What We Love About Sports

Favorite Athlete

My Michael

Adam: I loved Michael Jordan, but I was nine years old when he made his last significant shot.  I loved Jerry Rice and Steve Young, but they last delivered me a Super Bowl Ring when I was 7 years old and haven't played together since I was 12.  Kobe Bryant came into the league when I was around 10 years old, and he's still going strong.  He has been my Jordan and has taken me on quite a ride.

Kobe brought my Lakers to the Finals seven times in his 14-year career and won five rings, an MVP, and a few scoring titles along the way.  He's been clutch, spectacular, and even oddly reminiscent of Jordan.  No, he was never the most likeable guy off the court, but to be great I think requires a good deal of selfishness and arrogance.

Watching him play during his absolute prime, probably coming in the year he averaged 35 points per game, was the single most fun I've ever had watching an athlete.  His team wasn't even very good that year, but just his sheer dominance, the amount of ways he could score, and the artistry with which he did so made me happy just to witness it.

My Football Gateway Drug

Eric: I owe a debt of gratitude to the NCAA's all-time leading rusher, Ron Dayne.  It is because of him that I like football so much.  He brought this Wisconsin boy into the game, and then I made it my own.

I loved watching the bruising but nimble runner burst through monster holes opened by his talented offensive line.  Plus, Dayne always got stronger as games wore on as Barry Alvarez just kept pounding the ball and defenses wore down.  Dayne and the Badgers owned the fourth quarter where their only goal was to run the ball and drain clock.

A three-time All-American Dayne performed well on the biggest stages as he was a two-time Rose Bowl MVP.  In his 1999 Heisman Trophy-winning season, Dayne rushed for 1,834 yards while setting the all-time career yards record; was named the Big 10 Player of the Year; he also won the AP Player of the Year Award, the Walter Camp Award (NCAA PoY); and the Doak Walker Award (NCAA's top running back).

The Most Dominant Athlete I've Ever Seen

Merry Christmas, you lose.

Adam: Roger Federer, no doubt about it.

You could argue Tiger Woods here, but Fed holds the all-time majors record by a few slams, and Tiger needs four more just to catch Jack Nicklaus.  Federer, especially before Rafael Nadal hit the scene, was a man amongst 5-year-old girls; he could not be beat.

The first sign of his brilliance came in 2001 when he defeated Pete Sampras at Wimbledon (akin to beating Nadal on clay) to reach the quarterfinals.  Sampras at the time had won 31-straight matches at the All-England Club, and the 19-year-old Federer looked happy just to be on the same court.  I remember watching that match and being impressed with Federer’s versatility, his array of weapons from his groundstrokes to his net game and to his serve and athleticism.  But, at the time I said to myself, he’s just some punk kid who got lucky; Sampras will be back and will win again.

Federer didn’t truly breakout until two years later, when he claimed his first Wimbledon title in 2003. After that, it was a race for second place on tour.  In 2004 he won three out of four Grand Slams, only missing the French Open.  Federer reached the 2005 semi-finals of both the Australian and French Open, and then won Wimbledon and the U.S. Open to close the year.  2006, perhaps the best year of his career, Federer won three Grand Slam titles and was runner-up at the French.  Again in 2007 Federer won three Slams, losing only in the French Final to Nadal.  If you’re scoring at home, in a four-year span Federer won 11 of the possible 16 Grand Slam tournaments and made it to the Finals of a Slam 13 of 16 times.

Since 2007 we’ve seen an ever so slight decline in Federer, perhaps due more to the emergence of Nadal than anything else.  In 2008 Roger claimed just one major and won two Slams in 2009 (including his first ever French Open, giving him the Career Grand Slam).  In 2010 Federer failed to reach a Grand Slam semi-final for the first time since 2004.

There has never been a stretch of dominance in an individual sport like the one we witnessed, and for the most part are still witnessing, from Federer.

A welcome sight for fans, unwelcome for opponent

Eric: Since I hated Michael Jordan when I was growing up because he always won, and because Adam picked Roger Federer, I'm going with Tiger Woods.

Grand Slams in tennis are very comparable to Major Championships in golf, yet you can’t raise up Federer and knock Tiger for not holding the all-time lead.  Though Woods does trail Jack Nicklaus in total Majors, whereas Federer leads his sport, Federer didn’t have to chase anyone with 18 titles.  The record holder prior to Federer only had 14.  So even if Tiger wouldn’t win a best of all-time argument, that is completely irrelevant when discussing who was most dominant in his own time/my time.

It’s also tough to compare Tiger and Federer based on the way they face their competition.  Federer goes through a tournament where he plays one player at a time.  Woods plays in a tournament where his score is compared to the scores of everyone else playing at all times.  Woods doesn’t have to beat one person on a given day seven times; he has to beat everyone in the field simultaneously over four straight days.

Yet during his prime, if you were betting Woods vs. the field, you always put your money on Tiger.  Tiger’s 2nd-most all-time Majors and 3rd-most all-time tournaments won say so.  And comparing Woods to his peers, he leads both of those categories among active golfers by far.  In addition, Woods holds the record for both greatest number of consecutive weeks ranked as the #1 golfer and the greatest total number of weeks.

Then there’s the issue I find most telling of all, that if Tiger’s not playing on Sunday, no one watches.  He’s not only the main attraction, he’s the only attraction.  George Carlin said it best when he said watching golf is about as exciting as picking out socks, yet something about Tiger made it compelling.  Perhaps there was something cathartic about watching a black man crush a little white ball and do it better than every other white man on tour.

Best Sports Memory

Strange end to a historic game

Adam: I would like to say my favorite sports memory was the 49ers’ 1994 Super Bowl victory, but I was 7 years old at the time.  (Side note, when I was six years old I continually watched the tape of the 1993 NFC Championship Game in which the Cowboys defeated my beloved Niners in the same round for the second year in a row.  I probably watched that tape every day after school for months before my mom put the kibosh on it; I was getting a little obsessed.)

I could also say the Lakers winning the championship is right up there with my great memories, but then again, they’ve done it five times in the last ten years.  It’s hard to really single out one moment in that run as my favorite.

Also close to the top of my list is when the Brewers made the playoffs in 2008 since they have been such a downtrodden franchise for so long, but they really only made it because the Mets collapsed (shocker) and they pitched CC Sabathia just about every other day just to scrape into the postseason.

My favorite memory isn’t of a championship game at all actually.  It was the 2003 Wild Card Game between the 49ers and the New York Giants.  The Niners had tasted zero playoff success since Steve Young retired—and little did I know this was the last playoff game we would see through the present—so this was a big game at the time, and even bigger in retrospect.

With San Fran down 38-14, the Giants were taunting, talking trash, and doing all the things that infuriate you on top of the frustration of your favorite team getting trounced.  Then, mid-third quarter, Jeff Garcia and Terrell Owens started to click.  They scored one touchdown and scored on the 2-point conversion, now down 22-38.  Again the Niners scored and converted for two points, 30-38 getting late in the fourth quarter.  After one more touchdown, the Niners were a 2-point conversion away from tying the game, but they couldn’t convert.  No matter, they stopped the Giants, got the ball back, and kicked what looked like the game-winning field goal with a 39-38 lead.  Then all hell broke loose.

The Niners allowed a good kick return, and working against the clock, the Giants managed to get into decent field goal range—a 41-yard attempt to be exact—with just seconds left in the contest.

The Giants' normal long-snapper had been hurt, so they brought in recently retired Trey Junkin for the game, and he looked shaky all day.  The teams lined up and Junkin botched the snap, causing the holder to grab the ball off the turf, wheel to his right, and look to make a desperation pass down-field.  He lobbed a deep ball, and surprised by the calamity of the play, the Niners pass interfered with the New York receiver.  Instead of calling that infraction though, the refs cited the Giants for illegal man down-field.

Game over.  Niners win.  Best comeback and craziest end to a game I have ever seen.

White Flag Time: A Common Occurrence in '08

Eric: I don’t have a single moment; mine is the 2008 Cubs.  As a life-long Cubs fan, I’ve gotten used to losing, come to expect it even, but the summer of 2008 defied expectations.  After winning their fourth division title ever in 2007, the Cubbies aimed high in 2008, and they didn’t disappoint.  Compiling an NL best 97-64 record, it was truly a magical summer.  The Cubs just kept winning, and it was great, even contributing to my own personal happiness as I had the most fun summer of my life.

Everything that October and beyond though has been torture.  The Cubs were unceremoniously swept out of the first round of the playoffs that year, thus ending the championship hopes of the greatest Cubs team I’ve ever seen.  The ’08 Cubs are for my generation what the ’69 Cubs are for the generation previous, the team with the best chances of ending a century-long World Series drought as any we’ll see for a long time.  Chicago followed up 2008 with an 83-78 campaign in 2009, which was not good enough for postseason play; went 75-87 last year; and has gotten off to a horrible start in 2011 with a 26-39 record through 65 games.

It may be painful now, but I can always look back and smile remembering Fonzi, Rami, DLee, DeRo, and Geo raking, Zambrano and Dempster pitching lights out, and Lou Piniella flipping his lid one last time where he actually meant it.

Favorite Highlight

Adam: I’m not sure why this has always stuck with me, but I have loved this shot by Isaiah Rider since I saw it for the first time and have unsuccessfully tried to recreate it thousands of times in my driveway.

Eric: He did WHAAAAT??!! Monday Night, 11/6/2000, in the rain, Packers vs. Vikings, in overtime, Brett Favre throws up a prayer, should-be interception.  Instead, lying on the ground, the ball goes off Cris Dishman’s hands and sticks to Antonio Freeman’s shoulder, bounces up as Freeman flips over to catch it, then he gets up and goes in for the game-winning/game-ending score.  Eat it Vikes.

Funniest Sports Moment

Adam: Three Words: Jeff, Van, Gundy

Eric: I’ll let this one speak for itself.

Craziest Sports Moment

Adam: Only in the NBA, and only with Ron Artest on your team, would you see this.

Eric: I had two moments in the initial running, and surprisingly (read: not at all surprising) both involved Mike Tyson.  The first was when he said after a boxing match that he was going to eat Lennox Lewis’ children, but I’ll leave that to post-fight adrenaline messing up the neural pathways from brain to mouth.  The moment I’ll call “craziest” actually happened during a fight, when Tyson turned Evander Holyfield into Vincent Van Gogh.

What do you guys got?  What are your favorite sports moments and the like?

--from @AdamHocking and @jeuneski

(first, third, and sixth images from flickr.com, second from forbes.com, fourth from blogs.villagevoice.com, fifth from inhistoric.com)