All-Time Greatest Athlete

[Captain Sasquatch]

Who the hell is Jim Thorpe?

 

[Captain Sasquatch]

For the record, the correct answer is Bo Jackson while eating a ham sammich.

 

[MidwestChomp]

I instantly thought of Jim Thorpe. And how the crap do you not know who he was. But I also thought of Babe Didrickson. Yes they were athletes 80 years ago, but way before their time.

 

[78]

ESPN came up with its own Top 100 list a while back. Bo Jackson finished 72nd and well behind a horse (Secretariat), a jockey (Willie Shoemaker) and a diver (Greg Louganis). Proving once again that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

1. Michael Jordan
2. Babe Ruth
3. Muhammad Ali
4. Jim Brown
5. Wayne Gretzky
6. Jesse Owens
7. Jim Thorpe
8. Willie Mays
9. Jack Nicklaus

https://espn.go.com/sportscentury/athletes.html

 

[GatorJ]

They guy was a nfl back up

Top 10 All Time NFL All Purpose yards.
2 time pro bowler - 82 TDs
Olympic bob sledder
50 year old Professional MMA fighter
5th degree blackbelt in Taekwondo
3 seasons in USFL - three seasons of wear and tear prior to NFL. - 54 TDs
1985 - Set Professional football season rushing record (In USFL) with over 2400 rushing yards

His first 2 years at Dallas was split with Dorsett. The fact that the first 5 years of his professional career was spent in the USFL and in the backfield with Dorsett its a phenomenal feat that he's at the top of the NFL All Purpose yards. Most RBs' careers are over after 5 years.

I'm not even going to name all his collegiate feats. There are so many.

 

[t-gator]

Top 10 All Time NFL All Purpose yards.
2 time pro bowler - 82 TDs
Olympic bob sledder
50 year old Professional MMA fighter
5th degree blackbelt in Taekwondo
3 seasons in USFL - three seasons of wear and tear prior to NFL. - 54 TDs
1985 - Set Professional football season rushing record (In USFL) with over 2400 rushing yards

His first 2 years at Dallas was split with Dorsett. The fact that the first 5 years of his professional career was spent in the USFL and in the backfield with Dorsett its a phenomenal feat that he's at the top of the NFL All Purpose yards. Most RBs' careers are over after 5 years.

I'm not even going to name all his collegiate feats. There are so many.

So after 5 years of minor league football he split carries with a better running back? Then took up a few other sports because he got bounced out of the nfl too early? Bob sledding? Cmone j.

 

[rogdochar]

Jim Thorpe attended Carlisle Indian Industrial School 1907. He walked on while the high jump was going on and
outjumped everybody in his street clothes. Thorpe could excel at any events, just by watching it, no training.

His coach in all sports was "Pop" Warner. He played RB, DB, PK and punter. He scored all points in Carlisle's upset of
Harvard (1907 H was big deal). That year they beat Army by a couple TDs. Thorpe ran a 92 yard TD called back by a
teammate's penalty. Next play he ran a 97 yard TD.

In the 1912 Olympics in Sweden, Thorpe won gold medals in the pentathalon and the decathalon. His race times
were good by today's standards : 10 flat 100, 21.8 220, 1:45 880.
Thorpe played professional football, pro baseball and pro basketball.
Remember, Thorpe was a very simple Indian. His life was cut short by alcoholism.

 

[GatorJ]

So after 5 years of minor league football he split carries with a better running back? Then took up a few other sports because he got bounced out of the nfl too early? Bob sledding? Cmone j.

He's top 10 in the history of the NFL. This is an athlete thread though. Not greatest NFL player.

Who's your pick?

 

[GatorJ]

Jim Thorpe attended Carlisle Indian Industrial School 1907. He walked on while the high jump was going on and
outjumped everybody in his street clothes. Thorpe could excel at any events, just by watching it.

His coach in all sports was "Pop" Warner. He played RB, DB, PK and punter. He scored all points in Carlisle's upset of
Harvard (1907 H was big deal). That year they beat Army by a couple TDs. Thorpe ran a 92 yard TD called back by a
teammate's penalty. Next play he ran a 97 yard TD.

In the 1912 Olympics in Sweden, Thorpe won gold medals in the pentathalon and the decathalon. His race times
were good by today's standards : 10 flat 100, 21.8 220, 1:45 880.
Thorpe played professional football, pro baseball and pro basketball.

May very well be the greatest athlete ever.

 

[Swamp Donkey]

So after 5 years of minor league football he split carries with a better running back? Then took up a few other sports because he got bounced out of the nfl too early? Bob sledding? Cmone j.

Dude, Minnesota traded like their entire draft and team to get Walker. In his prime, no one was better. Neither Minnesota nor anyone else wanted Dorsett.

His dalliance with the USFL was unfortunate for his career stats but at the time it was fresh and new. They paid him an unimagineable contract to get him to jump. Also, the NFL was struggling. I can't remember if the miserable strike season was before or after but it wasn't beyond to reason to think the NFL was either going to fold or evolve into something else. In the early 80s, the AFL NFL merger was still relatively fresh in everyone's mind.

None of that makes him the best athlete, but he was and is without a doubt a stud.

 

[GatorJ]

Btw if Bo never destroyed his hip this may not even be a discussion.

 

[t-gator]

He's top 10 in the history of the NFL. This is an athlete thread though. Not greatest NFL player.

Who's your pick?

LeBron James

 

[Swamp Donkey]

No one asked who was the 2 or 3rd best player on the Heat.

 

[t-gator]

Where's wobble when you need him, I just know he'd have my back on this

 

[Swamp Donkey]

This guy is 50 years old and beats the pizz out of MMA fighters.

FIFY.

 

[Okeechobee Joe]

Bo Jackson may not even have been the greatest athlete ever at Auburn University. Frank Thomas was an Auburn tight end who went on to be inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame after a long career with the Chicago White Sox. According to his coaches he would have been an outstanding NFL tight end if chose to pursue that sport.

Of course, you have to say that Bo was greater than Frank Thomas because Jackson actually did excel at two sports on the professional level. Jackson also ran track for Auburn. But it is interesting to recall the name of Frank Thomas.

Greatest Gator athlete of all-time I believe was Rick Casares -- the great Chicago Bears running back who held the rushing record for the Bears until it was eclipsed by Walter Peyton. Casares was an outstanding javelin thrower or the track team, was all-SEC in basketball, and played in the backfield for Bob Woodruff's Gators. Before Florida, he was also a boxer. He was a good blocker on the football team. Casares was tough by any standards. He never complained and led by example. A team player, Casares was always liked and admired by his teamates. Why he never made the pro football Hall of Fame, I don't know. Some say it was due to the fact that he reportedly hung out with some unsavory characters. He was an athletic icon at Jefferson High School in Tampa.

[youtube]95pEXCml2jc[/youtube]

 

[stephenPE]

Percy was as flawed as this poll is, but I have never seen an athlete, in any sport at any level, that was as exciting to watch as he was. He could score every other time he touched the ball, it seemed, in 2008. Percy had a 3rd gear, that he used very sparingly, which led to would be tacklers taking the wrong angle, repeatedly, when trying to catch him.

Then you did not see Emmitt Smith play on Fla Field. HE could break one anytime and you could hear and feel the fan's anticipation each time he got it and you saw a small crease. Percy was first team Gator I agree but Emmitt was not real. They knew he was coming and he could still get it done. IF he had played in the SOS offense one year he averages 10 a carry. Best athlete I ever read about was Jim Thorpe. Bo Jackson? I saw the gator defense make him quit and sit down. True story here. Larry V was doing this same poll on the rado many years ago (maybe 14), My two kids were in the car. My youngest brother called in from wherever he was (rip) and told him I was the best athlete he ever saw. Now after reading the NEW book on SOS by Ran Henry I think SOS may have been the best all round athlete ever. Best SOS book there is. You learn more about the man and boy things you never knew.
Ok I just read OkeJoe's Rick Casares thread. This was the guy. My dad told me all about him. He could do it all at UF.
And he was a serious rebounding forward on the BB team.

 

[oxking]

Who the hell is Jim Thorpe?

A tad before your, ah er and my, our time.

 

[WobbleGator]

Where's wobble when you need him, I just know he'd have my back on this

You are entirely wrong on this topic t. Lebron is nowhere near the top athlete ever. Stop trolling and move on.

 

[TheDouglas78]

We can only grade athletes based on the competition they had at the time. I don't know if there was ever before or since been an athlete like Jim Thorpe. I do not believe our athletics/specialization of athletics would allow for it in this day in age. He was the first person in just about every sport you could say was a "Man among Boys".

Jim Brown was also a 3 sport letterman in college, and Football was his 3rd best sport if I remember right.