I thought for sure they would give it to Tony LaRussa after the way the Cardinals came out of nowhere to win the World Series (and then he announced his retirement).
My top four choices were:
Who I thought would win - LaRussa
Who I thought would win before the Miracle Cardinals - Dirk Nowitzki (although the whole NBA lockout thing might have played against it anyway)
Who I thought deserved it - the Japanese women’s soccer team (otherwise, justify either 1980 (US hockey team) or 1999 (US women’s world cup team))
The early choice: the Northern Ireland Golf Resurgence - Rory McIlroy (US Open golf champion) and Darren Clarke (British Open golf champion), although I soured on them when the PGA champion wasn’t also from Northern Ireland.
Pat might have deserved it all to herself, because of her NCAA record in wins (men and women) on top of the classy way she has handled her recent diagnosis of early onset dementia.
And if her dignified and unapologetic handling of the diagnoses leads to a better awareness as to what is going on in regard to early onset of dementia then it makes her all the more important.
It’s like breast cancer awareness or prostrate cancer awareness. The subject was taboo. It’s time to educate the public as to how serious early onset of dementia is. It not only cuts down productive people short of their time but it tears up families.
This isn’t about 90 year old people getting dementia. This is about productive people short of retirement age that have been diagnose with a disease for which little is known. I heard a statistic that people in the US spend over $80 billion a year in anti-aging products but only about 1/2 billion a year is spent on Alzheimer’s research.
I’m with you. Give it to Pat. The way things are right now she is fighting a losing battle. For that, we all lose.
I think SI doesn’t believe they can sell enough magazines if they give the award to a tennis player- or else they don’t have a lot of writers who pay attention to the sport. If they never named Federer sportsman of the year when he had a couple of years that were as least as good as Djokovic’s season this year, I’m not surprised they didn’t give it to Djokovic this year.
I don’t think either of them is obscure, and certainly SI does not go with the most famous candidate every time. But college basketball has a bigger audience, so they’re more comfortable giving a lifetime achievement award to two college basketball coaches (both of whom have had great careers) than a tennis player.