Culturally important sports players

[sc49erfan15]

I think it's worthy of discussion in itself that most of the "culturally important" athletes that we're mentioning are black. It's not that white athletes (or athletes of any other races) haven't done anything culturally important - just a testament to how critical race relations are to understanding 20th (and 21st, for that matter) century American culture.

For sure. I put Babe Ruth in my initial list because he kind of has to be there, but all he really did was play baseball better than anyone else and be a big personality while doing so. He was an outsized personality, but not much more than the Andre the Giant of baseball. However, his legend has grown more than any of his contemporaries in the century or so since he played, and no one in baseball will ever be able to catch up.

I think it's also illuminating that there we aren't talking about football players. For the biggest sport in this country by far, you can't really point to too many individual players as having done something of great cultural import. I'm not sure what there is for football players to do. People have spoken out about CTE, but no one great is retiring early to avoid it. Michael Sam came out prior to being drafted, but he's not a great player so it sadly matters less. Ricky Williams quit the league to smoke weed, but that's not all that interesting. Peyton Manning uses his football career to sell pizza and car insurance, but he's also kind of a monster that way.

Yeah, Babe Ruth is definitely worthy of inclusion because the behemoth that is professional sports today basically all started with Ruth. There were sports heroes and hero worship long before the Bambino, but Ruth hit at exactly the right time. If it weren't him, it'd have been someone else - but the cultural situation (evolution of mass media, technology, economy, etc.) was ripe for a superstar, and Ruth was it. You couldn't summarize 20th century American culture and not mention Babe Ruth.

Football players - there are so many "next men up" that it's basically cannibalizing itself. Thinking of football players that have transcended sports - Joe Namath comes to mind, and that's not even a good one. There isn't a Babe Ruth/Jackie Robinson*/Michael Jordan of football. Hmm. [edit: admiral said this a few posts above better than I just did.]

*of course, meaning culturally-transcendent. Of course Marion Motley/Kenny Washington broke the NFL color barrier, but their cultural impact is magnitudes below Jackie Robinson's.

[The_Admiral]

There isn't a Babe Ruth/Jackie Robinson/Michael Jordan of football. Hmm.

I suppose it's Bill Belichick. Kids got their parents to buy them basketball hoops because we wanted to be like Mike. Now guys aspire to play fantasy football so they can bench and fire people.

[sc49erfan15]

There isn't a Babe Ruth/Jackie Robinson/Michael Jordan of football. Hmm.

I suppose it's Bill Belichick. Kids got their parents to buy them basketball hoops because we wanted to be like Mike. Now guys aspire to play fantasy football so they can bench and fire people.

(don't know how much, if any, you were joking, but) In that regard, it's got to be John Madden, then. Honestly, in terms of "making football culturally important," he's probably done more than anyone else. Even the greatness of Lombardi, Shula, Landry, Walsh, and co. fail to reach too far beyond "just football."

[seattlesonicsofsacramento]

I think it's also illuminating that there we aren't talking about football players. For the biggest sport in this country by far, you can't really point to too many individual players as having done something of great cultural import.

That is very interesting. It shows how the game just chews everyone up and spits them out. No one is allowed to be bigger than football. Lots of people like that, but I find it suffocating.

I was thinking the same thing earlier. Here's some possible choices off the top of my head:

• Bo Jackson: Same reasoning as MJ; dominant athlete in the 90s linked up with Nike to take advantage of a certain consumer zeitgeist.
• Jim Thorpe: Weirdly/sadly enough, gone down in history as the only great Native American athlete.
• The U: I can't argue with their shirt referencing the 80s teams that says "we invented swag". Gotta just name those teams because so many players were responsible, similar to Michigan's Fab Five.
• Richard Sherman: Love him or hate him, he's all you're talking about.
• Marshawn Lynch: Single-handedly fighting the NFL's policy of forced media time, which has recently extended to the NBA via Kevin Durant

[The_Admiral]

• Richard Sherman: Love him or hate him, he's all you're talking about.

Good talk, then:

There is no question that the outrage over Sherman’s infamous post-game diatribe was in large measure racially motivated. And those calling Sherman a “thug” were just using the socially savvy way to call him the n-word. It was necessary for people to respond and reject that thinking. But very quickly, that effort bled into the familiar pattern of white people instrumentalizing and dehumanizing a complex black person into an instrument of their political self-definition. At some point, the very public celebration of Sherman by white liberals became less about him and more about them.

People quickly course corrected from the “he went to STANFORD!” thing. The savvy set are quick learners and they are very finely attuned to these developments. But the essential point to understand is that it’s not the way in which people instrumentalized Sherman but the fact that they did. “Richard Sherman” is now, for a very many white progressives, a piece of code, and any part of his complex and imperfect humanity has been bled out of their understanding.

This led to a useless distorting effect where people competed to shower him with praise that had less and less to do with reality. Several of my Facebook friends began to compare Sherman to Muhammad Ali or Tommie Smith and John Carlos. Which is bonkers. Ali opposed one of the most senseless and destructive wars in the history of our country and the cost to him was enormous. Smith and Carlos made an explicitly political gesture in a sport where their livelihoods were far from secure. What Sherman did is not remotely comparable. So you’ve had this liberal cottage industry of trying to read the tea leaves to write him into some progressive narrative, scrounging through quotes to find evidence that he’s a political leftist. Which, to be clear, is just a more sophisticated version of that early 90s tendency to look for saintly black men; it’s squeezing black human complexity into a form that’s designed to appeal to white liberals. This is an inevitable consequence of so deeply enmeshing social justice politics with social competition that no one is sure where the one ends and the other begins.

...

None of which is to say that there’s a simple way to defend Richard Sherman from the racism of his critics without indulging in this. I don’t know how you would proceed to go about responding to the bull criticism without a little self-indulgence. And to be clear, if the alternative is between Richard Sherman being called a thug all day without response or white liberals dehumanizing and essentializing Sherman in order to defend him, then I’ll take the latter. I just wish people were a little more upfront and conscious about their systems for demonstrating their social justice bona fides. There are all sorts of ways to say “some of my best friends are black.” (Actually, making fun of people for saying “some of my best friends are black” is a very popular way to subtly say “some of my best friends are black.”) The question is whether you have the rhetorical skill and cultural savvy to do this in a sophisticated way, or if you lack those privileges and can only do it in a clumsy way. My ways of fulfilling this function are very sophisticated indeed.

boldface supplied

[DG_ThenNowForever]

I think it's also illuminating that there we aren't talking about football players. For the biggest sport in this country by far, you can't really point to too many individual players as having done something of great cultural import.

That is very interesting. It shows how the game just chews everyone up and spits them out. No one is allowed to be bigger than football. Lots of people like that, but I find it suffocating.

I was thinking the same thing earlier. Here's some possible choices off the top of my head:

• Bo Jackson: Same reasoning as MJ; dominant athlete in the 90s linked up with Nike to take advantage of a certain consumer zeitgeist.
• Jim Thorpe: Weirdly/sadly enough, gone down in history as the only great Native American athlete.
• The U: I can't argue with their shirt referencing the 80s teams that says "we invented swag". Gotta just name those teams because so many players were responsible, similar to Michigan's Fab Five.
• Richard Sherman: Love him or hate him, he's all you're talking about.
• Marshawn Lynch: Single-handedly fighting the NFL's policy of forced media time, which has recently extended to the NBA via Kevin Durant

I've enjoyed your posts in this thread, partly because we have similar mindsets when it comes to athletes. I wasn't a kid dressing like Iverson when he came along, but I loved what he was doing and the middle America freakout that followed. It stands to reason I like the Seahawks for some of the same reasons.

I get how some (admiral) think the deadspinning/SJW of sports is overbearing, but I like having these conversations. Richard Sherman gets treated differently than Tom Brady and I think there's value in exploring why that is.

EDIT: You'll have to believe me that I just wrote a paragraph cautioning myself about being too reductive when it comes to Richard Sherman and the danger of putting him and others in a narrative, but I couldn't end the sentence so I deleted it. Then I chose the Tom Brady comparison, saw myself in the admiral's quote, and now feel sheepish.

Anyway, the immediate thug-labeling of Richard Sherman is lame, the beatification is lame, and the third way laughing at liberals response is lame too. I guess there's no authentic Richard Sherman experience.

[dfwabel]

I think it's also illuminating that there we aren't talking about football players. For the biggest sport in this country by far, you can't really point to too many individual players as having done something of great cultural import.

That is very interesting. It shows how the game just chews everyone up and spits them out. No one is allowed to be bigger than football. Lots of people like that, but I find it suffocating.

The football helmet makes them more anonymous, despite the national popularity.

And FWIW, one of the cultural significant is one who wasn't really seen (Jim Thorpe) and another who is is very signifigant outside of sport and madeus talk about multiple other societal topics is infamous (OJ Simpson).

[sc49erfan15]

I just keep coming back to how much context matters for each individual. Why the things each did were so important, within the cultural context of the time.

1. Jackie Robinson: Great player who has the mental courage to break the color barrier in baseball (context: segregation, systematic (and legal!) oppression of a significant number of individuals, microcosm of the larger social picture during the Civil Rights Movement)
2. Jesse Owens: Outran Hitler (context: 1936 Olympics used as propaganda by the madman of the century, triumph over evil despite a still-segregated America, again a microcosm of much larger worldwide events)
3. Babe Ruth: First superhero in professional sports (context: technological advancements allowing increased mass media coverage of sports, economic change allowing more to pursue leisure activities such as competing in/following sports, subsequent hero worship)
4. Muhammad Ali: Principled civil and religious freedom rights activist, plus a really great boxer (context: 1960s-1970s social climate, Vietnam War etc.)
5. Michael Jordan: Likely the greatest basketball player ever; redefined what it meant to be a professional athlete "brand" (context: almost same vein as Ruth, except more in the business/marketing/rampant capitalism vein)

...it's almost a nature-nurture debate. I'm not taking away from the accomplishments of anyone, but would there have been another in any/all of these situations? Things changed (in all or in part) because of these people. Would they have changed otherwise?

[OnWis97]

I think it's also illuminating that there we aren't talking about football players. For the biggest sport in this country by far, you can't really point to too many individual players as having done something of great cultural import.

That is very interesting. It shows how the game just chews everyone up and spits them out. No one is allowed to be bigger than football. Lots of people like that, but I find it suffocating.

I was thinking the same thing earlier. Here's some possible choices off the top of my head:

• Bo Jackson: Same reasoning as MJ; dominant athlete in the 90s linked up with Nike to take advantage of a certain consumer zeitgeist.
• Jim Thorpe: Weirdly/sadly enough, gone down in history as the only great Native American athlete.
• The U: I can't argue with their shirt referencing the 80s teams that says "we invented swag". Gotta just name those teams because so many players were responsible, similar to Michigan's Fab Five.
• Richard Sherman: Love him or hate him, he's all you're talking about.
• Marshawn Lynch: Single-handedly fighting the NFL's policy of forced media time, which has recently extended to the NBA via Kevin Durant

That's who I was thinking. He was a very well-rounded athlete who played MLB and in the bizarre early days of the NFL. He was also an Olympian. He died in the early 1950s and his importance being pre-1950 is probably part of why we don't talk about him much (as opposed to Ruth who was the best of his era and the first bigger-than-life athlete).

I agree with the OP's top-5 for the most part. Ruth and Jordan were simply larger than life on the field; so much so that they became culturally significant. Jackie Robinson goes without saying. And Ali is right there. I'd probably have Owens #5 in large part because he's the one that young people know the least about (kinda has that Jim Thorpe problem).

[seattlesonicsofsacramento]

• Richard Sherman: Love him or hate him, he's all you're talking about.

Good talk, then:

I have no doubt that there are some people who read the New Yorker and take glee in Richard Sherman for being a provacateur who makes racists come out of hiding and gives white liberals a chance to feel better about themselves, that at least they don't go around calling black people thugs, but I like Richard Sherman because he's a member of one of the all-time greatest defenses in NFL history who loves to trash talk. For a kid who grew up playing streetball, I love that :censored:. The best athletes let you know that they're the best, from your local playground basketball court to your loudest NFL stadium. Even Tom Brady lets you know he's better than you by being smug as :censored: and marrying a supermodel.

I'll admit I didn't give you much to go on for why I included him on my list. It's because he publicly talks trash in an era when you're not supposed to (while also being one of the greatest shutdown corners of all time, so far). He's one of the few candid athletes remaining. I guarantee you that kids right now are playing cornerback in their neighborhood touch games and emulating Sherman.

And yes, I am a Seahawks fan.

[seattlesonicsofsacramento]

I just keep coming back to how much context matters for each individual. Why the things each did were so important, within the cultural context of the time.

1. Jackie Robinson: Great player who has the mental courage to break the color barrier in baseball (context: segregation, systematic (and legal!) oppression of a significant number of individuals, microcosm of the larger social picture during the Civil Rights Movement)
2. Jesse Owens: Outran Hitler (context: 1936 Olympics used as propaganda by the madman of the century, triumph over evil despite a still-segregated America, again a microcosm of much larger worldwide events)
3. Babe Ruth: First superhero in professional sports (context: technological advancements allowing increased mass media coverage of sports, economic change allowing more to pursue leisure activities such as competing in/following sports, subsequent hero worship)
4. Muhammad Ali: Principled civil and religious freedom rights activist, plus a really great boxer (context: 1960s-1970s social climate, Vietnam War etc.)
5. Michael Jordan: Likely the greatest basketball player ever; redefined what it meant to be a professional athlete "brand" (context: almost same vein as Ruth, except more in the business/marketing/rampant capitalism vein)

...it's almost a nature-nurture debate. I'm not taking away from the accomplishments of anyone, but would there have been another in any/all of these situations? Things changed (in all or in part) because of these people. Would they have changed otherwise?

That's the same reason it's understandable why people don't think athletes like AI (or, in your earlier anecdote, Kobe and LeBron) are deserving of being called one of the most culturally important of all time: people don't recognize the context until afterward, and only then is the narrative allowed to crystalize. FWIW, I think the AI narrative has already crystalized, and my first post ITT rehashes a lot of points people have written about. I mean, the man is already retired and allegedly (near?)bankrupt.

[sc49erfan15]

That's the same reason it's understandable why people don't think athletes like AI (or, in your earlier anecdote, Kobe and LeBron) are deserving of being called one of the most culturally important of all time: people don't recognize the context until afterward, and only then is the narrative allowed to crystalize. FWIW, I think the AI narrative has already crystalized, and my first post ITT rehashes a lot of points people have written about. I mean, the man is already retired and allegedly (near?)bankrupt.

IMO, it's not so much "people not recognizing the context until afterward" as much as the fact that "history" has to play out. 2005, who was the bigger story - LeBron James or Sebastian Telfair? Sebastian Telfair could've been culturally important, he was culturally important for a short time, it can be argued that he still is culturally important on a relatively minor scale (re: oversaturation of high school sports), but... Sebastian Telfair is a footnote. You don't know (most of the time) whether someone is going to be a footnote or a major cultural figure until later. Could be LeBron, could be Telfair. Could be Manning, could be Leaf.

[The_Admiral]

I'll admit I didn't give you much to go on for why I included him on my list. It's because he publicly talks trash in an era when you're not supposed to (while also being one of the greatest shutdown corners of all time, so far). He's one of the few candid athletes remaining. I guarantee you that kids right now are playing cornerback in their neighborhood touch games and emulating Sherman.

I just want to add that I don't understand this backlash against trash talk. Everyone does it and always has. I expect athletes to be amped up.

Greatest trash talk in football history?

[rams80]

• Richard Sherman: Love him or hate him, he's all you're talking about.

Good talk, then:

I have no doubt that there are some people who read the New Yorker and take glee in Richard Sherman for being a provacateur who makes racists come out of hiding and gives white liberals a chance to feel better about themselves, that at least they don't go around calling black people thugs, but I like Richard Sherman because he's a member of one of the all-time greatest defenses in NFL history who loves to trash talk. For a kid who grew up playing streetball, I love that . The best athletes let you know that they're the best, from your local playground basketball court to your loudest NFL stadium. Even Tom Brady lets you know he's better than you by being smug as and marrying a supermodel.

I'll admit I didn't give you much to go on for why I included him on my list. It's because he publicly talks trash in an era when you're not supposed to (while also being one of the greatest shutdown corners of all time, so far). He's one of the few candid athletes remaining. I guarantee you that kids right now are playing cornerback in their neighborhood touch games and emulating Sherman.

And yes, I am a Seahawks fan.

Yeah, and a few years ago they were emulating Darrell Revis. Whatever happened to him.

I don't think you can claim a player is culturally important when he and his team only really surfaced on the national landscape in 2013. Time will tell whether they have cultural staying power or are just the random story the news media chose to talk about because those 24 hours of news aren't filling themselves.

[IceCap]

I should probably go to bed but...

I get how some (admiral) think the deadspinning/SJW of sports is overbearing, but I like having these conversations. Richard Sherman gets treated differently than Tom Brady and I think there's value in exploring why that is.

I won't speak for admiral, but I will share my own two cents on the matter, because like you I enjoy having certain conversations.

DG, I've been here a while, and I know that you and I have fallen on the same side of many a political debate before that sort of conversation was...aggressively discouraged. I'm going through this basically to say that, as a core concept with all the baggage stripped away I do consider myself in a believer of "social justice" (granted, what that means will vary from person to person but I think we can all agree on the basics).

And I am, if nothing else, a very opinionated person. I'm not against injecting social-political allegory or discussion into various forms of entertainment. If a story can be both entertaining and topical then why not let it be both? If a discussion about SPORTS! can both make us think and satisfy the sports fan inside of each of us, why not let the discussion do both? Thing is...there comes a point where it's all just too much. Sports, books, comics, music, tv shows, movies. They're referred to as "escapist" for a reason. Do I think that the struggle for LGBT social and legal equality is something worth championing? Damn right. Do I think there are serious racial tensions in society that need to be addressed and discussed openly? Again, absolutely. Is the militarization of local PDs a serious issue? Hell yes!

Do I have to be nailing my metaphorical 95 thesis on the church door of modern society at all times? No, and I don't want to listen to everyone else's all the time either.

That's the key. It's gotten to the point where I can't even indulge in my bull fighting robots hobby without someone lecturing me. The new Protectobot is a SWAT truck? Obviously Hasbro is insensitive to the plight of the urban black youth because they're obviously siding with the growing trend of police militarization! And on and on and on through hobby after hobby, medium after medium. Yeah, these discussions are worth having, but Christ. If I can't even get away from "the discussion" when it comes to G-ddamn Transformers then when can I? So it's not that I disagree about there being a discussion worth having re: Richard Sherman. It's just that...something's gotta give. There's gotta be a few places where we can just enjoy things and not burden ourselves with trying to discuss and fix the broken aspects of our world.

Richard Sherman got amped up and screamed into a tv camera like he was calling out Hulk Hogan for WrestleMania. Can we just sort of take that at face value and find it fresh or funny or whatever without trailing off on a discussion about the portrayal of minorities in the media? 'cause I just finished having that discussion on a Pokemon forum and I kind of stopped by here for a breather.

[The_Admiral]

I think it's great to discuss the greater social issues in sports. That we should never think to talk about them is awful. In fact, social issues should always be up for discussion and action. Where I get uneasy, as I boldfaced in that excerpt, is where it becomes more about signaling one's high social status than actually doing anything, and I think that's where most people are in internet discourse these days. I won't exactly claim to be hitting the pavement myself, but nor am I really doing much grandstanding, either. Mostly I just complain about hockey stuff. But for too many people in the culture war, it's just about the right kind of middle-class white guys demonstrating their socio-cultural superiority to the wrong kind of middle-class white guys, accomplishing absolutely nothing outside the virtual-reality echo chambers of the internet. And I think that's exactly where we are with Richard Sherman, Kanye/Beck/Beyonce, Gamergate, and all this other crap that really only serves to distract us. IceCap talks about losing the ideal and inherent escapism of sports, but the joke's on him: circlejerking about how we understand a Seattle Seahawks defensive back but other people don't is just as escapist as anything.

I'll add that SSofS is doing great work in this thread. Even if I'm not with him 100 percent on everything, he's making good points and arguing them well. Good thread.

[seattlesonicsofsacramento]

That's the same reason it's understandable why people don't think athletes like AI (or, in your earlier anecdote, Kobe and LeBron) are deserving of being called one of the most culturally important of all time: people don't recognize the context until afterward, and only then is the narrative allowed to crystalize. FWIW, I think the AI narrative has already crystalized, and my first post ITT rehashes a lot of points people have written about. I mean, the man is already retired and allegedly (near?)bankrupt.

IMO, it's not so much "people not recognizing the context until afterward" as much as the fact that "history" has to play out. 2005, who was the bigger story - LeBron James or Sebastian Telfair? Sebastian Telfair could've been culturally important, he was culturally important for a short time, it can be argued that he still is culturally important on a relatively minor scale (re: oversaturation of high school sports), but... Sebastian Telfair is a footnote. You don't know (most of the time) whether someone is going to be a footnote or a major cultural figure until later. Could be LeBron, could be Telfair. Could be Manning, could be Leaf.

Agreed, you characterized it in a way that seems more accurate than how I did. But in that case I believe history has already played out enough to canonize AI: he's retired, the 00s are over (now we're midway through the 10s), and NBA players are now dressing like hipsters. His cultural moment happened and we're in the fallout of it.

Yeah, and a few years ago they were emulating Darrell Revis. Whatever happened to him.

I don't think you can claim a player is culturally important when he and his team only really surfaced on the national landscape in 2013. Time will tell whether they have cultural staying power or are just the random story the news media chose to talk about because those 24 hours of news aren't filling themselves.

What were they emulating? Being a shutdown corner? They weren't emulating anything revolutionary to contemporary sports culture, anything that inflames a large portion of fans and shocks Erin Andrews (and presumably the rest of ESPN). They also weren't emulating anybody who was on one of the greatest defenses of all time, but that gets more into me being a fan. And you've got a point that Sherman may flame out like Revis did (sincerely doubt it), leaving behind only a legacy that puts him as one of the top 5 shutdown corners in the first 4 seasons of a career (again, that's my fan coming out, although it speaks to sc49erfan15's point of history needing to play out). You can accomplish a lot historically in 3 seasons, which the Seahawks and LoB have done.

There's been a lot of posts ITT that I want to Like but I ran out of my daily quota so that'll have to wait for tomorrow.

admiral, I know we don't always agree but we do overlap on certain things. Believe me, I wish I could just enjoy my Seahawks bringing the first major pro championship to Seattle in my lifetime with a very exciting team without everyone analyzing what Sherman, Lynch, and Wilson mean for their respective positions and the NFL as a whole (that commercial where Sherman explains he has to believe he's the best to be the best? I really didn't need him to explain that on national television, but I guess some people did).

And Ice_Cap's into robot combat, huh? What a fascist. I'm kidding; I've enjoyed that since I was a kid and I'm excited it's returning. Would the robot design be an acceptable CCSLC thread? btw, I think DG did the best thing you can do about these sorts of discussions by creating a thread for it instead of allowing it to derail the thread it started on. I know you mods have to read every thread, but for most of us, we can choose to stay out of discussions we don't want to see.

[VictoriaGooner]

So we are speaking the most culturally important sports figures of all time, you have to include the two other sports that are played and spectated in higher numbers than that of hockey, baseball, American football, and basketball combined. That would be rugby and cricket. Oh course football (soccer) is the highest played and most popular sport in the world.

Cricket players:

1. Muttiah Muralitharan (Sri Lanka) - Muthiah the “king of swing” is undoubtedly one of the greatest off-spinners of all time. He took exactly 800 wickets in his test career, a record which seems to be unbreakable after the introduction of T20 edition.

2. Imran Khan (Pakistan) - Imran Khan led Pakistan towards 1992 world cup glory with his outstanding leadership and cricketing skills. He is considered one of the top notch bowling all-rounders.

3. Gary Sober (West Indies) - Gary Sober is one of the best all-rounders the world has ever witnessed. His temperament, class and test match batting average is above many legendary cricketers.

4. Sachin Tendulkar (India) - This batting Guru has scored a hundred 100s’ in his career, a record which seems to be unbreakable. He has the highest number of runs in both ODI and Test formats, with over 34, 000 runs under his belt. He is one of two players who are able to score a double century in an ODI match.

5. Best Cricketer hands down: Sir Don Bradman - Sir Don Bradman is considered the greatest batsmen of all time as he averaged approximately 100 in test cricket. None of the modern batting ‘Gurus’ are able to even come close.

Rugby players:

1. Jonah Lomu (New Zealand) - Jonah Lomu combined speed and power to dazzle opponents. He is recognized as rugby’s first true superstar, and helped grow the sport during the early 90’s. Lomu only had two caps entering the 1995 World Cup, but stunned the rugby world by scoring seven tries in five matches. His tries helped New Zealand to the final, where they lost to South Africa in a historic match. He remains the highest try scorer in World Cup history, with 12 tries. He was also crucial to New Zealand winning the first Tri Nations tournament, in 1996.

2. Dan Carter (New Zealand) - Dan Carter is arguably the greatest kicker in the history of rugby. He holds the world record for points, which he took from Jonny Wilkinson. He is the highest point scorer in the history of the Tri Nations (now the Rugby Championship), and has scored 1,381 points in his history. In 2005, Carter scored 33 points against the British and Irish Lions. This was nearly double the previous record for a New Zealander in one match. His performance was called one of the greatest in rugby history. He has also scored 29 tries, and New Zealand have won every single match he scored a try in.

3. Ritchie McCaw (New Zealand) - McCaw was surprisingly chosen for New Zealand’s end-of-2001 tour, despite his inexperience. But in his debut match against Ireland, he was named man of the match after a brilliant performance. McCaw became a key part of the New Zealand side, and was named captain in 2006. He was criticized after New Zealand underperformed at the 2007 World Cup, falling in the quarterfinals. However, he silenced his critics in the 2011 World Cup, when he brilliantly led his team to the title. He is a three-time IRB Player of the Year (2006, 2009, and 2010). Up until 2012, when Carter won his second, no player had won the award more than once.

4. Jonny Wilkinson (England) - Wilkinson began his rise in 2001, but really burst onto the scene in 2003. In one of the most famous World Cup moments, he scored a drop-goal in the last minute of extra time in the final to give England the win against Australia, their only World Cup title. He suffered a series of injuries in the next few years, and critics argued his best form was behind him. However, Wilkinson proved them wrong by leading England to the final of the 2007 World Cup, where they lost a close match to South Africa. He was rugby’s highest point scorer in history, until New Zealand’s Dan Carter surpassed him in mid-2011.

5. Shane Williams (Wales) - Arguably Wales’ greatest ever player, Shane Williams has scored more tries, and had more appearances than any other Welsh player in history. His breakthrough was in the 2005 Six Nations, where Wales won every single match (a Grand Slam), largely thanks to his tries. He also led Wales to another Grand Slam in 2008. That year, he was awarded the IRB rugby player of the year award, the first Welshmen to win the honor. In his final match, a friendly against Australia in 2011, Shane Williams scored his 58th try with final touch of the ball. Williams was famous for his acceleration, and his small size, being nicknamed “Little Shane Williams.”

[marble21]

Ayrton Senna.

No explanation needed.

[Breakwood]

David Beckham. has there ever been a more popular athlete in the world?