Sports
The Single Greatest Athletic Achievement
Lacey Rose,
11.18.05,
12:00 PM ET
To help us compile our list of the greatest individual athletic achievements, we relied on the advice and intelligence of six outside experts. Not only did they compile our original list of 30 great feats (which we then whittled to 20), but they also voted on what they thought was the single greatest achievement in sports since 1850.
Robert Barnett
Professor of Sport History
Marshall University
Barnett has served as editor for several sports publication, including the Journal of Sport History, and has produced two television documentaries on the history of sport.
Pick: Bill Russell leading his team to 11 NBA championships in 13 seasons between 1957 and 1969.
"The first criteria that I used was: Did they change the game? Secondly, did they perform at a high level over an extended period instead of just a short-term career? Then I tried to consider extenuating circumstances. Bill Russell used his athleticism as a defender to dominate professional basketball for more than a decade and clearly demonstrated to the NBA that defense can win championships. He did this in a hostile racial environment, with grace, dignity and ability that refuted negative racial stereotypes."
Linda J. Borish
Professor of Sport History
Western Michigan University
Borish has served as a book review editor for the Journal of Sport History and the international ambassador of the North American Society for Sport History.
Pick: Gertrude Ederle swimming the English Channel in a record-breaking 14 hours, 31 minutes in 1926.
"Gertrude Ederle achieved a phenomenal individual athletic feat. She was the first woman to swim the English Channel, let alone beat the men's time by over two hours. Along those lines, her feat also helped to propel women into sports of all sorts, proving they had the stamina, strength and courage at a time when most of society was limiting."
Bob Costas
Announcer
NBC Sports
Costas has been with NBC since 1979, covering every major sport and several Olympics Games. He has won many awards, including 17 Emmys, and been named "National Sportscaster of the Year" an unprecedented eight times by his peers.
Pick: Jesse Owens breaking three track & field world records and tying a fourth in 1935.
"In truth, there is no clear-cut number-one choice. You could make a reasonable case for a dozen different achievements. What Jessie Owns did ranks high because of the range of classic athletic skill demonstrated, the drama of the circumstances and the historic implications--in terms of both sports and the politics of the time."
Richard C. Crepeau
Professor of Sport History
University of Central Florida
Crepeau is the former president of the North American Society for Sport History, and a member of the Sport Literature Association's executive advisory board. He writes a column for the Sport Literature Association.
Pick: Jesse Owens breaking three track & field world records and tying a fourth in 1935.
"When you look at what he did; he broke three world records and tied another in a matter of one hour. There is even some dispute, because people think he actually broke rather than tied the fourth. So four world records essentially, one tied and three broken, in an hour--not one week, not one day, but one hour. That has to be the greatest hour in the history of track and field and maybe even one of the greatest hours in the history of sports.
To me, it's the most amazing performance by an individual in such a short space of time. And if you think of the energy that is required for those events and the fact that he did four of them in an hour, it's almost beyond belief. So although he's remembered for his Olympic gold medals in 1936, I think in many ways--and perhaps in all ways--this is more astounding."
Mark Dyreson
President
North American Society for Sport History
Dyreson teaches in the history and philosophy of sport program at Pennsylvania State University and is the author of Making the American Team: Sport, Culture and the Olympic Experience.
Pick: Gertrude Ederle swimming the English Channel in a record-breaking 14 hours, 31 minutes in 1926.
"An Olympic swimming champion for the United States at the 1924 Games in Paris, Ederle became the first women to swim the English Channel. Her time bested the marks posted by all of the men who had conquered the channel before her, making her the world record holder for both genders in the most famous ultra-endurance swimming event in the world. In an era (the 1920s) when women were breaking barriers in sports, politics and other arenas of modern life, Ederle's feat created a firestorm of publicity about gender roles."
Ellen Roney Hughes
Curator
National Museum of American History
Hughes is a curator and cultural historian specializing in American sport and popular culture. She is the author of Sports: Breaking Records, Breaking Barriers.
Pick: Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay successfully climbing Mount Everest for the first time in 1953.
"I don't think there is anything that is physically as challenging in sports as that climb. It's dangerous, laborious, long, and there's no room for error. For Hillary and Norgay to attempt it and succeed when nobody else had done it, well, you can't really top that.
Their feat was incredibly significant--it opened the gate for other people. Climbing Everest will never be ordinary because of its difficulty, but now it's something that people everywhere are willing to attempt. You certainly won't find it in the sports pages anymore."