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PROVO -- Echoes of “play ball” and “on your mark, get set, go,” give way nowadays to “let the debate begin” regarding who are the 10 best BYU athletes of all time?
Singling out one former Cougar is as difficult as identifying the best 10 BYU athletes. It's a loaded question like the 1,024 different possibilities on a 10- question true-false quiz.
Here's a view of the 10 BYU-best athletes selected, based on their overall athletic ability: Danny Ainge, Kresimir Cosic, Jimmer Fredette, Mel Hutchins, Tiffany Lott Hogan, Doug Howard, Ralph Mann, Alma Richards, Shauna Rohbock, and Steve Young. Do you agree?
All but Fredette and Rohbock, who await the 10-year eligibility or graduation requirements, are among the 185 individuals who have been inducted into the BYU Athletic Hall of Fame, so that makes the task easier to select.
Because of the quantifiable, in BYU lore Shawn Bradley was the tallest Cougar at 7-foot-6, Frank Fredericks was the fastest at 9.87 seconds in the 100 meters, and pitcher Bobby Noel was the only one to achieve perfection when he tossed the perfect game in 1961 against Montana.
So here's why we've narrowed the list down to these 10 best athletes, fully aware Ty Detmer won the Heisman Trophy, several former Cougars won decathlon titles and that Jim McMahon broke 70 NCAA records in addition to his Hail Mary TD pass against SMU to help BYU win its first bowl game in 1980.
Ainge, an All-American in football, basketball and baseball as a prepster in Oregon, was drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays and the Boston Celtics. He played four seasons with Toronto, at times on the Major League level, while playing basketball at BYU, giving him the nickname "Danny Two-Sport." He ended up with a 14-year career in the NBA (Boston, Sacramento, Portland and Phoenix) with a couple of NBA championship rings.
At BYU, Ainge led the Cougars in scoring each of his four years, finishing with a career average of 20.9 points per game. He set many team, Western Athletic Conference and NCAA records; among them are 112 consecutive games scoring in double figures.
Ainge was compared to the legendary Frank Merriwell by Furman Bisher, an esteemed writer for the Atlanta Journal. His length-of-the-court, last-second dash that led to a 51-50 victory over Notre Dame in the 1981 NCAA East Regional is replayed over and over by TV stations — even 30 years later.
The 6-11 Yugoslavian Olympian center who played like a guard was a three-time first-team All-WAC selection and an All-American. Like Ainge and Fredette, the 22,700-seat BYU Marriott Center attendance figures testify of his popularity and skill, reflected in the quote after it was opened in 1971: "(former coach) Stan Watts built it, Marriott paid for it, and Cosic filled it."
Cosic is listed in the 1997 book "100 Greatest Basketball Players of All Time," Cosic was the fourth European ever selected at the time in the NBA Draft. He was drafted by the Portland Trail Blazers in the 10th round of 1972, by the Los Angeles Lakers in the fifth round of 1973 and that same year in the fourth round by the ABA’s Carolina Cougars. He and Watts are the only two Cougars to be inducted into the National Basketball Hall of Fame.
Fredette was the national player of the year honored as the Wooden, Naismith, Oscar Robertson Trophy Award winners and consensus All-American. He led the nation in scoring at 28.9 points per game in 2010-11, concluding his career as BYU's all-time scorer with 2,599 points.
The New York native set the BYU single-season scoring record with 1,068 points in 2010-11. He rewrote nearly every Mountain West Conference single-game, season and career scoring record. He was drafted No. 10 in the 2011 NBA Draft by the Milwaukee Bucks and then traded immediately to the Sacramento Kings.
Howard was a Salt Lake City native drafted by the Chicago Bulls of the NBA and the California Angels of Major League Baseball. He had a seven-year pro career with the Angels. As BYU's first baseman, he was named First Team All- America in 1970 and was named to other All-America teams in 1969 and 1970. He set seven school records in baseball.
The 6-3 guard was the fourth highest scorer in BYU history at the time, leading the Cougars in scoring at an 18.2 clip in 1970. He was named to the Western Athletic Conference second team both his junior and senior year in basketball.
"He (Howard) had an unflappable way about him, pressure never got to him," said Glen Tuckett, who coached him in baseball at BYU. "When BYU needed a bucket or foul pitches it didn't make any difference, he delivered. He was the best breaking-ball hitter I ever coached."
Mel Hutchins (1946-1948 | 1949- 1951)
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Hutchins, 6-5, was named first team All-American by Look, Helms, and Sporting News. Hutch led BYU to the 1951 NIT title in New York City. The California brother of a Miss America went onto fame in the NBA, was named to six all- star teams during his seven years in the league and was rookie of the year in 1952.
"He (Hutchins) was outstanding for his time, he could jump, run and shoot and played several years in the NBA," said former BYU athletics director Tuckett. "He took basketball to another level, he changed the game, he was poetry in motion. He was kind of like Hank Lucetti at Stanford."
Tiffany Lott Hogan (1994-1998)
En route to Lott Hogan's eight outdoor All-American track honors and two indoor All-American citations the two-time NCAA heptathlon champion from Leeds, Utah, set a world record at Fort Collins, Colo., in the 55m hurdles at 7.30 in 1997.
"She was blessed with her ability and was dedicated," said Craig Poole, her former coach at BYU and now head director of the track and field portion of the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, Calif. "She blew out her knee (ACL) in intramural basketball and set the world record a year to the day later. Not many have that ability and focus. She also worked hard; you don't often find all those qualities in one athlete. She is from the `fastest family of athletes,' and would rival any guy in the weight room."
In 1970, Mann from Torrance, Calif., broke the world record in 48.74 for the 440-yard hurdles at the NCAA Championships in Des Moines, Iowa. That year he was named National Track Athlete of the Year and finished second by one vote in the balloting for the Sullivan Award, the nation's top amateur athlete honor. He was a three-time NCAA champion, in 1970 tying the American record in 49.4. In 1972 he won the silver medal in the Olympics.
"He wasn't that great out of high school," said former BYU track coach Willard Hirschi. "Through hard work, determination and an iron will, he elevated his performance to break a 25-year-old record in 440 hurdles. In terms of where he was and where he finished, no one has ever improved to the point that he did. It's quite phenomenal."
Richards, a Utah native from Parowan, won the gold medal in 1912 when he set an Olympic high jump record of 6-4 inches in Stockholm, Sweden. The decathlete also set BYU's school records in the shot put, discus and long jump.
Rohbock of Orem was a six-time All-American and three-time All-WAC First-Team selection in soccer. She also was an All-American in the outdoor track heptathlon. After leaving BYU, Rohbock was drafted by the San Diego Spirit of the WUSA, where she played professionally until the league folded. Then she became an Olympic bobsledder where she won a silver medal in 2006.
Rohbock set the BYU women's soccer records in scoring 95 goals in 368 shots during her 90-game career and was No. 6 all-time in NCAA scoring at the end of her collegiate career. She is accountable for numerous WAC records, too.
Young is the great-great-great grandson of Brigham Young. In 1983, Steve won the Davey O'Brien Trophy and finished runner-up for the Heisman as a consensus All-American. The Connecticut quarterback helped BYU lead the nation in total offense and set an NCAA total offense record with 584.2 yards per game.
"Steve had great speed," said former BYU coach LaVell Edwards, who characteristically declined to rank any of his players as being the best. "He was an amazing athlete who could have played a variety of positions in college and maybe the pros."
Edwards also cited good qualities about quarterbacks Robbie Bosco, Heisman Trophy winner Ty Detmer, Jim McMahon, and Gifford Nielsen.
Honorable Mentions: Other near misses to the BYU top 10 list include Fredericks of Namibia from the early 1990s; national 1929 swimming champion Budd Shields; four-sport Utahn Fred "Buck" Dixon from the 1920s; middle blocker Ryan Millar, a four-time All-American volleyball player in the late 1990s, who went on to win a gold medal in the 2008 Olympics; and Johnny Miller, from the late 1960s who was one of the greatest golfers of all time.
Other female athletes worthy of high consideration include Finnish setter Mariliisa Salmi from the mid 1980s, who was a four-time All-American in volleyball and 1986 CVCA National Player of the Year; mid 1990s shot putter Amy Christiansen Palmer, of Grantsville, Utah, who placed eighth at the Olympics in Australia; and early 1990s heptathlete Anu Kaljurand, who now heads some of the Olympic programs in her native Estonia.
Then there's BYU's Dale Rex (1939-43), an honorable mention All-American in basketball, who was a 1944 casualty of World War II where he was a decorated hero. The Dale Rex Memorial Award is given to the person who has contributed the most to amateur athletics in the state of Utah during the academic year. Ainge, Lott Hogan, Mann and Young were the only Dale Rex winners on our list of the 10 best.
Conjecture leads to other names on the top 10 list. This list is subjective, no doubt others could come up with a different BYU top 10. Consider yourself fortunate if you got to see any athletes on these lists perform.
Ralph R. Zobell has worked for BYU Athletic Media Relations in various capacities for over 30 years. You can view his bio at http://byucougars.com/staff/athletics/ralph-zobell or contact him at zobellr@gmail.com.