George Novak has a shelf in his office that is professionally built.

Every time one of the Woodland Hills football coach/athletic director's former players makes an NFL team, he puts the helmet of that NFL team on the shelf.

That shelf is looking crowded these days.

When defensive back Ryan Mundy earned a spot on the Steelers this year, he also made a spot in Pennsylvania high school football history for Woodland Hills. Four other former Woodland Hills players already were NFL veterans and earned roster spots again this season.

In the history of high school football in Pennsylvania, no other school has had five players active in the NFL at one time. And the NFL goes back to 1920.

Rich Vetock and Tom Elling of the Pennsylvania Football News recently researched every player from Pennsylvania who played in an NFL regular-season game. An examination of their records shows Woodland Hills has a unique party of five.

"That is crazy when you really think about it," said Steve Breaston, a receiver for the Arizona Cardinals and former Woodland Hills star.

In addition to Breaston and Mundy, the other Woodland Hills players in the NFL this season are Jason Taylor (defensive end) and Lousaka Polite (fullback) of the Miami Dolphins, and Shawntae Spencer (defensive back) of the San Francisco 49ers.

Mundy is in his first season on the active roster after spending last year on the Steelers practice squad. Breaston is in his third season, Spencer and Polite in their sixth, and Taylor in his 13th.

"I didn't realize how unusual this was, having five at once," said Novak, the only coach in Woodland Hills' history. "Another phenomenal thing, we've only been in existence for 22 years [this is the school's 23rd football season]. And the thing about these five is they're all great people and have given back to this community."

Listen to Breaston talk and you detect a great sense of pride in Woodland Hills. Breaston grew up in North Braddock, part of the Woodland Hills district.

"I'm proud of it," Breaston said of the NFL's Woodland Hills faction. "I played with Ryan growing up and even some with Lou and Shawntae in midget programs. It's a sense of accomplishment with all of us making it.

"I love where I came from. I talk about it a lot. I talk about my area. Not only am I playing for a lot of Cardinals fans out here [in Arizona], but you're also playing for the people back home in your community."

It's highly unusual for a Pennsylvania school to even have four players active in the NFL at one time, let alone five. Only five Pennsylvania schools -- three from the WPIAL -- have ever had four active at one time. In 1970, Butler had Terry Hanratty and three Saul brothers -- Bill, Rich and Ron.

Ambridge had four in the NFL in the 1950s -- Bob Gaona, Andy Miketa, Len Szafryn and Ed Ulinski.

Monessen had four in the early 1970s -- Eric Crabtree, Doug Crusan, Sam Havrilak and Bill Malinchak.

The only other two schools in the state to have four in the NFL at one time were Carlisle Indian School in 1922 and Harrisburg Tech in 1925. One of the Carlisle Indian School players in the NFL was Jim Thorpe.

This year, Woodland Hills is one of only six schools in the country to have five or more graduates on opening-day NFL rosters, according to USA Football. DeMatha Catholic (Md.) has seven. Woodland Hills, Carol City in Miami, De La Salle (Calif.), Roosevelt (Md.) and Glenville in Cleveland all have five.

Woodland Hills High School is located in Churchill and the district includes 12 municipalities -- Braddock, North Braddock, Rankin, Swissvale, Edgewood, Turtle Creek, East Pittsburgh, Chalfant, Wilkins Township, Churchill, Forest Hills and Braddock Hills. Some of those areas had rich high school football traditions 50 years ago.

A court-mandated merger of five school districts in the early 1980s formed Woodland Hills School District. The five districts were General Braddock, Swissvale Area, Turtle Creek Area, Churchill and Edgewood. When Woodland Hills High School was formed in 1987, it merged three schools -- Swissvale, Churchill and Turtle Creek (Edgewood and General Braddock already were closed).

One of the signature items of the Woodland Hills Wolverines football program has been the "winged" helmets -- the same style as the University of Michigan Wolverines, but with a different color scheme, black and turquoise.

"When you think about it, I think the one who really set the tone for all of us was Jason Taylor," Breaston said. "Just by what he has accomplished in the NFL and he's done so many great things, like giving back to communities. When you follow behind people like that, you're proud of them, but then you feel like maybe you can reach those great heights, too."

One other Woodland Hills graduate played in the NFL. Fullback Chris Edmonds played two seasons with the Cincinnati Bengals (2002-03).

As for the five in the NFL now, Novak said he couldn't distinguish one as the best player at Woodland Hills. But none of the five had a high school career like Taylor's.

Taylor was home-schooled and never played football until his junior year.

"He's a phenomenal story," Novak said. "In fact, I ran into him the first time when I was going home one day and he was mowing the lawn at a neighbor's house. I said hello to him and we started talking. He said he lived in the district and I said, 'Why don't you come out for the team?'

"He said he was thinking about it, but he was home schooled. I told him it didn't matter [because he lived in the district] and I told him to come to practice that night. He came to practice, ran a few pass routes and I said, 'Give him a pair of spikes. He's on the team.' The rest is history."

Of the five Woodland Hills players in the NFL, Breaston was the most ballyhooed in high school. In 2001, he and West Allegheny's Tyler Palko were the Post-Gazette co-Players of the Year.

Breaston was a quarterback and defensive back at Woodland Hills. He was 170 pounds then, with exclamation points for legs. He was one of the most exciting WPIAL players in decades. As a senior, he threw for only 600 yards, but rushed for 1,781 yards (11.4 yards-per-carry average).

Breaston was the master of the big play. As a senior, he had 33 touchdowns either running, passing or on punt returns. The average length of those scoring plays was 41.9 yards.

"When we went to our first game this year [in Wheeling, W.Va.], we put Steve's highlight tape on in the bus," Novak said. "It lasted a while."

With Woodland Hills football, there have been plenty of player highlights.