Jerry Rice

High school

B.L. Moor High School

College

Mississippi Valley State University

Pro team(s)

San Francisco 49ers, Oakland Raiders, Seattle Seahawks

Hall of Fame

⭐ Pro Football Hall of Fame

Jerry Lee Rice was born on October 13, 1962, in Starkville, Mississippi, the sixth of eight children of a bricklayer father who taught young Jerry hand-eye coordination by catching bricks tossed across scaffold. He grew up in the Crawford area and attended B.L. Moor High School in Crawford, Oktibbeha County, where he was a standout but virtually unrecruited wide receiver — no major college program came calling. Mississippi Valley State coach Archie "Gunslinger" Cooley visited the school, was stunned by what he saw, and offered Rice a scholarship. At MVSU, Rice put up numbers so extraordinary — 102 catches for 1,450 yards and 24 touchdowns in his senior year — that the San Francisco 49ers selected him 16th overall in the 1985 NFL Draft. Over the next 20 years, Jerry Rice compiled a career that is, by virtually every available metric, the greatest in the history of professional football at his position. He caught 1,549 passes — more than any player in history. He gained 22,895 receiving yards. He scored 197 receiving touchdowns and 208 total touchdowns. He won three Super Bowls with the San Francisco 49ers (XXIII, XXIV, XXIX) and was named MVP of Super Bowl XXIII. He was selected to 13 Pro Bowls. He was a consensus first-team All-Pro ten times. The argument for Jerry Rice as the greatest wide receiver in NFL history is not an argument — it is a consensus so complete that it functions more as definition than opinion. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2010 in his first year of eligibility. Born in Crawford, Mississippi.