Ironslave's top 10 greatest athletes ever

[Beefcake]

Woo! I love the Wings. I like the Leafs too, but the Wings are my fave.

 

[Braaq]

Great write up bro, I enjoyed that one and I completely agree. I am really curious who the top two are going to be now.

 

[JS316]

I would also like to add to my list of guesses a guy called Wayne.

Yay, another point for me!

 

[Pickle]

Great write up bro, I enjoyed that one and I completely agree. I am really curious who the top two are going to be now.

Im hoping at least one is someone completely unexpected like a dude that plays ultimate frisbee

 

[Ironslave]

Jim Brown was a freak. There have been a lot of great athletes who have combined skill, lightning speed, and brute force, but none have come close to doing it like Brown did. Basically, to get a true impression of the specimen that Brown was, picture Bo Jackson on steroids.
Growing up, Brown dominated every sport he ever trained for, and even those he just picked up for the hell of it. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to argue that there was ever a better college athlete than Brown. At Syracuse, Brown lettered in Football, Lacrosse (more on this), Basketball (he averaged 15 ppg, second on the team as a sophomore), and Track. As a football player at Syracuse, Brown garnered national attention his junior year, where he would average 5.2 yards per carry and be named 2nd Team NCAA All America. In his Senior year, he averaged a whipping 6.2 yards per carry, and was named 1st team NCAA All-American while leading Syracuse to the Cotton Bowl, though his team lost 28-27 (despite Brown rushing for 132 yards, three touchdowns and kicked three extra points). Cleveland drafted Brown with the 6th overall pick in the NFL draft; the start of a career that would go down as legendary.
In his rookie season in the NFL, Brown was named to the Pro Bowl, and won rookie of the year. Since Brown chose to retire at the age of 30 after only 9 seasons in the NFL, his rookie year was the only time he did not lead the league in rushing! He’d win 8 straight rushing titles, be named to the Pro Bowl every year he played, winning the league MVP 3 times, and the all important NFL championship victory in 1964. For his efforts, The Sporting News named Brown as the greatest football player of all time.
Brown’s football career alone is enough to put him high up on this list, but what’s even scarier is that according to Ed Walsh, Brown’s football coach in high school, and many others, he was better at lacrosse than football!
Brown didn’t play much lacrosse his first two seasons at Syracuse (due to several factors, he was actually a walk on the football team, and busy with basketball/track), however, by his junior year he’d be named a 2nd Team All American (keep in mind he did the same for football). In his senior year, he tied for the NCAA scoring title by scoring 43 goals and adding 21 assists, in only 10 games! He’d be named an NCAA 1st Team All American (again, he did the same thing in football), and lead Syracuse to an undefeated season. After the season was over, Brown solidified his claim as the best lacrosse player in college (and probably the world) by scoring 5 goals in one half (!!) against the nation’s top players in the Collegiate North-South All-Star Game. Literally, the rules of college lacrosse were changed because of Brown, as he would get the ball in his stick, hold it on his chest, and just run down the field demolishing everything in his path. Nobody could catch him, and those that were in his way got ran over, leading the NCAA to soon ban players from being able to hold the ball like this. Brown was eventually named to the US Lacrosse Hall of Fame (along with being named to both the Pro and College Football Hall of Fame), where it is listed that Brown is widely considered to be the greatest lacrosse player that ever lived. http://www.uslacrosse.org/museum/halloffame/view_profile.php?prof_id=35
Think about it, how rare it is for someone to claim that they were the greatest that ever played their sport, Brown can easily make the case that he was the greatest in two different sports! But even those aren’t all that Brown did, or could have done in the sports world.

-Before his last lacrosse game with Syracuse, Brown was at a track meet that morning, where he won the discus and shot put. After, while he was in the locker room changing into his lacrosse gear, he was asked if he'd ever thrown the javelin. He went out and threw it 162 feet, good enough for 2nd place, and Syracuse won the meet.
-In 1954 he placed fifth in the decathlon at the national AAU track meet.
-He was a fantastic boxer. Roy Simmons Jr, the coach of the Syracuse boxing team thought Brown could have been the heavyweight champion if he dedicated himself to the sport.
- Brown didn't play baseball at Syracuse, but he could have, as he threw two no hitters as a pitcher in high school, and the Yankees offered him $150,000 to play for them.
If my criteria for greatest athlete of all time was based only on performance in sporting events, Brown would undoubtedly be the greatest of all time.

 

[mgballa4life]

awesome list IS

ive played basketball my whole life and still continue to play in college but i would go as far as saying jordan could be a spot lower...i know it sounds crazy but im that impressed by this list and the write-ups for each indivudual

my favs thus far are jim thorpe, wayne gretzky and jim brown. all were amazing reads. cant wait for #1

 

[ironheart]

great list IS. cant wait to see who number 1 is.

 

[Beefcake]

C'mon! What's number 1?

 

[Ironslave]

Damnit.... will update it the weekend. I have much of it done, but life just got crazy, plus it's going to have to be a pretty damn good write up.

 

[Beefcake]

Maybe I'll kill you and steal the write up so no one will ever know. MWHAHAHAHA!

 

[Achilles]

Damnit.... will update it the weekend. I have much of it done, but life just got crazy, plus it's going to have to be a pretty damn good write up.

haha I got high expectations after this comment.

 

[tkD]

great thread and list IS, many of them i don't know, but it's nice to see Pele and Ali in top 10, even if imo both of them and Jordan deserved a lil bit higher , but i could be wrong because, as i said before, i don't know about the other guys or sports, like baseball and american football. But nonetheless, this is your list, i respect that, and is great, i enjoy the comments for each and everyone of them

5 stars for this thread bro ... and can't wait to see the 1st place
keep it up IS

 

[Tonyk212000]

Glad to see you put Jim Thorpe on there! I was thinking you might not put him on the list and if you didnt I was gonna be really surprised. Good list so far even though Thorpe IMO should have been a little higher.

 

[Ironslave]

Thanks for the feedback guys!

As far as someone like Thorpe, yeah, as far as best "athlete", he and Jim Brown would probably be tops in the sense of being great in a wide variety of sports. Yet, part of MY (key word) criteria places a large impact on how much someone could dominate their sport, and the cultural impact that they had. That's why someone like Pele gets on my list, yet someone like Diego Maradona, who was arguably as good or even better of a soccer player, doesn't come close.

Number 1 coming up, probably on Sunday.

 

[JS316]

Just gone through your picks again.. Some realy good reading mate

I'm thinking the number 1 must be a golfer. Hope it's not a cyclist... even though I would understand

 

[Tonyk212000]

Number 1 coming up, probably on Sunday.

HMMMMMM Sunday and no number 1?? We all know its Tiger Woods so throw it out there

 

[Duality]

this list looks to me to be the most influential athletes of all time, not the best of all time. i don't see how else you put a woman at 4...ahead of micheal jordan

 

[Braaq]

this list looks to me to be the most influential athletes of all time, not the best of all time. i don't see how else you put a woman at 4...ahead of micheal jordan

You sexist bastard

 

[Ironslave]

this list looks to me to be the most influential athletes of all time, not the best of all time. i don't see how else you put a woman at 4...ahead of micheal jordan

Sorry, I'll revise my list in 2 years and be sure to include Allen Iverson and Adrian Peterson.

 

[Duality]

Sorry, I'll revise my list in 2 years and be sure to include Allen Iverson and Adrian Peterson.

lol i know i mispoke the first time i said that. i thought it was a list of the top 100 athletes of all time not the top 10. and adrian peterson, barring injury, will easily make that list in the next 2-3 years.


still though man how can you possibly call this a list of the greatest athletes ever.....and put a woman on the list? seriously this isn't being sexist, women are physically and athletically inferior to men (when comparing athletes of similar caliber, obviously allison felix is a far superior athlete to the average man). it's just how it is. how you can put a female golfer ahead of the greatest basketball player ever (who is arguably one of the greaest physical specimens as well, ever) makes this a list of who you find to be the most influential ever, not the best.


edit: i am aware this is ironslave's list. i just want to hear more of a justification for the selection process here.