Whoosh!
Maybe Gale Sayers.
Being a follower of many sports, here’s my NSHO. While I haven’t seen many of these athletes play, these are the names that come up most often.
Soccer - Pele (except in Argentina)
Basketball - Michael Jordan (except in Boston and L.A.)
Cricket - Sachin Tendulkar (except outside of India)
Tennis - Roger Federer (except in the US)
Baseball - Babe Ruth
Football - Joe Montana
Cycling - Axel Mercxx
Volleyball - Karch Kiraly
Track & Field (Sprinting) - Usain Bolt (I think he has now surpassed Owens and Lewis)
Golf - Tiger Woods (Sorry, but Palmer or Nicklaus aren’t even close)
Ski Jumping - Matti Nykänen.
I might just be a dumb, ugly american but when I hear Cycling, I think Lance Armstrong. I hear Decathalon, I think Bruce Jenner. I hear Swimming, I think Mark Spitz.
I meant Eddy Merckx.:smack:
My list…
Baseball
Babe Ruth, by far. The only other players I regard as icons are Joe Dimaggio (if Hemingway uses you as a symbol of divine excellence, you’re an icon), Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle and (I REALLY hate to say this) Pete Rose.
Football
The most iconic names and figures in football, in my opinion, aren’t players but coaches. ** Paul “Bear” Bryant** embodied college football in a way no player does, and I think **Vince Lombardi **symbolized the NFL in the same way.
Only a few football players have ever had iconic status… Jim Thorpe, certainly. Maybe Red Grange. Probably Johnny Unitas, Dick Butkus and Jim Brown.
Basketball
Michael Jordan comes in first, but I can see arguments made for Wilt Chamberlain, Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Ice Hockey
Two guys stand head and shoulders over everyone else. Wayne Gretzky and Gordie Howe. Gretzky himself might vote for Howe. Gretzky is the greatest player ever, but Gordie epitomized a different era of hockey. Some Quebecois might make a case for Jean Beliveau or Maurice Richard.
Boxing
Muhammad Ali wins, but it’s not as clear cut as some here think. Boxing has had several iconic champions. Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Robinson and Mike Tyson all have valid claims (especially Dempsey and Louis). But Ali wins because his trademark schtick was known and imitated worldwide. Even now, I could go almost anywhere in the world and do a bad “I am the greatest” or “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee” imitation, and most people would know exactly who I mean. (P.S. Muhammad Ali was one of a handful of professional boxing champs who were also Olympic gold medalists; if Joe Louis or Sugar Ray Robinson had ever been an Olympian, he might have gotten to light a torch.)
Figure Skating
Even now, I think Peggy Fleming is #1, because she put the sport on the map (and, more importantly, in prime time TV)
Track/field
Even now, I think it’s Jesse Owens
I recently watched sport’s signature athlete Muhammad Ali’s This is Your Life TV program from 1978 and recommend it to all, if you haven’t seen it already.
That’s a good call.
Not that I think he’s a likely choice, but you’d think someone would have suggested **Miguel Indurain **for cycling.
Definitely not Ditka. There’s a significant portion of Chicago that thinks he was a shit coach that cost the 80s Bears superbowls. Are you talking Butkus?
Payton’s certainly in the conversation for best runningback ever. Sanders was a better runner, but his game wasn’t as well rounded.
My favorite rider, but no one seems to be as revered as Merckx.
Surely anyone who says Merckx or Indurain is just trying to avoid the elephant (Armstrong) in the cycling room.
Of course Ditka. Whether you like him or not he is certainly the most iconic Bear.
I’m pretty sure even Mark Spitz thinks “Michael Phelps”.
Oooh, just thought of one: pole vaulting - Sergey Bubka.
Some people still can’t get their head around the idea that their favourite person or even the best person in the sport still might not be the signature player.
I’m just your average guy on the street who knows a little about plenty of things and I haven’t a clue who Migual Indurain is. Face it, when the average non-fan thinks about cycling they think of Lance Armstrong, thats just the way it is to be honest.
Same for Federer. I know he is maybe the greatest ever, but is he the first name to immediately jump into my brain when I think of tennis? Meh, maybe, maybe not. McEnroe seems more iconic to me, and its got absolutely nothing to do with how good each was.
And I also think Tyson could match Ali for name recognition, even today he is still the baddest man on the planet, there are a lot of people out there that know nothing about boxing but still wouldn’t want to get in the ring with Mike Tyson. He is a name to associate with the “pain” and “menace” side of boxing in a way that is different to the sparkling personality of Ali.
Besides, Rocky is more famous than either of them.
I see some names mentioned for NASCAR and some for Formula 1, but I’d think that Mario Andretti is the “signature” auto racer in a more generalized sense.
Not outside America he isn’t.
Exactly.
I knew who Andretti was before i moved to the US, but that’s because i grew up reading car magazines. He was still nowhere near as significant, in my motor racing world, as names like Senna and Prost and Lauda and (for Australia) Peter Brock.
I have seen nothing in this thread to make me think this is other than 100 percent correct. (My own personal reflex is to say Joe Montana for football, Michael Jordan for basketball, and Babe Ruth for baseball (but Roger Clemens as the signature baseball pitcher), which just says that (a) Babe Ruth actually is a signature athlete and (b) my teens/early 20s were in the late 80s and early 90s. Jordan is probably actually the signature athlete for basketball pending what S. Curry and pals do over the next year and a half or so.)
I think you could make the case for Wilt Chamberlain being the signature player over the life of the NBA, but Jordan probably took the crown from him.