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?
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.
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.”
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.
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.
Never mind I see you caught your mistake...
So I'm left off another list?
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!
Dick groat
(If he still lives )
Grant Hill before foot issues
Pittsburgh Pirates version of Barry Bonds
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.