Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Derrick Strong

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was Withdrawn - per Cbl62. Eagles 24/7 (C) 22:22, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Derrick Strong

Derrick Strong (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log) • Afd statistics

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Never played professionally, fails WP:ATH and WP:NSPORT. Eagles 24/7 (C) 20:12, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of American football-related deletion discussions. -- Eagles 24/7 (C) 20:14, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sportspeople-related deletion discussions. -- Eagles 24/7 (C) 20:14, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
• Preliminary comment/question. There have been 10 college football players nominated for deletion in a 20-minute span today by Eagles247. It will take time to research each of these. Can you confirm that, before nominating, you reviewed Google news hits to determine whether these players had sufficient coverage while playing college ball to meet general notability standards? Cbl62 (talk) 20:45, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

• Sorry about the mass-nominations, one user created all of these articles two years ago and I was looking through their contributions. Eagles 24/7 (C) 22:08, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

• Keep. College football players who have received non-trivial coverage in the mainstream media meet general notability standards even if they don't play in the NFL. In this case, Strong was a defensive end for a Big Ten team (Illinois). He later played three years of professional football for the Rhein Fire in the NFL Europe,[1] and also in the Arena Football League for the Columbus and Philadelphia teams.[2] Only a really extraordinary college player at the defensive end position (as opposed to an offensive backfield position) receives extensive news coverage of his college career. Strong received such coverage, including feature stories about him in mainstream media outlets. Examples include: (1) Healthy Strong ready to bust out, Chicago Sun-Times, September 18, 2003; (2) Coming on Strong: Illini assistant says junior; line's futures bright, The Herald & Review, Aug. 22, 2002; (3) Illini defensive end seeks Strong performance, The Pantagraph, September 21, 2002; (4) Illinois has Strong will to keep on fighting, The Pantagraph, November 4, 2003; (5) Strong pass rush keeps Illini positive, Chicago Sun-Times, September 27, 2002; (6) End feeling strong as ever: Illini expecting big season from lineman, The Herald & Review, August 13, 2003; (7) Strong powers defense: Caravan gets 2nd shutout in a row, Chicago Sun-Times, Nov. 7, 1999; (8) Scary thought: Mount Carmel's Strong getting better, Chicago Sun-Times, November 19, 1999; (9) Son of Chicago firefighter Strong, rest of Illini fighting to focus on football, The Pantagraph, September 2001; (10) Flared Tempers Spawn Shoves, Punches: Strong Reacts Angrily To Rooking Teasing Tradition, Herald-Journal, Aug 18, 2004. Cbl62 (talk) 21:23, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

• NFL Europe is not considered a professional league. All of the references you provided above are from local papers and every college football player who started for a team gets that kind of coverage. Eagles 24/7 (C) 22:04, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

• The Arena Football League in which he played is, however, a fully professional league. See Wikipedia:Notability (sports)#American football/Canadian football. And the references provided are from multiple daily newspapers, including several articles in the Chicago Sun-Times, which is one of the Top 20 daily newspapers in the United States. See List of newspapers in the United States. There is nothing in the general notability guidelines that says that coverage in newspapers such as this "don't count." They do count and should count. Just as the notability of a Chicago alderman or businessman may be established by coverage in the Sun-Times, so too is an athlete's notability established by coverage in major daily newspapers of the region. There may be grounds to discount coverage that is limited to a single, small-town newspaper in the person's home town, but that's not what we have here. Further, it's simply not true to say that "every college football player" who starts for a team gets the kind of coverage received by Strong. It is a very, very small percentage of college players who get this kind of widespread media coverage. 22:13, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.