How about Bobby Knight getting fired?
Bobby Knight
Billy Martin
Carlton Fisk
John Wooden or UCLA basketball team
**ob’s ** doubt placed a doubt in my mind, and now I aint so sure.
I have found other places on the net which agree with me on the 1980 hockey team, Joe Namath, OJ, secretariat, US womens soccer (looks like it was The World cup – sorry, jk, you were right.) Some websites are claiming that Reggie Jackson and Mary Lou Retton did this as well.
But have yet to confirm Becker, Ali, and Jack Nicklaus, or the as of yet unnamed 10th answer. I’ll keep digging around. This is a lot less fun now that It turns out these may not all be right. 
damn facts of getting in the way of fun.
I’ll be back to this thread later tonight.
I don’t suppose Bobby Fisher would count (even if he was on those covers…) ?
I find it hard to believe Tiger Woods didn’t do it when he got his “Tiger Slam.” US Women’s soccer team seems likely. How about the America’s cup winner, Dennis Connor?
Reggie Jackson according one source.
69 Amazin’ Mets?
Searching and this is starting to smell of bad e-mail tales. From what I can tell we’re talking about 7 people. This may be a good one for Cecil.
God DAMN this is a great thread, better not be making this up MB! 
BASKETBALL OR BASEBALL . . . .hmmmm . .
someone already guessed Michael Jordan, which would cover both.
I’ll throw somem wild guesses out there, though I don’t think SI goes back this far:
BABE RUTH
WILT CHAMBERLAIN
JOHN WOODEN
RED AUERBACH
JIM THORPE
PHIL JACKSON
ALLEN IVERSON (SOMETHING TO DO WITH HIP-HOP?)
Larry Bird? I have a vague recollection of him being on the cover of Time at some point in the 80s…
Some more shit agains the wall . .
I already guessed George Bush, who played baseball at Yale.
FIDEL CASTRO (allegedly played baseball)
No, I’m not making it up but I think I may be guilty of passing on some bad information.
[trying to salvage some credit]I did put a disclaimer in the OP saying as much.[/trying to salvage some credit]
Anyway, it last person I was told that was on the list is Denny Mclain, the Detroit Tiger who won 31 games and the Cy Young in 1968 and was then concvicted of some sort of pensions fraud. But I’ve been searching for a while and can find no traces that he ever graced Time or Newsweek’s cover.
So, scratch Nicklaus, Becker, Ali, and McLain of the list, and maybe insert Reggie Jackson and Mary Lou Retton. Going to search on those now.
In any case, once we get this sorted out it still makes for a good trivia question, but must I apologize to everyone. Some of my information was bad, I should have verified it before posting.
I’ll come back with what I find about Reggie and Mary Lou.
For what it’s worth, SI wasn’t founded until the mid to late 50s, so unless some unusual story concerning Lou Gehrig or Jesse Owens arose (and it might, look at Hack Wilson’s 191st RBI. Not bad for a dead guy!), they wouldn’t be likely to grace the covers of all three weeklies at the same time.
I can’t believe Pete Rose and/or Bart Giamatti didn’t make it, though. That story rocked the nation in 89.
I think Wayne Gretzky was on all 3, but not sure when - perhaps after his 4th Stanley Cup?
I know he and Larry Bird shared a Time cover once.
Len Bias?
You know I hate to say “I was” going to guess mcClain, but I see no reason why he would be on the cover of Time or Newsweek for any reason, despite his problems.
D’hop! Dangit, Wiggum, I read through the whole thread hoping to post Len’s name since I woke up thinking about this question and the last poster names him. 
Mouthbreather, great thread but your friend owes you a beer.
OK Mouthbreather… get the best confirmed answers that you can and give us a revised list. Still a pretty good thread and some of the ‘wrong’ answers were great.
We want the truth!
/Col. Nathan R. Jessup voice on/
You Can’t handle the truth!
/Col. Nathan R. Jessup voice off/
Dave
I may need some help!
This is turning out to be tougher than I thought.
Here’s what I found so far:
Nadia Commenice is a definite, from Ob’s link – There’s a pic of the mags from there.
Secretariat is a definite. On all three covers, 6/11/1973
The 1980 US Mens Hockey Team was on the March 3rd covers of SI and Time, but I’m having trouble verifying Newsweek. Reagan appeared on the cover of the March 1st issue (I don’t know if this was maybe a special “off-cycle” issue for his inaugural events?), but I can’t find any other March, 1980 Newsweek covers. Not confirmed.
Denny Mclanm was actually on the cover of Time, the 9-13-68 edition. He was on the cover of SI several times, 9-23-68; 7-29-68; and 2-23-70. (interestingly enough, the 2-23-70 edition was about his scandal – he was on the cover of Time solely for being a great pitcher.) Can’t verify any September 1968 Newsweek covers with him on it. So far, not confirmed.
Reggie Jackson was on the cover of Time 6-3-74, and on the SI cover 6-17-74, but I can’t confirm a Newsweek cover from around there. See a pattern developing here? Old Newsweeks are hard to track down.
Becker (AFAICT) was on the 7/15/85 and 9/18/89 SI cover but found nothing about him on Time or Newsweek. Probably safe to scratch him from this list.
Jack Nicklaus was on the cover of Time 6-29-62, and has been on about 8 million SI covers, but (once again) no confirmation of a Newsweek cover.
I have Ali on all three covers, but not with any near dates. Here’s what I have on Muhammad:
SI covers: 7-10-67; 5-5-69; 7-26-71; 4-23-73; 10-28-74; 12-23-74.
Time covers: 3-8-71; 2-27-78
Newsweek cover: 1-9-70
So looks like no go for Muhammad Ali.
More research later, when I have time. If anyone else wants to help out, it’d be appreciated.