The Greatest Athlete....??

As everyone probably already knows, Tiger Woods was recently named Athlete of the Decade. Woods's accomplishments on the golf course in the past decade were undeniably amazing and he undoubtedly deserved the honor of being donned as the decade's greatest athlete. Lance Armstrong, Roger Federer, and Michael Phelps finished second, third, and fourth respectively, and either one of those three would have been a viable choice. Finishing out the top five was Tom Brady, but with only three votes out of 142, it was obvious that Brady didn't really garner much attention.

The debate over who is the greatest athlete is one that has always developed lots of interest. Sports radio hosts are constantly fielding questions and offering their opinions on who is the greatest athlete of all time. Shortly following the completion of the last century, ESPN composed a list of the 100 greatest athletes of the past century. They named the series Sportscentury and revealed the so-called top 100 athletes of the 20th century. Topping the list was Michael Jordan, the legendary Chicago Bulls guard who dominated the 1980's and 1990's with his fade away jumper and gravity defying moves. Jordan prevailed over Babe Ruth, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, Wayne Gretzky, and 95 others. While, I am not here to argue that Jordan was not the greatest athlete of 20th century, I do find it funny that his own coach felt that Jordan was not even the greatest athlete he ever coached. Jackson claimed in an interview that Dennis "The Worm" Rodman was the most athletic player he ever coached, a pretty prestigious claim considering Jackson has coached Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Shaquille O'Neal and of course, Kobe Bryant. Jackson's comments although not well known are similar to the comments offered by a number of sports fans and sport talk hosts across the country when it comes to the debate on the level of certain athletes.

The majority opinion seems to direct one to an athlete's dominance in their individual sport. For this reason, the Jordan and Gretzky's of the world are often considered the top athlete. However, this opinion leaves some great athletes in the dust. Athletes such as Deion "Prime Time" Sanders, because it was Prime Time who ran one of the fastest forty yard dashes ever recorded, succeeded in both baseball and football at the professional level, and retired as quite possibly the greatest cover corner in the history of the National Football League. ESPN ranked Sanders as the 74th greatest athlete of the century, nearly forty spots behind a horse. Another phenomenal athlete who didn't even crack the list was Dave Winfield. Winfield, a Hall of Fame baseball player, is the one of only two players too be drafted by Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, and the National Football League. The other? Dave Logan. It was once considered that the person who won the decathlon was the greatest athlete on Earth, but yet, Jim Thorpe was the only decathlon winner listed on Sportscentury's list.

Nine years from now, the associated press will probably honor someone else with by naming the athlete of the decade. LeBron James, Albert Puljols, and several other athletes will probably be among the finalists. It's quite possible that Tiger Woods could once again win the competition, because whenever Tiger comes out of that Hooter's girls bedroom and emerges back on the golf course he will inevitably be successful, but one question will remain. Are they truly the best athlete of the decade? I guess that's just up for debate and left for radio hosts and obnoxious idiots who call in to the show to continue to babble over.

In other news, this silly blog finally proved that it has some meaning. After months and months of wondering and searching, I came across a Megatouch 2009.5 edition. If you remember I once mentioned I was considering boycotting Megatouch due to their refusal to accept Geilfuss as a valid last name. Following my post, I was contacted by the Director of Marketing and Finance for Megatouch who assured me that in their 2009.5 edition, Geilfuss would be accepted as a valid entry. So you can only imagine my excitement when I came across this new machine at JD's bar in Canton. After a few rounds of Race Poker, I finally achieved a high score, entered in my last name, and was quite pleased to see Geilfuss as the bearer of high scores. It won't be long till more and more bars have the 2009.5 edition and no longer will the Jacoby's have to enter in multiple versions of my last name upon receiving a high score.

Also, it has come to my attention that Dennis Rodman will be teaming up with Dr. Drew on the new season of Celebrity Rehab and if this is true, good things are bound to happen, because when it comes to entertainment, there are few people in this world as entertaining as The Worm.