Inspired by this thread, I want to know who is the most disappointing athlete ever. Who failed to live up to the hype, or made the least of considerable talent. Here are some of my picks:
Harold “Baby Jordan” Miner- this guy basically stole money from every NBA team he’s played on.
Christian Laettner- one of the best college players ever, and an original member of the dream team. Now, a mediocre role player and pothead.
Eric Lindros- he had a pretty good career, but he was paid like a superstar, and was expected to be legendary.
Dwight Gooden / Darryl Strawberry- Both could have been phenomenal players.
Todd Van Poppel- Pitching prospect that went nowhere.
Not really his fault, but the injury which cut short Bo Jackson’s career was extremely disappointing. I never saw a running back dominate the game as quickly and as thoroughly as Bo did in the short time he played. If he had stayed healthy and played a full career, he would have broken every record in the book. The guy was phenomenal. Watchng the end of his career was akin to what it would have been like seeing Michael Jordan blow out a knee in his third season. A huge potential never realized.
Oh…and we can’t leave Ryan Leaf off this list- one of the all time busts in NFL history. Didn’t he get drafted ahead of Peyton Manning? What a brilliant decison that was.
Baseball if filled with “can’t miss” phenoms who never amount to anything in the long run.
Clint Hartung, The Hondo Hurricane, for instance. When it was clear he was nothing great as a pitcher (his nickname changed to “Floppy”), he tried the outfield and lasted a few more years. Clint Hurdle was another overhyped rookie who went nowhere. There was also Mike Vail, who looked real good early on but tailed off soon.
More seriously: Mark Fidrych. After a terrific rookie year, and one of the biggest draws in baseball, but his career was cut short by injuries. Joe Charbonneau also collapsed after a great rookie year due to injuries.
I think that Dave Kingman had Hall of Fame talent but concetrated so much on hitting home runs that the rest of his game was nonexistance.
In football, there’s John Huarte. Won the Heisman and was drafted in the second round by the NY Jets with a $200,000 bonus (very, very high for the time). Unfortunately, that was the year Joe Namath was drafted in the first round for a $400,000 bonus. Namath got to start and Huarte never played a down for the Jets. They traded him to Boston, where he had a grand total of 11 pass attempts in 14 games (I think he only got into that many games because he held for the kicker). Lifetime: Appeared in a total of 24 games: 19 for 48, 1 TD 5 Int.
Dan O’Brien, the Olympic (1992?) decathlete who was part of a “Dan and Dave” saturation advertising campaign and was supposed to clean house with gold medals a-plenty. He then failed to even qualify on his pole-vault attempts.
I was going to nominate Mark Fidrych as well. What a character, and for a few months he was just about unhittable.
How about Steve Bye Bye Balboni? At one time, I thought he was the next great Yankee power hitter. wound up with 181 HR and .229 avg.
In football, I have to go with Andre Ware. What a college QB, but what a worthless pro career. Not that the Lions couldn’t have made a joke out of any quaterback, but Ware was a bust even by Lion standards.
After Aikman, before Sanders. #2 overall to the Packers. I think it went Aikman, Mandarich, Sanders, Derrick Thomas.
I’m trying to remember another guy from the mid 80’s. Billy Cannon Jr.? He was supposed to be a highly rated pick in baseball but his dad sent letters to every team saying he’d only sign with the Yankees. This sunk his baseball career somehow, but being a good athlete, he got drafted in the 1st round, somewhat late but still 1st round, by the Cowboys as a linebacker. On his dad’s advice he didn’t get insurance and hurt his knee in minicamp or training camp and never got much money. I think they tried to sue later, but to no avail.
I don’t remember which year, but Drew Bledsoe and Rick Mirer were the top two prospects in the NFL draft, with some speculation as to which one would go first. Mirer didn’t do much.
The list of Heisman winners who did nothing in the NFL is pretty long. Ron Dayne has had a solid career compared to Rashaan Salaam or Eric Crouch, who couldn’t get drafted at his original position (QB) and then retired before playing a single down. Charlie Ward decided to play basketball instead of football, and Gino Toretta only played in one NFL game. But that’s different; people know some of these guys aren’t going to suceeed as pros.
Other big-time NBA busts include Michael Olowokandi and Joe Smith, who’ve both had okay careers but were #1 overall picks and sure didn’t justify it. Kwame Brown may be headed down this road as well, along with Darko Milicic (who I mentioned in the other thread, but he’s a better fit here). Then there are guys like Roy Tarpley and Chris Washburn, who were supposed to be big and failed because of drugs. Washburn in particular was a historic disappointment.
His father was also something of a disappointment in football (but had a tolerable career overall). He won a Heisman, and was a legend at LSU (IIRC correctly, his coach before a big game said something like it would be won by a super-player. Cannon had a great game and the legend was born).
He took big money as a running back in the AFL, and did lead the league in rushing one year, but eventually was converted into a tight end. Not a bad career, but no super player.