Columbus has the No. 1 NFL Draft pick this year, can it add a top-3 NBA pick?

The Miami Columbus High School that Naismith Player of the Year Cameron Boozer and Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza attended looks quite different from the one former All-State defensive end Carter Burrus stepped into during the school’s second year in 1959.

“There was no football field here until my senior year. We had to carpool to Coral Park, where we practiced in a cow pasture,” said Burrus, who became the first Columbus alumnus to win a college national championship with Michigan State in 1965. “When we finally got a field, it wasn’t a very nice one. You didn’t want to tackle because you’d fall down on all these rocks and get beat up.”

After graduating, Burrus rushed back to Miami to become the first Columbus graduate to return and teach at the school, where he still works today.

That pipeline has since become a long-standing tradition, with more than half of Columbus’ faculty made up of alumni.

“When you graduate from Columbus, it’s like being baptized,” Burrus said. “That’s who you are. That’s your brand. That’s your identity.”

The cow pasture and rock-covered field he remembers have been replaced by a multimillion-dollar training facility, rosters loaded with Division I prospects and freshman, junior varsity and varsity teams.

But as Boozer gets ready for a projected top-three selection in the NBA Draft beginning Tuesday, his foundation at Columbus still traces back to the same hard-nosed culture instilled in the school nearly seven decades ago.

“I don’t think people understand the amount of work he puts in,” said Boozer’s former Columbus head coach Andrew Moran, now an assistant coach and director of player development at the University of Miami. “He never paid attention to the rankings, just the preparation and the work.”

Culture of competition

Columbus recently became the first known high school to produce a Heisman Trophy winner and a Naismith Men’s College Player of the Year in the same college sports year, while joining Helix High School in La Mesa, California, as one of two high schools to produce winners of both awards overall.

Comb through the school’s history, and it becomes easier to see how a school with an enrollment of about 1,700 students achieved such a feat.

John Lynskey served as the captain of Columbus’ football team in 1978 and has served in a variety of roles ranging from administrator, coach and teacher to his current role as ambassador of alumni relations.

“There’s a sense of competition for everything. Whether it’s seeing who can eat the most slices of pizza, or who can run to the bathroom the fastest,” Lynskey said. “It carries over to life. Columbus guys love to compete. It doesn’t just have to be on the field. It could be in the courtroom, the boardroom…”

Originally, the small private school with a roster barely more than 30 players was no match for local public schools like Miami Southwest, Miami High or Coral Gables, national powerhouse that fielded rosters close to 100 players.

“We didn’t have a lot of depth or great skill kids. But nobody wanted to play Columbus,” Lynskey said. “They knew they might win on the scoreboard, but they would get absolutely pummelled on the field.”

That mind-set might not have helped in the standings, but the football team’s toughness laid a foundation for success across the school’s athletic programs.

Dennis Lavelle arrived as an assistant coach in 1972 and ushered in a new era of success after becoming the head coach in 1982, lasting until 1999.

As talent slowly rolled in, with players such as future University of Miami defensive end Alonzo Highsmith and fellow future Cane Julio Cortes, the same grit became paired with skill and athleticism, and the Explorers started to win.

In 1982, Lavelle guided Columbus to a state championship appearance and continued evolving the program into a perennial district contender, with players such as future Miami head coach Mario Cristobal, his brother Luis, both former Hurricanes, and future Michigan and NFL quarterback Brian Griese.

While the success started to pile up, the program’s daily standard stayed the same.

“It was a Wednesday, and this big-time recruiter was here. We were going 1-on-1s, full-contact scrimmage. And the guy looks at me and goes, ‘Dude, what the heck are you doing? Don’t you play on Friday?’” Lavelle said. “I told him to shut up and get away from me. That’s how we do it here.”

The new era

The Explorers have since won state championships in baseball, basketball, bowling, cross-country, football, golf, soccer, tennis, track and field and volleyball, building one of the state’s most decorated boys’ athletic programs.

Most prominently, the basketball program has become a national power, winning five consecutive state titles from 2022 to 2026, capturing the 2025 Chipotle National championship and producing several blue-chip prospects beyond the Boozer twins, including Jase Richardson, Caleb Gaskins and Jaxon Richardson.

Before Moran accepted the head coaching position at Columbus in 2019, the program had never reached a state championship game. But as a well-known trainer throughout South Florida and the founder of Miami Hoop School, Moran arrived with a clear vision and enough connections in the local basketball scene to believe Columbus could become more than a strong local program.

“Columbus is a unique place with so much support from the alumni and the school itself. I knew it was a place where you could have a lot of success. Our vision was to compete nationally,” Moran said. “When the Boozers showed up, they shared the same crazy idea. We took it one step at a time, and we reached about every goal that we set for ourselves.

That vision aligned with what the Boozer family was looking for when they evaluated schools for Cameron and Cayden.

“It was an incredible opportunity to build something unique,” their mother CeCe Boozer said. “Our decision to send them to Columbus was multifaceted, and we put education and athletics above all.”

The standard at Columbus has continued beyond the Boozers, with five-star forward Caleb Gaskins recently signing with Miami as the second-highest-rated recruit in Hurricanes program history. A transfer from Montverde Academy, Gaskins arrived at Columbus already regarded as one of the country’s top prospects. But his mother, Larnette Ramsey, said the most significant change she noticed was not in his ranking, but in the way he grew after feeding off the school’s intense discipline.

“I’ve watched his leadership grow at Columbus,” Ramsey said. “To see him grow from a quiet kid to somebody who roars at his teammates on the floor makes you feel confident about his future as a young man.”

Standard remains the same

Dave Dunn served as the head football coach at Columbus from 1999 to 2000 before stepping away to coach in the collegiate ranks, then returning in 2019 and leading the Explorers to their first state championship.

Dunn, the only member of his staff who did not play at Columbus, credits the program’s continuity to the former Explorers around him who make sure it does not drift too far from what it has always been.

“People come for football, but they stay for the brotherhood,” Dunn said. “The buy-in from the guys that have played here is tremendous. The support is unmatched.”

“Nobody can spread the mission like people that walked the halls and played sports here,” said athletic director They understand what’s expected of everybody. It’s been invaluable.”

Now, as Boozer prepares to hear his name called near the top of Tuesday’s NBA Draft and Mendoza gets ready for his first NFL season with the Raiders after becoming the No. 1 overall pick, Columbus’ national profile has never been bigger.

The formula, though, can’t be found in the banners, facilities or recruiting rankings.

It’s found in the standard passed down by those who actually lived it.

“It can’t be explained,” Lynskey said. “It can only be experienced.”

This story was originally published June 22, 2026 at 3:03 PM.