By Thomas Sellers Jr.
Across all the sports played in America over the past 150 years, there are countless all-stars, many hall of famers, dozens of legends but few icons.
Before you notice that hockey is not represented in this America 250 Icon of Sports list, most of the icons like Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux are Canadian. I had to use a couple of different perimeters to narrow down this list to just 10 from the walks of baseball, basketball, football and more. In order to make this countdown, you have to be a household name, mythical, vital to your sports’ history and a foundation piece of sports Americana.
If you have any additions, please send them in with the information below.
10. John Unitas
He was America’s first mainstream quarterback. My apologies to Joe Montana, Tom Brady and Sammy Baugh, but Unitas was the first man behind center who put the NFL on the map.
Unitas rewrote the record books in the NFL for 18 seasons. Plus the former Baltimore Colts legend beats those other guys in the nickname department with “Johnny U.” and “the Golden Arm.” Unitas was the prototype of the modern quarterback and the first player to sell tickets across the legend when he came into town.
9. Lou Gehrig
His name is now associated with the disease that claimed his life. Prior to suffering from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, Gehrig was the ideal Robin to Babe Ruth’s Batman in Gotham.
“The Iron Horse” racked up 493 home runs and nearly 2,000 RBIs before getting sick. He set a then record for consecutive starts at 2,130 straight games.
What also gets Gehrig on this list is his iconic retirement speech. It’s still the standard nearly 100 years later. He called himself “the luckiest man on the face of the earth” in a farewell speech, he turned his personal tragedy into a message of hope when facing uncertainty.
8. Serena Williams
She is the modern day greatest female athlete and the standard across all of athletics. Serena Williams was a blend of power, grace, speed and intelligence on the tennis court. She won every major event in her profession from the gold medal to Wimbledon. Serena Williams holds an 858-156 career singles match record, claiming 73 WTA singles titles and an all-time Open Era record of 23 Grand Slam women’s singles titles. The little girl from Compton, Calif., is an American icon.
7. Jim Thorpe
America’s first super athlete was born on a Sac and Fox reservation. Jim Thorpe definitely meets the criteria of mythical with him competing in baseball, football, lacrosse, boxing and track. He even won a collegiate ballroom dancing title. Add in his two Olympic gold medals from 1912, Thorpe should be on every sports icon list for America.
6. Jackie Robinson
Sports in America today is so diverse we have superstars like Victor Wembanyama, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Luka Dončić making millions in our country — and that’s just the NBA. The icon to pave the way for them was Jackie Robinson.
When Robinson stepped onto Ebbets Field in Brooklyn on April 15, 1947, he opened doors for countless athletes across the world for the rest of time.
Robinson endured threats, taunts from fans, opponents and even teammates. Robinson left baseball a champion in 1955 and entered America’s fight for civil rights as a beacon of light.
5. Billie Jean King
You can name women’s tennis players with more impressive numbers and resumes, but no one had a bigger impact on professional sports overall than Billie Jean King. In front of 90 million viewers, King dominating Bobby Riggs in the 1973 “Battle of the Sexes was a benchmark for women’s sports.
King was still awesome during her career winning 39 Grand Slam titles in singles, doubles and mixed doubles.
4. Jesse Owens
Credited as the man who stole Hitler’s Olympic Games, Jesse Owens is the most iconic U.S. American Olympian. Others have won more gold and broken his records, but Jesse was the face of the most important Olympics in history. Him being black added to his legacy in track-and-field. Jesse won four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics. He single-handedly punctured the Nazi myth of Aryan supremacy.
3. Michael Jordan
His logo is iconic and his shoes are still being worn today by the youth. That right there makes Michael Jordan iconic.
Jordan is known by his last name and is still the face of the NBA to many nearly two decades after his retirement.
The former Chicago Bull has also put on the map companies like Nike, McDonald’s and Gatorade.
Jordan is a global brand as we speak and he won his first NBA title in 1991. After he dropped his memorable “push-off” jumper against the Utah Jazz in 1998, Jordan was firmly a part of Americana. Six champions and an endless list of amazing plays will do that.
2. Muhammad Ali
“The Greatest” will be No. 2 on this list. The ironic thing is Ali was elevated into legendary status from doing something at the time labeled anti-American. His Vietnam draft refusal and civil rights protests redefined athletes and made him an outspoken activist.
Tossing in iconic boxing matches with names like ‘Fight of the Century,’ ‘Rumble in the Jungle,’ and ‘Thrilla in Manila’ were epics. His career started as Cassius Clay from Louisville, Ky. By the time he claimed his first of three world heavyweight champions, he was becoming Muhammad Ali. His life outside of the ring was provirising and his feats in the squared-circle lived up to his own hype.
Ali’s life was so important, it got a movie.
1. George Herman “Babe” Ruth
Shouts out to Grantland Rice for helping Babe Ruth become more mythical. As time marches on, children from all corners of the United States learn who the Babe is.
His baseball career lasted 22 seasons and he hit a then record 714 home runs. Ruth was also a pitcher.
He met another criteria with the nicknames like “the Bambino” and “the Sultan of Swat,”
Ruth had a curse named after him that kept his former team the Boston Red Sox not win a World Series for nearly 100 years.
Ruth made the Yankees America’s team by leading iconic squads like the 1927 “Murderers’ Row” to the championship.
In 1936, Ruth was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame as one of its “first five” members. Ruth’s legendary moments include 54 home runs in 1920 and 59 more in 1921. The man who authored the “Called Shot,” pointed to being No. 1 on the most iconic American athletes of all time.
I concluded by apologizing to the NFL greats like Walter Payton, Jerry Rice and Lawrence Taylor. Most people identify with the team over the individual on the gridiron.
THOMAS SELLERS JR. is the editor of The Millington Star and both the sports editor and a weekly personal columnist for West 10 Media/Magic Valley Publishing. Contact him by phone at (901) 476-7116, by fax to (901) 529-7687 and by email to starmillington@gmail.com
