to win it
Rashean Mathis	Englewood	NFL	Jaguars' all-time interception leader
Artis Gilmore	Jacksonville University	NBA	Naismith HOF, 1970 NCAA title game
Dee Brown	Bolles / JU	NBA	1991 Slam Dunk champion
Otis Smith	Forrest / JU	NBA	Six NBA seasons, later Magic GM
David Duval	Episcopal	Golf	World No. 1, 2001 Open Championship
LeeRoy Yarbrough	Jacksonville	NASCAR	First Triple Crown season, 1969
Carson Pickett	St. Johns Country Day	Soccer	First USWNT player with a limb difference
Michelle Moultrie	Mandarin	Softball	Olympic silver, Tokyo 2020

Yulee put a sign at the city limits that reads "Welcome to Yulee, Home to Derrick Henry, 2015 Heisman Winner." Raines has two Hall of Famers, a Rookie of the Year and a stolen base king, and no sign at all.

Want the rest of the roster? We keep a running list of famous people from Jacksonville and the musicians who came out of here too.