If we’ve discussed this topic, I can’t find it…
Looking at the records of Babe Didrikson Zaharias and Lottie Dod, two questions come to mind:
Have there been any male athletes at the same level of Zaharias and Dod?
Are there other female athletes at their level I’ve missed?
Bo Jackson, Jim Brown, Jim Thorpe, Deion Sanders.
I had a bad feeling I was missing someone obvious.
Jackie Robinson is another good example of this. He was a 4 sport athlete at UCLA (track, basketball, baseball, and football), and played baseball and football professionally.
Jim Brown was multi-sport? Enlighten, please.
Who was the original Wheaties guy? Bob something-or-other? Definitely a multi-sport guy, did the Olympics at pole vault?
I so know I’m going to earn one of these :smack: when somebody posts it.
http://www.lacrosse.org/museum/halloffame/view_profile.php?prof_id=35
Thought to be one of the best Lacrosse players ever.
Bob Mathias, two-time olympic gold medalist. Tremendous athlete. I don’t think you’ve wholly earned that smack, though. That’s not a really memorable name.
Bob Richards. He ran for president in the wingnut party, later in life.
Perhaps Canada’s most multi-talented athlete was Lionel Conacher.
Dave Winfield was so good at both baseball and basketball that he could have made a pro career in either.
Tom Glavine was drafted by both the baseball Atlanta Braves and the hockey Los Angeles Kings.
How about Willie Gault? Most folks know he was a sprinter world record holder in the 4 x 100m relay, also 110m hurdles) and a wide reviever in the NFL (Super Bowl ring with the Bears) , but can you name his other sport?
He was on the American Olympic bobsled team
Charlie Ward. Won the Heisman, followed it with an NBA career. Was also recruited as a pitching prospect by the NYY and TBJ.
Bob Gibson excelled at basketball and baseball. From Wiki:
Probably the greatest all round sportsman in history was CB Fry of England.
He played cricket for England and when he retired had the second best batting average in history for anyone scoring over 10,000 runs.
He played soccer for England. He would have played rugby union for England but for injury, however he played for the Barbarians, the most famous invitational side in the game.
At Oxford he was proficient in many sports including cricket, soccer, Rugby Union, boxing, golf, swimming, tennis, javelin, badminton and sculling. No-one else has ever earned 3 “blues” in a year for representing at 3 sports. Fry achieved it 4 times.
Although he hadn’t been trained he equalled the world long jump record with a jump of 23’ 6½” (7.17m) in 1893.
At the first international trackmeet he won the 100m and the long jump and was considered the favourite to win both at the 1896 and 1900 Olympics. Howewver he was on tour with the England cricket team and did not attend.
However his talents were not just confined to the sports field. C.B. also stood as Liberal candidate for Parliament in Brighton; he was a director of a training ship, a journalist and writer, a deputy and speechwriter for the Indian delegation at the League of Nations.
He was most famously offered the vacant throne of Albania but chose not to become their king.
Well, fuck me. How is it that having grown up in England I’d never heard of this bloke?
According to Wiki, he also liked to run naked down Brighton Beach.
Joe Montana graduated from my high school.
Ask the old timers in the Mon Valley, and they’ll insist that he was a far better basketball player than a football player in high school. There are facts backing this - he led Ringgold to a basketball championship, but spent his first two years as a football player as a backup.
He nearly went to college on a basketball scholarship.
Dave Winfield was drafted by four pro teams, including the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings.
Herschel Walker: Heisman Trophy winner, track star and Olympic bobsledder.
Danny Ainge: played major league baseball (though not all that well) and had a long NBA career.
Dick Groat: 2-time All-American and UPI player of the year as a basketball star at Duke, and held (for a time) the NCAA record for career points. Spent one season with the Pistons in the NBA before his basketball career was cut short by military service. As a baseball player, he was NL MVP, NL batting champion, and 5-time All-Star for the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Forgot one:
Brian Jordan: Defensive back for the Atlanta Falcons from 1989-91. Led all NFL cornerbacks in tackles in 1990. Lengthy baseball career as an outfielder, most notably with the St. Louis Cardinals and the Atlanta Braves, including one All-Star appearance.
A lot of the guys named are sprinters/football players or even football/baseball players, which for the most part require the same skill sets (power and speed), although hitting a baseball takes a special skill.
I think harder is to be proficient in a power sport and a finesse one. Hale Irwin was an All-Conference football player at Colorado and went on to become one of the ten or fifteen greatest golfers of all time.
I want to hear about a heavyweight Greco-Roman wrestler who is a champion curler or darter.
Mike Peluso is a minor league hockey player in the Blackhawks system, and a pro fisherman. (He is not to be confused with his older cousin, also named Mike Peluso, who played several seasons in the NHL). Not a champion at either level, but still kind of a wide difference between the two sports.