Calling all heroes (Top 10 sports heroes of all time)

ESPN ^ | April 26, 2003

[Mr. Mulliner]

Calling all heroes

They're the best of the best, exemplifying all the courage and nobility and genius and hard work and modesty and ambition and humility and grace that can be displayed in modern American sports. They're the ones we really want to be like when the going gets tough, they're the ones we want to show our sons and daughters and say, "See? See?" They all had flaws, we know -- they were, despite some signs to the contrary, human. And they're Page 2's greatest sports heroes of all time.

1. Jackie Robinson

It wasn't what Jackie did as much as the way Jackie did it -- bearing up under the pressure of breaking baseball's color barrier with dignity and class and some damn great ballplaying. And, like few others before or since, he became bigger than the game itself, an American treasure in his own right. Said AL President Gene Budig in 1997, "He led America by example. He reminded our people of what was right and he reminded them of what was wrong. I think it can be safely said today that Jackie Robinson made the United States a better nation."

2. Babe Ruth

Babe was, quite simply the American sports icon of The American Century, a mythic hero who would have had to be invented had he not been flesh and blood. Out of the mouth of Pete Rose, in 1992, came the truth: "If Babe Ruth had been a soccer player, soccer would be our national pastime."

3. Vince Lombardi

Lombardi was voted the greatest coach of all time by ESPN's SportsCentury panel, but he was so much more. During the turbulent 1960s, he became a symbol of all that was right with the old-fashioned, "square" ways. A tough guy, an emotional man, one who inspired great loyalty among his players. Quite simply, the best boss there ever was.

4. Muhammad Ali

Ali was "The Greatest" during his boxing career, but it was after his boxing days were done that he secured his legend as a great American man. Was there ever a more moving moment in sports than when he lit the flame to open the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta? Ailing with Parkinson's, Ali has faced his long physical decline with the kind of courage and grace and humor that have made him not just admired, but truly beloved. Said Pres. Bill Clinton to Ali after the torch-lighting ceremony, "They didn't tell me who would light the flame, but when I saw it was you, I cried.'"

5. Johnny Unitas

A great quarterback, we all know. The greatest ever, probably. But more simply, an admirable man who honored the sports world by being part of it. "He was the kind of man," said Cardinal William H. Keeler at Unitas' funeral, "who would shake the hand of a homeless person and say to that person it was an honor to shake his hand."

6. Nile Kinnick

We're reminded of the legacy of a young man who died too young at the start of every Big 10 football game. The coin that's tossed bears Kinnick's likeness, and it's only one of many tributes to the great Iowa football star and war hero that are scattered around his home state. When he won the Heisman in 1939, he said, famously, "I thank God I was warring on the gridirons of the Midwest and not on the battlefields of Europe." A few years later, Kinnick was killed on a training flight, serving his country in that same war. He had turned down a lucrative pro contract from the NFL's Brooklyn Dodgers to attend law school, and many expected him to eventually become president.

"This country is O.K. as long as it produces Nile Kinnicks," wrote Bill Cunningham in the Boston Globe, shortly after Kinnick took home the Heisman. "The football part is incidental."

7. Magic Johnson and Larry Bird

These men made their pro basketball homes on opposite coasts -- one in glamorous L.A., the other in old, work-a-day Beantown, but the 3,000 miles didn't separate them in our minds. Take your pick -- Magic's infectious good humor and enthusiasm and, when it all came crashing down, courage. Larry's hard-scrabble, Midwest, get-it-done can-do everyman attitude. It's impossible. They're heroes bound together by time, and by a sport, and by exhibiting complementary qualities that added up to greatness both on and off the court.

8. Joe DiMaggio

"Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio, our nation turns its lonely eyes to you … " Would any other player, in any sport, have worked in that great line from Simon and Garfunkel's "Mrs. Robinson"? No way. Even though lots of ugly things about Joe's life have come out lately, his fame and heroic stature may be equaled, but never topped. DiMaggio, wrote Page 2's David Halberstam in "Summer of '49, " was "the perfect Hemingway hero, for Hemingway in his novels romanticized the man who exhibited grace under pressure, who withheld any emotion lest it soil the purer statement of his deeds."

9. Billie Jean King

She was the best tennis player of her time, and one of the all-time greats. She fought for equal prize money -- and got it. She created an entirely new format for tennis competition -- World Team Tennis -- and it worked. And she creamed Bobby Riggs in the "Battle of the Sexes," a more important event than the circus-like atmosphere surrounding it foretold. Wrote Neil Amdur of the New York Times after King defeated Riggs, "Most important perhaps for women everywhere, she convinced skeptics that a female athlete can survive pressure-filled situations."

10. 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team

At a time when things looked pretty bleak for the U.S. -- mind-boggling inflation, hostages in Iran, a seemingly endless "energy crisis," and a president who spoke of a "national malaise" -- this team made everything look brighter, at least for a while. By beating the Soviets in the "Miracle on Ice" and going on to win the Gold Medal against the longest odds, the young team of amateurs reminded lots of folks what the best of America was all about.

"It made you want to pick up your television set and take it to bed with you," wrote E.M. Swift in SI, of the team's medal run. "It really made you feel good."

[freedumb2003]

Michael Jordan was a far better basketball player

Than who? Magic/Bird? He's not even in the same building. Yes, Jordan was by far the greatest Basketball athlete ever, but Magic and Bird redefined the game by making everyone around them better. They were far and away bettr players.

While Showtime was wiping out the league, Jordan would score 40 or 50 points in yet another losing effort. Jordan did diddly until Magic and Bird's careers were on the descenency.

[Mr. Mulliner]

I just watched a show on PBS about Seabiscuit. Wow!

[dts32041]

George S. Patton silver medalist Penthalon.

[Mr. Mulliner]

That is laughably off base about Jordan. Seems as if you only followed his career for a year or two.

[Rummyfan]

This list is way too PC: Billie Jean King? Ali? Jackie Robinson at Number 1? Where is Lance Armstrong? Ted Williams who lost almost four seasons of his baseball career serving in the Marines? Bird and Magic were great b-ballers but that's it.

[mhking]

Missing folk who could have easily made the list:

1. Jim Thorpe - The greatest all-around sportsman, period.
2. Ted Williams - Among the greatest baseball players of all time.
3. Joe Namath - The Super Bowl Guarantee.
4. Michael Jordan - The greatest basketball player of all
5. Arthur Ashe - Class, grace, power. Someone today's athletes would do well to emulate.
6. Peggy Fleming - Fighting back from death's door to the top.
7. Pete Rose - Charlie Hustle; you can't take his on-field work away from him.
8. George Halas - Without him, the NFL wouldn't exist.
9. Gordie Howe - He embodies hockey.
10. Wilt Chamberlain - 100 points in one game. One heck of a career. 'Nuff said.

There are others to be sure. But these are some...

[U S Army EOD]

You forgot Garison Hurst.

Go Red Devils, go Lincolnton.

[dts32041]

I stand corrected

1912 Places fifth in the Olympics' Military Pentathlon in Stockholm, Sweden. 1913 Attends the French Cavalry School and studies French sword drill. Becomes the U.S. Army's first "Master of the Sword."

[U S Army EOD]

Yes it does mention Bill Clinton crying doesn't it.

[Mr. Mulliner]

That's a helluva list you just put together on the left-outs. I like yours better than ESPN's.

[jimfree]

9. Billie Jean King

She was the best tennis player of her time, and one of the all-time greats. She fought for equal prize money -- and got it. She created an entirely new format for tennis competition -- World Team Tennis -- and it worked. And she creamed Bobby Riggs in the "Battle of the Sexes," a more important event than the circus-like atmosphere surrounding it foretold. Wrote Neil Amdur of the New York Times after King defeated Riggs, "Most important perhaps for women everywhere, she convinced skeptics that a female athlete can survive pressure-filled situations."

I love Billie Jean and she was a tennis great. But Bobby Riggs was 20 years older than his opponent and had to defend the doubles courts by himself. I watched this "battle" and thought it a joke.

I find the writer to be rather a sports illiterate to list Billie Jean King and not Babe Didrikson Zaharias, an Olympic track & field champion and golf great. In LA in 1932 she won gold in the 80m hurdles and javelin. In 1954, less than a year after undergoing surgery for intestinal cancer, she won the U.S. Open by 12 strokes. Babe has been one of my sports heros for a very long time.

[merak]

Muhammed Ali was one of the greatest pure athletes ever to earn his living at boxing but that's not the same thing as being one of the great fighters. I'd give him next to no chance in a 15 round fight with Joe Louis.

[Dr. Luv]

None of these people are "heroic" in the real sense of the word,and why are they all American?

[Fred Mertz]

Like others mentioned, Jim Thorpe belongs at the top of the list.

[Mr. Mulliner]

I'd have to disagree with you about Ali. Yes, he was a boxer much more than a fighter, but he proved many times in his career that he had the heart of a lion, most notably in his fight against Foreman and all 3 fights against Frazier. I don't know if I could say that Ali could beat Louis, but at his best he would give Louis one heck of a fight.

[Shooter 2.5]

I don't know what you mean by that but I play my sports under the same rules as these guys. I can even compete against them if I go to the right matches.

I play my sports. I don't watch them as a spectator.

[fqued]

This is a silly list for many of the reasons already listed, but also because it doesn't even consider any athletes from the previous centuries and millennia.
How could any list not include Phidippides (sp?), the great runner who, 2500 years ago, brought the news of the Greek victory in the first marathon?? We celebrate him constantly by running marathons. that must make him the all-time greatest sports hero--who else has a sport commemorating his life and death?????

[cars for sale]

a true top ten was Babe Deitrichson(sp)
her talent was in three sports.

[X-FID]

While Showtime was wiping out the league, Jordan would score 40 or 50 points in yet another losing effort. Jordan did diddly until Magic and Bird's careers were on the descenency.

He only scored 63 pt's against Larry and assoc. in a losing effort, payback was a MF. and believe me MJ alway's won in the end.