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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Hot'Lanta... home of the Falcons!

    The 50 Greatest Living Athletes

    GQ has come out with a list and... well... it is pretty darn good. I haven't read through the whole thing yet, but it seems quite solid. Obviously, one can argue over what "athlete" means (and they mention that they left out guys like Larry Bird and Dan Marino precisely because they had trouble agreeing on what an "athlete" was) but this is a very good list.

    1. Lebron James
    2. Michael Jordan
    3. Serena Williams
    4. Bo Jackson
    5. Carl Lewis
    6. Willie Mays
    7. Jerry Rice
    8. Roger Federer
    9. Diana Taurasi
    10. Wayne Gretzky
    11. Pele
    12. Jim Brown
    13. Tiger Woods
    14. Usain Bolt
    15. Michael Phelps
    16. Julius Erving
    17. Mia Hamm
    18. Magic Johnson
    19. Deion Sanders
    20. Ken Griffey Jr.
    21. Lionel Messi
    22. Jackie Joyner-Kersee
    23. Tom Brady
    24. Barry Sanders
    25. Martina Navratilova

    -Jason "if you want the rest, look at the link" Evans
    Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    Virginia
    Quote Originally Posted by JasonEvans View Post
    GQ has come out with a list and... well... it is pretty darn good. I haven't read through the whole thing yet, but it seems quite solid. Obviously, one can argue over what "athlete" means (and they mention that they left out guys like Larry Bird and Dan Marino precisely because they had trouble agreeing on what an "athlete" was) but this is a very good list.

    1. Lebron James
    2. Michael Jordan
    3. Serena Williams
    4. Bo Jackson
    5. Carl Lewis
    6. Willie Mays
    7. Jerry Rice
    8. Roger Federer
    9. Diana Taurasi
    10. Wayne Gretzky
    11. Pele
    12. Jim Brown
    13. Tiger Woods
    14. Usain Bolt
    15. Michael Phelps
    16. Julius Erving
    17. Mia Hamm
    18. Magic Johnson
    19. Deion Sanders
    20. Ken Griffey Jr.
    21. Lionel Messi
    22. Jackie Joyner-Kersee
    23. Tom Brady
    24. Barry Sanders
    25. Martina Navratilova

    -Jason "if you want the rest, look at the link" Evans
    If you are going to leave off Dan Marino because you're having difficulty defining "athletic" then how do you include Tom Brady? I mean, he's one of the top 2-3 qb's of all time but he's not Michael Vic or Cam Newton.

    Also, Jim Brown has to be higher.

  3. #3
    Quick impressions:

    Jordan is #1 by a comfortable margin. And it isn't hard for me to say that even as a Duke fan.

    And Tiger Woods is too low.

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by bullettoothtony View Post
    Quick impressions:

    Jordan is #1 by a comfortable margin. And it isn't hard for me to say that even as a Duke fan.

    And Tiger Woods is too low.
    Lebron is a more pure athlete than Jordan, sorry. You can argue that Jordan was a better competitor or a better basketball player, but jeez, look at them side by side.

  5. #5
    Kelly Slater and Tony Hawk are the only athletes on here that you would characterize as non-traditional or lower profile sport athletes, yet I’m sure there are others who deserve to be on such a list.

    One who surely does is Alex Honnold, a free-climber whose feats are absolutely legendary. For example, he is the only climber who has scaled both Half Dome and El Capitan without a rope, and he did both in a matter of hours. These are climbs that take seasoned climbers(using safety harnesses and anchors) days to complete, mind you. Writer Mark Jenkins described Honnold’s feat when he first free climbed El Cap in terms of a performance by Michael Jordan... to paraphrase, it was something to the effect of, “imagine a situation in which Michael Jordan needs to hit every single shot—layups, dunks, short jumpers, free throws, three pointers—every shot he takes, he must make, because as soon as he misses, he dies. That encapsulates the level of skill, strength and concentration required to do what Honnold has done.”

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by yancem View Post
    If you are going to leave off Dan Marino because you're having difficulty defining "athletic" then how do you include Tom Brady? I mean, he's one of the top 2-3 qb's of all time but he's not Michael Vic or Cam Newton.
    Yeah, it's fine to use the definition of "athlete" where it's purely physical ability, it's fine to use the definition where it's overall sports ability, and it's fine to use an intermediate definition in between, but this list is totally inconsistent in the criteria. If you're going to exclude Larry Bird for the reasons that they're stating, then you should include Russell Westbrook (probably ranked highly) for the same reasons.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Papa John View Post
    Kelly Slater and Tony Hawk are the only athletes on here that you would characterize as non-traditional or lower profile sport athletes, yet I’m sure there are others who deserve to be on such a list.

    One who surely does is Alex Honnold, a free-climber whose feats are absolutely legendary. For example, he is the only climber who has scaled both Half Dome and El Capitan without a rope, and he did both in a matter of hours. These are climbs that take seasoned climbers(using safety harnesses and anchors) days to complete, mind you. Writer Mark Jenkins described Honnold’s feat when he first free climbed El Cap in terms of a performance by Michael Jordan... to paraphrase, it was something to the effect of, “imagine a situation in which Michael Jordan needs to hit every single shot—layups, dunks, short jumpers, free throws, three pointers—every shot he takes, he must make, because as soon as he misses, he dies. That encapsulates the level of skill, strength and concentration required to do what Honnold has done.”
    Bingo. Alex would be a top-5 athlete for me, but . . . I'm not about to make a list like this.

    These lists end up dying the death of a thousand qualifications.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Oct 2009
    Location
    Durham
    Quote Originally Posted by JasonEvans View Post
    GQ has come out with a list and... well... it is pretty darn good. I haven't read through the whole thing yet, but it seems quite solid. Obviously, one can argue over what "athlete" means (and they mention that they left out guys like Larry Bird and Dan Marino precisely because they had trouble agreeing on what an "athlete" was) but this is a very good list.

    1. Lebron James
    2. Michael Jordan
    3. Serena Williams
    4. Bo Jackson
    5. Carl Lewis
    6. Willie Mays
    7. Jerry Rice
    8. Roger Federer
    9. Diana Taurasi
    10. Wayne Gretzky
    11. Pele
    12. Jim Brown
    13. Tiger Woods
    14. Usain Bolt
    15. Michael Phelps
    16. Julius Erving
    17. Mia Hamm
    18. Magic Johnson
    19. Deion Sanders
    20. Ken Griffey Jr.
    21. Lionel Messi
    22. Jackie Joyner-Kersee
    23. Tom Brady
    24. Barry Sanders
    25. Martina Navratilova

    -Jason "if you want the rest, look at the link" Evans
    as a track fan, i find the exclusion of ashton eaton inexcusable.

  9. #9
    Lyle Thompson. Laird Hamilton. I can probably find more inexcusable omissions if you give me a minute.

    Jarmila Kondrachvilova. Vyacheslav Fetisov. Bobby Orr.
    Last edited by burnspbesq; 10-18-2017 at 08:44 PM.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by burnspbesq View Post
    Muhammad Ali. Lyle Thompson. Laird Hamilton. I can probably find more inexcusable omissions if you give me a minute.

    Jarmila Kondrachvilova. Vyacheslav Fetisov. Willie Shoemaker. Bobby Orr.
    Ummm I guess you haven't heard the sad news?? These guys are no longer in the category called 'Living.'

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by duke4ever19 View Post
    Ummm I guess you haven't heard the sad news??
    See edit above.

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Mechanicsburg, PA
    Never mind I see you caught your mistake...

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Feb 2013
    Location
    Las Vegas, Nevada
    So I'm left off another list?

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Jun 2008
    Location
    Winston Salem, NC

    Did I miss something?

    Did Jack Nicklaus pass away or did the guy that made up the list, know nothing about golf. The Golden Bear is the greatest golfer that ever played the game. There may be more that he missed on, but I have not looked that closely since I saw that he missed on Jack. GoDuke!
    Last edited by jv001; 10-18-2017 at 09:06 PM. Reason: spelling!

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Jun 2008
    Location
    Winston Salem, NC
    Quote Originally Posted by bullettoothtony View Post
    Quick impressions:

    Jordan is #1 by a comfortable margin. And it isn't hard for me to say that even as a Duke fan.And Tiger Woods is too low.
    I would have said that about a week ago, but now that team/cheating school is non-existent to me. GoDuke!

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Undisclosed
    Quote Originally Posted by Henderson View Post
    So I'm left off another list?
    You are already on another top 50 GQ list. Don't be greedy, my friend,

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by yancem View Post
    If you are going to leave off Dan Marino because you're having difficulty defining "athletic" then how do you include Tom Brady? I mean, he's one of the top 2-3 qb's of all time but he's not Michael Vic or Cam Newton.

    Also, Jim Brown has to be higher.
    i'd say championships won, and championship % would have to have some bearing. Marino was great but never one the big one. Brady on the other hand...

  18. #18
    Dick groat
    (If he still lives )

  19. #19
    Grant Hill before foot issues

    Pittsburgh Pirates version of Barry Bonds

  20. #20
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Location
    Cary, NC
    Looks to me like they're defining "athletic" as "having skill that pertains to their particular sport, with special emphasis on raw speed/strength." Plus they tried to get a wide sampling across different sports.

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