ESPN columnist Gene Wojciechowski has a column in which he makes the following statement ...
Tiger Woods is the greatest individual athlete of our time. OK, of all time.
Now, I'm not going to say anything bad about Woods, who is a phenomenal sportsman, but I think Gene's going over the top. You can see why, when you see who he's comparing Tiger to -
"one-namers (Pele, Babe, Jack), your initialers (MJ), your nicknamers (The Great One, The Greatest), your oldies (Jim Thorpe, Willie Mays, Joe Louis), your Olympians (Mark Spitz, Carl Lewis), your netters (Martina Navratilova, Pete Sampras), your others (Lance Armstrong). "
With just one exception, they're all Americans, and they're all involved in sports that are popular in America (and in some cases, nowhere else).
I have a strong recollection of an article in Time Magazine s few years ago, titled "and quiet goes the Don" published shorlty after Sir Donald Bradman passed away in Adelaide. That writer makes my point much better that I can, when he says that if Tiger Woods keeps winning like he had until then for another 15 years, then maybe he could seriously be considered a rival, but until that time, there simply is no other individual in any sport, any time, anywhere, who comes near the perfection of the Don.
Think about ... a life-time batting average of 99.94 runs, in a career spanning 20 years! The next best is Greg Pollock, with average of 65, but over a much shorter period. Where else will you find a sportsman that is 50% better/faster/stronger than his nearest rival, ever! To come even close, Woods would need to be winning consistently with scores in the 50's. It's like running the 100 meters in 7 seconds, high jumping over 3 meters - and not just once, but over your whole career.
This will be a hard point to sell to the Yanks, who don't understand any sports that aren't played on their home turf, and who are also convinced that they have it right, even though they have to split the country into pieces in order to have a "World Series" contest in baseball. But truth is, the Don was so far ahead of anyone else that it's difficult to see even Woods taking the title off him.
Anyone else got opinions on this?
