Good Sports
When Sports Illustrated began in 1954, they started their publication off with a bang when they came up with their Sportsman of the Year award that they decided to give at the end of the year to the athlete or sports “person” that they deemed to be the best example of an athlete excelling in sports, character, and to someone who, in some way or another, contribute to sports history for that year.
Their first Sportsman of the Year was track and field athlete Roger Bannister of England, who in 1954 became the first person EVER to run a mile in less than four minutes. Track and field was a big thing back then (very likely bigger than either pro football, basketball or hockey, though it was NOT bigger than baseball) and the four minute mile was an athletic barrier that was truly magical and seemed as difficult to achieve as anything in sports.
60 years of Sportsman of the Year awards have now been given. Many of the biggest names in the history of sports are among the winners. Since the award doesn’t always go to a man, the award is now known better as the Sports PERSON of the Year.
This year, the winner was women’s tennis player Serena Williams. If you follow the long list of winners, you would have to agree that Serena Williams was a very deserving winner and was an incredibly successful sports star whose accomplishments seem to make her a perfect fit for this list. If someone is pretty much the best women’s tennis player in history, and who just had a career best year of winning three majors at an age where most other players in her sport have already retired, then that person has made a great case for winning this award.
Williams winning the award made me want to look over the list of winners and get a better appreciation of WHO won these other years and to get a better grasp of just how special winning this award is.
To get an idea, Serena Williams joins the other tennis winners Billie Jean King, Arthur Ashe and Chris Evert, all people who made major contributions to the sporting world and to their sport of tennis in their years of selection. It is also worth noting that famous and accomplished tennis players Roger Federer, Pete Sampras, Steffi Graf and Rafael Nadal have never won it.
In other sports, some really major names in sports history have won the award, while in the same breath, some equally famous and accomplished sports stars have NEVER won it.
Such as —
In baseball, Stan Musial, Sandy Koufax, Carl Yastrzemski, Tom Seaver, Cal Ripken Jr., Randy Johnson, Curt Schilling, Derek Jeter, Pete Rose and Willie Stargell have won it, while Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Bob Gibson and Mickey Mantle have not.
In pro football, players Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Brett Favre, Joe Montana, Drew Brees and Terry Bradshaw have won it, while Johnny Unitas, Aaron Rodgers, Jim Brown, Walter Payton, Jerry Rice (among a whole lot of others) have not.
In golf, Tiger Woods (the only guy to win it twice), Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Lee Trevino have won it, while Gary Player, Phil Mickelson, Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth have not.
In pro basketball, Bill Russell, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, LeBron James, David Robinson, Tim Duncan and Michael Jordan have won it, while Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Wilt Chamberlain, Stephen Curry and Kobe Bryant have not.
Others, like Boxing (Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard and Ingemar Johannsen – winners with Mike Tyson, George Foreman and Joe Frazier – non winners), Hockey (Bobby Orr and Wayne Gretzky – winners with Mario Lemieux, Mark Messier and Sidney Crosby – non winners), Coaching (Don Shula, John Wooden, Joe Paterno, Dean Smith, Mike Kryzewski – winners with Vince Lombardi, Bill Walsh, Bear Bryant and Phil Jackson having never won), Olympians (Michael Phelps, Edwin Moses, Rafer Johnson and Mary Lou Retton have won it, while Mark Spitz, Carl Lewis and Usain Bolt have not) show that people could have equally brilliant careers but one might win a Sports Person and another might not..
The U.S. Men’s Olympic hockey team that won the gold medal over the Soviets in 1980 won the award that year. So did the Boston Red Sox who won their first World Series in like 90 years after all of their heartbreaks. The greatest of stories. Winners of the award.
The bottom line of all of this is just to show that some pretty special people have won the Sports Person of the Year award over the years. Some really special people have somehow NOT won the award too.
Congrats to Serena Williams for winning this year over a great group of athletes that might also have super careers and might never win this award. She is a deserving winner.
And congrats to Sports Illustrated, for having their award endure for all of these years. It’s one of the coolest awards in all of sports.
