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The Greatest Athlete of All-time

Re: The Greatest Athlete of All-time

Bowling:
Dick Weber

Boxing:
Muhammad Ali
Mike Tyson
Joe Louis
Sugar Ray Robinson
Rocky Marciano

Cricket:
Donald Bradman
Sachin Tendulkar

Cycling:
Lance Armstrong

Competitive Eating:
Takeru Kobayashi (probably getting deleted)

Football:
Joe Montana
Jerry Rice
Jim Thorpe
Barry Sanders
Walter Payton
Lawrence Taylor
Jim Brown
Emmitt Smith
Dick Butkus
Dan Marino
Peyton Manning
Reggie White
Brett Favre
Tom Brady
Bronco Nagursky
Terrell Owens
John Elway
Red Grange
Johnny Unitas
Bo Jackson (also baseball)
Deion Sanders (also baseball)
 
Re: The Greatest Athlete of All-time

Golf:
Tiger Woods
Jack Nicklaus
Arnold Palmer
Bobby Jones

Gymnastics:
Nadia Comaneci

Hockey:
Wayne Gretzky
Bobby Orr
Mario Lemieux
Gordie Howe
Mark Messier
Brett Hull
Bobby Hull
Patrick Roy
John Mayasich
Sidney Crosby
Steve Yzerman
Martin Brodeur
Alex Ovechkin
Marcel Dionne
Hobey Baker

Horse Racing:
Secretariat
Man O' War

Rodeo:
Ty Murray
Bodacious
 
Re: The Greatest Athlete of All-time

Skating:
Eric Heiden

Skiing:
Lindsey Vonn

Snowboarding:
Shaun White

Softball:
Jennie Finch

Soccer:
Pele
Diego Maradona

Swimming:
Michael Phelps
Mark Spitz
Dara Torres

Tennis:
Roger Federer
Pete Sampras
Rod Laver
Martina Navratilova
Chris Evert
Steffi Graf
Billie Jean King
 
Re: The Greatest Athlete of All-time

Track and Field:
Babe Didrickson (also golf and basketball)
Jesse Owens
Carl Lewis
Usain Bolt
Michael Johnson
Jackie Joyner-Kersee
Wilma Rudolph
Bob Mathias
Al Oerter
Edwin Moses

Triathelon:
Chrissie Wellington

Wrestling:
Dan Gable
Cael Sanderson
 
Re: The Greatest Athlete of All-time

bigblue_dl said:
Bowling:
Dick Weber

Boxing:
Muhammad Ali
Mike Tyson
Joe Louis
Sugar Ray Robinson
Rocky Marciano

Cricket:
Donald Bradman
Sachin Tendulkar

Cycling:
Lance Armstrong

Competitive Eating:
Takeru Kobayashi (probably getting deleted)

Football:
Joe Montana
Jerry Rice
Jim Thorpe
Barry Sanders
Walter Payton
Lawrence Taylor
Jim Brown
Emmitt Smith
Dick Butkus
Dan Marino
Peyton Manning
Reggie White
Brett Favre
Tom Brady
Bronco Nagursky
Terrell Owens
John Elway
Red Grange
Johnny Unitas
Bo Jackson (also baseball)
Deion Sanders (also baseball)
Click to expand...

Gale Sayers should be included in football. Before he turned to, uh, other activities, O. J. Simpson once said: watching the films of Sayers makes him the only guy I ask myself "could I do that?" Cosby described him as being like a paramecium. He'd approach a would-be tackler, divide in two, go around the guy, then the halves would rejoin.
 
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Re: The Greatest Athlete of All-time

Hockey:

Vladislav Tretiak
Turk Broda
Terry Sawchuk
Patrick Roy
Glenn Hall
 
Re: The Greatest Athlete of All-time

Is this greatest 'athlete' or 'greatest participant of a particular sport weighed against all other sports'? imho it sure as hell isn't the former upon seeing the nominees.
 
Re: The Greatest Athlete of All-time

Old Pio said:
In the Chicago Stadium, the PA guy would say: "In goal, #1, Mr Goalie, Glenn Hall."
Click to expand...

"Without Fear" by Kevin Allen and Bob Duff try and rank the 50 greatest goalies of all time, and I have to say they did a decent job of it. They took into account innovation, pure skill, stats, eras they played in, etc. Very easy yet interesting read.
 
Re: The Greatest Athlete of All-time

Jay Berwanger. First winner of the award that would later be called the Heisman Trophy, and, I believe, still the only player from my old dad's alma mater to get it. (Not really serious about this, but he did run for almost 2000 yards (granted in a buttload of games) pass for close to 1000 and do all the kicking.)

Edit: As a side note, apparently the 2nd runner-up in that voting was a guy from Notre Dame named William Shakespeare.
 
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Re: The Greatest Athlete of All-time

Slap Shot said:
Is this greatest 'athlete' or 'greatest participant of a particular sport weighed against all other sports'? imho it sure as hell isn't the former upon seeing the nominees.
Click to expand...
If you don't like the athletes nominated, nominate some that you feel are worthy, that is why I'm getting input.

Also, I forgot to email myself the updated spreadsheet where I'm keeping track of this stuff last night, so I won't be able to update it today.
 
Re: The Greatest Athlete of All-time

You had mentioned that you were planning to have 128 people and do a bracket from the outset. I have a suggestion based on the way most major sports handle large number of teams that I also think would be easier to administer, more fun for people to participate in, and also be a much fairer way to sort athletes....after all, you might have an athlete that would otherwise go deep into the tournament who is "unfairly" knocked out too early by running into someone even stronger.

Div I college basketball has over 300 teams but only 64 in the bracket stage; World Cup soccer has about 190 teams but only 16 in the bracket stage, even Div I college hockey has about 58 teams but only 16 in the bracket stage. Before they get to the bracket stage, they have round-robin pool play and the top several teams from each pool advance to the next stage (in basketball and hockey, "pool play" is known as "conference play").

If you do adopt this hybrid format, I'll help with the scoring if you like. I'll still vote if you remain with the 128-person single elimination bracket, for me it wouldn't be as interesting as this alternative.

Also, you can start with 144 people if you want and still get down to a 32-person (or 16-person) single elimination bracket.

Example 1:

> start with 128 people, seed the top 16 as AA and 17 - 32 as A.
> have 16 pools of 8 people each, with one AA and one A randomly assigned to each pool
> everyone votes for their top 4 picks.
> highest 4 in each pool advance to next round.
> now you have 8 poos of 8 people each, 2 AA and 2 A (assuming they advance!) in each pool
> everyone votes for their top 4 picks.
> now you are down to 32.
... * Either you run your bracket from here,
... * or you have 4 pools of 8 people each, again pick top 4
... * or you have 8 pools of 4 people each, pick top 2
> either of last two options gives you bracket of 16 (with 3rd * from above, this is how World Cup soccer tournament works)


As I said, I think this format would be more interesting and more fun for the voters, it would allow candidates to build momentum to advance from round to round, and I surmise that it would be easier to administer (easier for you at least since you are only doing half the work until the brackets start up).
 
Re: The Greatest Athlete of All-time

FreshFish said:
You had mentioned that you were planning to have 128 people and do a bracket from the outset. I have a suggestion based on the way most major sports handle large number of teams that I also think would be easier to administer, more fun for people to participate in, and also be a much fairer way to sort athletes....after all, you might have an athlete that would otherwise go deep into the tournament who is "unfairly" knocked out too early by running into someone even stronger.

Div I college basketball has over 300 teams but only 64 in the bracket stage; World Cup soccer has about 190 teams but only 16 in the bracket stage, even Div I college hockey has about 58 teams but only 16 in the bracket stage. Before they get to the bracket stage, they have round-robin pool play and the top several teams from each pool advance to the next stage (in basketball and hockey, "pool play" is known as "conference play").

If you do adopt this hybrid format, I'll help with the scoring if you like. I'll still vote if you remain with the 128-person single elimination bracket, for me it wouldn't be as interesting as this alternative.

Also, you can start with 144 people if you want and still get down to a 32-person (or 16-person) single elimination bracket.

Example 1:

> start with 128 people, seed the top 16 as AA and 17 - 32 as A.
> have 16 pools of 8 people each, with one AA and one A randomly assigned to each pool
> everyone votes for their top 4 picks.
> highest 4 in each pool advance to next round.
> now you have 8 poos of 8 people each, 2 AA and 2 A (assuming they advance!) in each pool
> everyone votes for their top 4 picks.
> now you are down to 32.
... * Either you run your bracket from here,
... * or you have 4 pools of 8 people each, again pick top 4
... * or you have 8 pools of 4 people each, pick top 2
> either of last two options gives you bracket of 16 (with 3rd * from above, this is how World Cup soccer tournament works)


As I said, I think this format would be more interesting and more fun for the voters, it would allow candidates to build momentum to advance from round to round, and I surmise that it would be easier to administer (easier for you at least since you are only doing half the work until the brackets start up).
Click to expand...
I'm actually planning on doing something like this.

I am splitting the list up into 8 "regions", each region will have 16 teams. There will be a poll among those 16 teams, and the top 4 vote getters advance to the 32 team head to head bracket. I'm making it a point to make sure that the regions are even, so one isn't stacked while some weaker candidates sneak through in a weak region. If going from >128 to 32 in one step is too much, I can take 8 from each region, and then re-arrange and re-seed and do another pool round to get to 32.

I don't want to do head to head for the whole thing. Just think of how many polls I would have to make! Even at 32 I'm going to have to make a whole bunch of head to head polls.
 
Re: The Greatest Athlete of All-time

If you wanted to start with 144 people and still have a bracket of 32 or 16


(example 2)

> Start with 16 pools of 9 people each
> vote for top 5
> now you have 80; ten pools of 8 people each, vote for top 5
> now you have 50, five pools of 10 people each, vote for top 6
> top six from each pool advance, along with 2 best 7th place finishes
> now you have 32

I can also construct something similar using other starting numbers if you want; I think you get the idea. For me at least this format is a lot more interesting and engages me more.
 
Re: The Greatest Athlete of All-time

FreshFish said:
If you wanted to start with 144 people and still have a bracket of 32 or 16


(example 2)

> Start with 16 pools of 9 people each
> vote for top 5
> now you have 80; ten pools of 8 people each, vote for top 5
> now you have 50, five pools of 10 people each, vote for top 6
> top six from each pool advance, along with 2 best 7th place finishes
> now you have 32

I can also construct something similar using other starting numbers if you want; I think you get the idea. For me at least this format is a lot more interesting and engages me more.
Click to expand...
I haven't decided on the final number yet. Somewhere between 128 and 160 and divisible by 8. I'll be doing some form of this, I just haven't decided exactly what I'll do yet. I'm just trying to get the list figured out right now.
 
Re: The Greatest Athlete of All-time

For soccer, you might want to consider Mia Hamm of the US or Marta of Brazil.
 
Re: The Greatest Athlete of All-time

still think there should be some mountaineers on the list. These guys are/were incredible athletes. Also there are some rock climbers that are incredible athletes, like Dean Potter, but I think they are harder to rank. I guess these "sports" aren't main stream enough.

Mountaineering
Reinhold Messner
Steve House
Ueli Steck
 
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