Who is the greatest athlete of all time?

I had my top 10 list, as most people know, but my criteria focused largely on the social impact the athletes had, and their performance relative to their peers in their sport.

So, with that in mind, who is the greatest athlete of all time? You can even give more than one, for example.

My vote for greatest athlete considering the social impact and intra-sport dominance, and the nature of the sporting task, was Tiger Woods. Do I think he could ever qualify at a D1 level in any other sport? Probably not. With strength/endurance/speed/skill in mind, I'd have to go with Jim Brown.

Thoughts?

Tiger Woods and/or Michael Phelps.

Ironslave said:

I had my top 10 list, as most people know, but my criteria focused largely on the social impact the athletes had, and their performance relative to their peers in their sport.

So, with that in mind, who is the greatest athlete of all time? You can even give more than one, for example.

My vote for greatest athlete considering the social impact and intra-sport dominance, and the nature of the sporting task, was Tiger Woods. Do I think he could ever qualify at a D1 level in any other sport? Probably not. With strength/endurance/speed/skill in mind, I'd have to go with Jim Brown.

Thoughts?

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i agree with you 100% my vote goes to Tiger Woods. i dont think he could do much in any other sport either, but he has had the most impressive carrer out of any athlete out there and he still is having the most impressive carrer.

if it wasnt for his knee this year he would have one the Grand Slam. he was in so much pain during the U.S. Open and he still won. he will break Jack Nicklaus's record for the most majors won(18) within the next 2 years. he is at 14 right now and he has got enough of his carrer left to break that. he is about 18 wins away from beating sam snead for the most wins ever and i think he will break that too. Tiger Woods will always be the greastest golfer and athlete to ever play sports IMO. he has done things that people could only dream about.

The interesting thing is that it has subjective criteria... what would be your reasoning for picking your choice? ie, lets get some discussion going.

For those who haven't seen... here were my write ups from my top 10 athletes thread.

For "my" criteria, Tiger Woods is number 1. Based on pure athletic ability, I'm going with Jim Brown.

Jim Brown

Tiger Woods

Ironslave said:

The interesting thing is that it has subjective criteria... what would be your reasoning for picking your choice? ie, lets get some discussion going.

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i gave you my reasoning for picking Tiger Woods. i could have gone on and on about him too.

i love to play golf and he is my favorite golfer of ALL TIME!! he is and great athlete and always will be.

wow you went a little more in depth with you reasoning for Tiger Woods. that was very nice i didnt read the whole thing yet but im going too.

Hypothetically? Bo Jackson. Unmatched speed, strength, natural abaility. Just an aninal. If he didn't hurt the hip Emmit probably would have been chasing Bo's all-time rushing record. Let's not forget his hobby sport..baseball. He would have probably hit 500+ homers if had devoted his time towards it.

I will go with Jim Brown for the reasons you posted IS.

jnutz19 said:

i gave you my reasoning for picking Tiger Woods. i could have gone on and on about him too.

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Oh I know, my comment was to just encourage discussion, that's all.

PrizeFighteR said:

Hypothetically? Bo Jackson. Unmatched speed, strength, natural abaility. Just an aninal. If he didn't hurt the hip Emmit probably would have been chasing Bo's all-time rushing record. Let's not forget his hobby sport..baseball. He would have probably hit 500+ homers if had devoted his time towards it.

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Only athlete to ever be an all star in two professional sports, and you're right, it's a damn shame he hurt his hip. On pure athletic ability, he's easily up there.

Ironslave said:

Only athlete to ever be an all star in two professional sports, and you're right, it's a damn shame he hurt his hip. On pure athletic ability, he's easily up there.

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If only he had stepped out of bounds santafrown Him and Brown are strinkingly similar.

I honestly think if Tiger wanted to he could be a pro football/baseball player.

It was hard not putting MJ up here just because I grew up watching him and my basketball bias.

Aleksander Karelin or Usain Bolt.

I gotta go with Michael Jordan on this one, he dominated the legue when he was in it and made multible combacks and they were good even the comback with the wizards wich was the most impressive one. at age 40 he scored 20 or more points 42 times, 30 or more points nine times, and 40 or more points three times. On February 21, 2003, Jordan became the first 40-year-old to tally 43 points in an NBA game. that is the greatest athlete of all time, i bet there are better one´s but this gonna be my vote

Good job on contradicting yourself there Max.

Maxmonzter said:

I gotta go with Michael Jordan on this one, he dominated the legue when he was in it and made multible combacks and they were good even the comback with the wizards wich was the most impressive one. at age 40 he scored 20 or more points 42 times, 30 or more points nine times, and 40 or more points three times. On February 21, 2003, Jordan became the first 40-year-old to tally 43 points in an NBA game. that is the greatest athlete of all time, i bet there are better one´s but this gonna be my vote

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Lousy pick

bwahahaha @ calling MJ a LOUSY PICK.

Basketball arguably takes the most athletic ability of any sport. MJ made the impossible seem possible and almost every young basketball player respects and looks/looked up to him.

6 NBA Championships
10 scoring titles
5 MVPs
13 all-star appearances
3 All Star MVPs
6 Finals MVPs
NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award
made the NBA All-Defensive First Team a record nine times.

hands down, Michael Jordan. I'm from Chicago and witnessed the greatness of his career as I grew up. To fully appreciate this man, you had to see him. MJ = GOAT

Boardwalk said:

bwahahaha @ calling MJ a LOUSY PICK.

Basketball arguably takes the most athletic ability of any sport. MJ made the impossible seem possible and almost every young basketball player respects and looks/looked up to him.

hands down, Michael Jordan. I'm from Chicago and witnessed the greatness of his career as I grew up. To fully appreciate this man, you had to see him. MJ = GOAT

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ha, there you go. That explains it. Lets compare to Wayne Gretzky's career.

-2857 points almost double the next closest player to him, former teammate Mark Messier (who has 1887, yet played in 269 more games than Wayne did).
(Jordan is 3rd all time)
-1,963 assists (more than Messier's total points)
-(122 playoff goals) (next closest, Messier, is 109 in 28 more games)
-(260 playoff assists) (next closest, Messier, is 186, in 28 more games)

-9 MVP's (to MJ's 5)
-8 time first team all star (MJ had 10)
-7 time second team all star (MJ had 1)
-both won scoring titles 10 times
-again, easily first on the scoring list, almost double second place (MJ is third)
- MJ's 30.12ppg is slightly higher than Wilt's 30.7 ppg, that is a 1.6 % difference over 2nd place, then there's a bunch around 24-27. MJ's ppg is 9.7% better than 3rd place.
- Gretzky's ppg is 2.1% over 2nd place (Lemieux), while a whopping 28% better than third place!
-Gretzky has more assists than anybody else has total points. He has 57% more assists than second place (in 244 less games)!
-MJ is 35th in career assists (though played 432 less career games, but his assists per game is 76th all time, less than half of first place)
-Gretzky had 5 championships, 4 MPV's (to MJ's 6 and 6). But having said this, it is MUCH more difficult to do this in hockey, than basketball. In basketball, you're 1 out of 5 people on the floor for the entire game. In hockey, you're 1 out of 5 people on the floor for 1/3-1/4 of the game.
- It's much, much more difficult to be good at hockey than it is basketball.


The good thing about this topic is that it depends so much on each person's criteria. If we're going to consider strength, speed, endurance, and such, neither MJ nor Gretzky belong in the discussion.

But, if we're just going to go by greatness in their sport, that's fine, if that's your criteria. MJ was great indeed, and perhaps the most famous athlete to ever live. But, there is no way that MJ comes close to being the best player ever in a team sport, Wayne Gretzky is miles ahead.

Both are great sports and I've played both competitively. So I'm not going to say one is better than the other. Hockey is a more overall harder sport to be good at skillwise I'd say, but not REALLY that much more physically demanding when you factor in the kind of athleticism Jordan displayed throughout his career. I give Gretzsky a lot of credit and agree to what you are saying, they both dominated their respective sports. Those two guys really are a great one to compare

BUT

Gretzky's skill level was so far above the competition it is not really fair to say that he is greater than Jordan. Jordan played in the NBA at its prime, against some of the greatest ball players of all time, and he beat them up and down the court. When we take into account the total package Jordan wins again. He was not only a great offensive tool but won defensive player of the year and was 9 time all-defense team award recipient. Gretzsky on the other hand didnt really play any defense.

Jordan > Gretzsky

Fair points on the defense part, but they're totally different sports. Basketball is slower, much more setting up, where everyone has to play defense. Not nearly the same in hockey, as in hockey you literally have people designated for defense.

Bottom line, Gretzky dominated his team sport much, much more than Jordan dominated his. Jordan was a great athlete, of course, but he's a "cliche" pick for greatest athlete of all time.

I think an honorable mention could be Dick Butkus. The guy was your classic blue collar, grinder type. Also a real down to earth guy. His life was football. Period. He was one of the first guys to start bringing film home and study other teams to make himself better. He believed that this was his occupation and took it extremely serious and didn't care about the fancy cars or any of that. During a football game he would go absolutely fucking nuts and play each and every play with his whole heart. He would scare the shit out of teams and had a fantastic career. It's too bad the bears overall didn't have very good teams back when he played.

^
He's in the discussion for most intense athlete of all time, but I don't think he's one of the best across all sports. Certainly one of the more entertaining athletes to ever watch though.