Horse 3141 - Top 5 Greatest Athletes Of All Time

There have probably been people making lists of who is the greatest at something, ever since there has been people. People have a great need to want to compete against each other at things and then, after having competed in the things, to make lists about the things. I have no doubt that in some integral of the universe, that there is a list of the greatest of lists. In some second integral of the universe, there is likely a list of the greatest of lists of lists. If there are turtles all the way down, then there are surely lists of the greatest of turtles all the way up as well.

I have to laugh therefore when I see an obviously second hand screen shot of the "5 Greatest Athletes Of All Time". This Greatest Of All Time (GOAT) suffers from the usual biases that you would expect from such a list:

Jingoism: Namely that the country which produced such a list, thinks that it is the best. This is as bad as English football fans singing "Two World Wars and One World Cup: doo-dah, doo-dah." I bet that you don't get Islandic football fans singing about "making it to the Quarter-Finals of a Euro once, and third that one time in the Eurovision Song Context: doo-dah, doo-dah", do you? All of these people are American; and isn't it funny that one country should produce the "5 Greatest Athletes Of All Time"? Also, why is it that three of the "5 Greatest Athletes Of All Time" all played sports which are part of the American fabric?

Recency Bias: With the exception of Babe Ruth, all of these people were plying their trade within the lifetimes of the people whom you would expect to be watching the television. None of these people are a Roman Chariot driver, or a wrestler at the Olympic Games in Ancient Greece, neither are they Football players from the year 2374. They are all relatively recent and within people's living memories.

For this reason, I'd like to propose five different athletes for the "5 Greatest Athletes Of All Time"; which still suffer from a degree of recency bias.

5. Chuck Taylor

Charles Hollis Taylor "Chuck" was not really a professional basketball player; yet probably everyone who has ever played basketball or gone skateboarding has heard of him. 

Robert Pletz, then then CEO of the Converse Rubber Shoe Company, hired Chuck Taylor as a semi-professional player for his Converse All-Stars basketball team, which existed to promote the sale of shoes. Pletz hired Taylor as a salesman after Taylor visited the company's offices in Chicago in 1921.

Chuck Taylor lived out of a suitcase and then conducted basketball clinics across the United States, by way of a promotional tool to firstly get people interested in basketball and then to buy the shoes. He was so successful that by the mid-1960s, the Converse All-Star had captured 80% of the market. 

Chuck Taylor promoting basketball predates both the American Basketball League which started in 1925, and the Basketball Association of America which eventually changed its name to the National Basketball Association (NBA) which started in 1946.

It's probably likely that Chuck Taylor going to schools in the 1920s and 1930s, made kids interested in basketball in the first place. When he joined the US Military in the 1940s, he was given the job of training military cadets in playing basketball; which would have furthered the game's popularity.

Basketball lends itself well to urban environments which concrete surfaces, including street and road surfaces. By giving the game to people in cities, Chuck Taylor probably more than anyone else is responsible for the multi-billion dollar industry it is now.

4. WG Grace

William Gilbert Grace "WG" Grace doesn't have the best batting record of all time (Test average of 32.29); he doesn't have the best bowling record of all time. People like Sachin Tendulkar, Don Bradman, Brian Lara, et cetera, all have claims to be better batters than Mr Grace but Mr Grace has one thing they do not. He was however, the first player to achieve the "double"; which of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets in a season.

What he is particularly important for though, is that he is practically the first proper professional athlete.

I know that there are claims in other sports such as football, where players were paid a wage but WG Grace was the first proper professional sports player. In the 1880s, his fame was so great even back then, that promoters could increase their prices if he was playing. Prices to watch a day's play of cricket might increase from the normal sixpence to ninepence if WG Grace was playing. 

The real irony is that WG Grace was usually seen as an amateur because he was not paid by the clubs, counties and national side he played for (beyond expenses). The truth was that thanks to endorsements from advertising products from everything as diverse as mustard, razors, tobacco, coffee, chocolate and what not, he made more money out of cricket than the actual professional players did. In this respect, people like Michael Jordan, Lionel Messi and Roger Federer, are just following on in that same vein.

3. René Higuita

Rene Higuita was a goalkeeper for Colombia who didn't see the 18 yard box as a place for goalkeepers to be confined in. Right from the beginning of his career, he would scare managers by travelling well beyond the bounds of the 18 yard box and on occasion, act as an offensive player. 

He was famed while playing at Millonarios and then Atlético Nacional for taking on attackers, for travelling with the ball, for playing the ball with his feet and for playing with far more flair than is expected from a goalkeeper. He was brought to the world spotlight in the 1990 World Cup, when his attacking plays with the ball, brought excitement to otherwise tawdry affairs. Also infamously, he tried to play the ball in front of Cameroon's Roger Milla well outside of the 18 yard box; which Milla won and subsequently scored from. This absolute howler of a decision, gained him the nickname of "El Loco".

After this World Cup that FIFA realised the value in having a goalkeeper actually having to play at the ball. Up until Higuita came to the World Cup, there was no limit to the extent that a goalkeeper could pick up the ball within their own 18 yard box. For this reason, the current passback rule which prevents a goalkeeper from picking the ball up after it has been passed back to them by a player on their own team was put in place.

It is not very often that you get a player of a sport who is so very good that they force a rule change. It is even rarer that you get a player of a sport who is so very good that they force a rule change because the people running the sport want more people to be like you.

2. Jackie Stewart

Three time Formula One World Champion Jackie Stewart was already a safety advocate as far back as 1966, following an accident at Spa-Francorchamps when he hit a telephone pole and no proper track marshalls or medical crews were there to get him out of the car. He probably had a lot of time to think while sitting in the rain, while petrol was leaking into the cockpit, before he was finally taken out of the car by Graham Hill and Bob Bondurant who had also crashed.

Formula One was so notorious in the 1950s and 1960s that on average, a driver would die roughly once a fortnight. If guard rails and barriers existed, they were made out of metal, but quite often there were just hay bales and ropes and ribbons which marked the sides of the tracks.

If motor racing drivers are paid professionals, then it makes sense that they should have some degree of workplace safety requirements.

Jackie Stewart was part of the team that advocated for compulsory seat belts usage and full-face helmets for drivers in Formula One; which would be so obvious now as to be unthinkable. He also demanded that places install run-off areas, gravel traps, and proper fuel delivery systems.

Although he'd already made up his mind to quit after the 1973 season, the death of his team mate François Cevert who was sliced in half by the armco barriers at Watkins Glen in a qualifying accident, very much hastened his decision.

After leaving the sport as a professional driver, he continued to push for improvements in safety. As a result of his efforts, track owners and promoters were forced to spend money to upgrade their facilities. Car designers were forced to undergo crash testing and parts testing.

In the week before Dale Earnhardt's death at the 2001 Daytona 500, Jackie Stewart openly criticised Earnhardt's open faced helmet and argued in favour of head and neck restraints in the event of a crash. Those remarks now seem strangely prescient.

Being a three time Formula 1 champion counts for something but taking steps to try to mitigate injury and death of those who have come after, at the risk of unpopularity, is truly impressive. Jackie Stewart is reported to have seen 57 people die while he was in Formula 1. Only 10 people have died in Formula One since; with only one this century. The fact that tracks and cars have got far safer is only the result of people taking deliberate action. Even the death of Ayrton Senna in 1994 reminds us that death does not respect skill or status. I do not know if we would have the likes of Michael Schumacher or Lewis Hamilton if it wasn't for Jackie Stewart. 

1. Serena Williams

Okay. Let's keep her here. She has 23 Grand Slam Titles; which is 1 behind Margaret Court and in January 2017, Williams won the Australian Open while pregnant. Did any of the men in this list do that? No. On top of that, she even didn’t drop a single set on route to winning that Australian Open.

I don't know how these people worked out their lists but to be honest, of these five, Serena Williams makes everyone else on this list just look like little boys playing at games. You think playing at sport is hard? Try doing it while making another person inside you. I can't do that.