The Associated Press announced this week that Tiger Woods was the winner of their poll for Athlete of the Decade. It’s a pretty arbitrary award and one that is almost impossible to define as far as what constitutes the best
The Associated Press announced this week that Tiger Woods was the winner of their poll for Athlete of the Decade.
It’s a pretty arbitrary award and one that is almost impossible to define as far as what constitutes the best athlete since the year 2000. However, I think they did a good job narrowing the field down to those who are most worthy of the distinction.
The Garden Island was one of the 142 AP members that cast a vote in the competition, so I thought I’d share who I voted for and why.
Though we were given the option to write in an additional candidate, the finalists highlighted by the AP leading up to the vote were Lance Armstrong, Usain Bolt, Barry Bonds, Tom Brady, Kobe Bryant, Roger Federer, Michael Phelps, Annika Sorenstam, Serena Williams and Woods.
The only one I really had an issue with being on that list was Bonds. He has been linked to too many scandals and has probably been passed in status this decade by Albert Pujols, who has a Rookie of the Year, three MVPs and a World Series title to his credit since 2001.
Armstrong became a pop culture phenomenon after returning to cycling from stage three testicular cancer and winning the Tour de France seven straight years, completing his streak in 2005. He came back in 2009 and finished third. He is certainly an athletic hero and a role model, but having only competed half the decade in an event that lasts two weeks of the year, the timing just seemed wrong for such an award.
Phelps and Bolt are very difficult to argue against, since they’ve both done things that no human being has ever been able to do. That’s the beauty of many Olympic events — the simplicity. They are competitions that are basically stripped down to the essence of mankind. Get from Point A to Point B as fast as you can.
Go.
So Phelps’ dominance in the water and Bolt’s historic results on land make them two of the greatest athletes the world has ever seen.
But for this distinct award, I felt that there was a consistency component the winner should have. While Bolt and Phelps’ accomplishments are basically immortal, they only performed their craft a few times during the decade.
Brady is the face of the NFL and has three Super Bowl rings since his unlikely story began in 2001. He’s had enormous seasons statistically and his year-to-year results are pretty amazing.
But he plays the most team-reliant of any major sport. So much has to go right for him to be successful and while he unquestionably makes everyone around him better, it’s hard to make him Athlete of the Decade when he needs as much support as any elite NFL quarterback always does.
Kobe has four NBA championships, an Olympic gold medal and has inched closer to all-time great status. But again, team sport. He might not make this list had the Lakers not made the Pau Gasol “trade.” (Still to this day, the most nonsensical deal I can remember in the NBA.)
Annika and Serena have been incredible talents and ambassadors for their sports, with Williams bringing new fans to women’s tennis and Annika bridging the gap between men’s and women’s golf. Yet both have taken some time off at different points. Serena sometimes was more concerned with other ventures, didn’t always play a full schedule and wasn’t concerned with staying atop the rankings. Annika was as dominant as any athlete in the world through 2006, but fell victim to injuries and retired after the 2008 season.
Then there is Tiger. I hope that I left all the recent developments out of my thought process when I cast my vote, but I think he’d be my runner-up under any circumstances.
While he has become the face of his sport and maybe the most recognizable athlete — if not man — in the world, Tiger still has a number of professional feats to reach before he can be considered the greatest of all time in his sport. I think he is certainly on track to grab than moniker at some point, but he is still looking up at Jack Nicklaus when it comes to major PGA accomplishments.
It’s hard to make a strong case against Tiger on a professional level, but there was one athlete I thought was more deserving than the man in red.
That would be the man in black.
Roger Federer was to tennis in the 2000s what Michael Jordan was to basketball in the 1990s. In one decade, he made himself the greatest his sport has ever seen, to both those who looked at the numbers and those who just watched him perform.
Federer has won 15 Grand Slam singles titles — the most of any male player in history — in a six-year span.
He has made 21 Grand Slam finals, including 17 of the past 18.
He reached 22 straight Grand Slam semifinals.
Even putting championships aside, those last two numbers are pretty amazing. In the most important tournaments of the year, with typically the best 128 tennis players on the planet, he was one of the last four standing 22 straight times.
Federer wouldn’t allow himself to have a bad day. To beat him would take his opponent’s best match they’d ever played. He’s certainly human and it actually happened from time to time, but when a single loss is breaking news throughout the sports universe, you know a special athlete is involved.
He spent almost 4 1/2 straight years as the No. 1 ranked player in the world, besting the previous consecutive-weeks streak by 77 (237-160). That’s basically like an NBA team shattering the current consecutive wins record (33) by winning 50 in a row.
Beyond the numbers, Federer provides about 10-15 “Ohhh” moments in all of his matches. He not only gets to balls he shouldn’t, he turns them into winners.
He finds angles that a geometry major with a protractor would have a tough time comprehending.
He lulls opponents into a false sense of security before pouncing at the most opportune and most important times.
Now at 28 years old, some feel that Federer’s best days may be behind him after winning “just” three of the past eight Grand Slams. One player (Rafael Nadal) has probably reached, but not eclipsed, his status as world’s best.
They have become 1 and 1A.
But Federer’s been back as the No. 1 ranked player in the world for the past six months and is still the most consistently successful player on all surfaces.
His day-in, day-out dominance over his opponents, the all-time records he set that are unlikely to ever be broken, the way he molded himself from a young player with potential into the best his sport has ever seen are the reasons I decided to make Federer my choice for Athlete of the Decade.
