The Greatest Athletes: Updating our picks for the best athletes in YAIAA history

Their grand accomplishments and impact still resonate over the past eight decades and more.

The greatest high school athletes in York and Adams counties history.

We are bringing back our York Daily Record project that we first unveiled in 2008: picking and ranking the greatest all-time athletes from each school in the YAIAA.

In creating these objective lists, on a decidedly subjective topic, we hope to honor the unique traditions at each school. And to celebrate the impact of high school sports in each community, which stretches beyond the athletes.

All the better if it creates some meaningful conversation and friendly debate along the way.

So how much has changed since our last update three years ago?

Maybe no list has re-shaped more than Spring Grove, which includes the only new No. 1 athlete among the 22 schools. (These various No. 1's range from 1942 to 2024 and include swimmers, runners, wrestlers and baseball players).

How we picked the YAIAA Greatest Athletes

Our criteria for each updated list (a Top 10 and five honorable mentions for each school) remains the same, in hopes of creating as even of a playing field as possible:

1. The only accomplishments considered were those achieved while competing in high school athletics. If an athlete earned a college scholarship, that was factored in.

2. Athletes who attended more than one local high school were only evaluated at the school where they had the most varsity success.

3. Female athletes were rated by how they dominated their own sports — not how they would fare going head-to-head against males.

Certainly, all lists are not created equal. York High's enrollment once stretched across the county and has fueled athletic teams for more than 100 years — once boasting a national-caliber swim program. In contrast, the York County School of Technology opened only about 50 years ago and has never benefited from any type of youth sports feeder system.

There are stellar athletes who did not make our lists. Some, for example, didn't own grand successes until leaving high school. Also, athletes from long-ago decades can be difficult to critique because of faded memories and a lack of records, statistics and proving opportunities — especially for females.

We welcome your feedback on how we did, once again.

So stay with us to remember and celebrate some of the best of times at your school, with the best who ever played.

Frank Bodani covers Penn State football for the York Daily Record and USA Today Network. Contact him at fbodani@ydr.com and follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @YDRPennState.