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SALT LAKE CITY — Lots of men and women grew up playing more than one sport. I grew up playing every sport that was available. I ended up playing basketball and baseball, but because of my size and the love that I had for baseball, it became my best sport in high school.
Not knowing at that time that I would grow two and a half inches in three months, basketball was going to be my future. Which brings up a debatable topic: What is an athlete?
Is it a player that focuses on one sport or a player that can play multiple sports well? I grew up thinking you were an athlete if you could play the major sports well. I tried to do just that.
So if that's the case, who are some of the greatest so called athletes in history? Is it Joe who lives around the corner and could play every sport imaginable? Or Jill who also lived around the corner and was so good at every sport that she played against the boys?
Of course, it could be Fred who played one sport and excelled to the highest level of excellence. There are great high school, college, and professional athletes. So separating them should be easy according to the level of excellence. Although some at the professional level are good enough to play, excelling at the pro level is difficult.
So, who are the top 10, two-sport athletes? Here's one list, according to complex.com.
10. Danny Ainge. A lot of the two sport athletes are football and baseball, but Danny is one of the three basketball-baseball athletes in the top 10. We remember Danny as an athlete in the 80's when he played for two championship basketball teams, scoring 12,000 points. His baseball career was only three years, playing for the Toronto Bluejays batting .220, while playing 2nd base. In 13 years of basketball he averaged 12 points a game, 47 percent from the field, and 85 percent from the free-throw line.
9. Dave Debusschere (Another basketball player and a player that a lot of us forgot) was a good baseball pitcher for the Chicago White Sox in the 1962-63 season. He actually threw a shut-out against the Cleveland Indians. Baseball didn't compare to the Hall of Famer's career he had as a basketball player; Eight all-star teams, six all-defensive teams, and won two championships with the New York Knicks. He had a career scoring average of 16 points per game, 43 percent from the field, and 70 percent from the free-throw line. Debusschere played 12 seasons with Detroit and the New York Knicks.
8. Brian Jordan played baseball and football, only spending three full seasons in the NFL; he earned a rare distinction being named to an all-star team in two sports. He was a Pro Bowl selection as an alternate in 1992, a safety with the Atlanta Falcons and was voted to the 1999 National League All-Star game while playing for the Atlanta Braves as an outfielder. 7. Herschel Walker became a two-sport athlete late in his career after spending most of it playing football for the USFL and NFL, he decided to give mixed martial arts a try at the age of 48. At that age you would think it was not a good move. But at that time he was 2-0 with both wins coming by TKO.
6. Deion Sanders, another football-baseball combination and probably the most colorful of the top 10. Many thought he was the baddest defensive back in the history of the game, nicknamed "Primetime" because of the way he excelled on TV and in big games. Probably the only 2-sport player that played two professional games in two different sports, in two different states within a 24-hour period.
5. Bob Hayes. Who is Bob Hayes? This athlete changed the way football is played. After winning gold in the 100 meter and the 4x100 meter relay during the 1964 Summer Olympics, Hayes took the NFL by storm. In his first two seasons, he led the NFL in touchdowns, interceptions, and forced the defensive coaches to develop a zone defense and the ‘bump n run' in an effort to slow him down.
4. Bo Jackson, labeled "Bo-knows-sports" for the many different sports he played, his two professional sports were baseball and football. He was the first athlete to be named an all-star in two different sports. In 1989 all-star MVP in baseball, to rushing for 545 yards on 81 carries in just seven games. Truly a great talent in both sports. 3. Babe Dickerson Zaharias. Back when women's sports were not popular, the Babe is probably the greatest female athlete of all time. She won two gold medals at the 1932 Olympics (80 meter hurtles and javelin). She became a golfer in 1947 and would win 10 majors becoming the greatest female golfer of all time and she also played baseball.
2. Gene Connolly, another baseball-basketball athlete. All star appearances and championships usually define greatness. Gene Connolly is the only athlete in sports to win championships in two of the four major American sports. As a pitcher he was named to dour All-Star teams and won a World Series in 1957 with the Milwaukee Braves. As a forward with the Boston Celtics, Connolly racked up three championships from 1959 to 1961. Four rings in two different leagues.
1. Jim Thorp, considered to be the best and greatest athlete of all time. He received gold medals in the 1912 Olympics decathlon and pentathlon. He then played major league baseball as an outfielder with the New York Giants in 1913. Then in 1915 he joined the Canton Bulldogs in the American Professional Football Association, in which is now knows as the NFL. He spent seven years in Major League Baseball and 13 seasons in the NFL. He was rated as the best multi-sport athlete of all time. I'm a believer that you rate athletes in greatness in multiple sports, but I don't discount the success that players or athletes are having in one sport. Today athletes are taught to specialize in just one sport and, in my humble opinion, doesn't give athletes an opportunity to become one of the greatest two-sport athletes.
