The Ultimate Debate: The Most Dominant Athlete of All Time

So here's the scoop; since my days back in high school there has been a never ending debate over who truly is the most dominant athlete of all time. Arguments can and pretty much have been made for a laundry list of athletes, but no consensus winner has ever come out. I figured what better way than to start my blog off than to touch base with the timeless question: who is the most dominant athlete of all time?

There are a few big issues in trying to find an answer to this question.

• The fact that there is a clear difference between individual and team sports makes this debate extremely difficult.
  
  

Is it fair to even try and compare Tiger Woods to Jerry Rice? One is solely dependent on himself while the other is dependent upon how his other teammates perform at any single instant. How many more passes could Jerry have caught if an offensive lineman, say tackle Harris Barton (49er from 1987-1996), would have held his block one second longer? Now that is one tough variable to consider.

• The time periods in which these athletes competed in raises a lot of questions.
  

Did the fact that Pete Maravich played without a three point line make him any more or less of a dominant athlete? Did athletes of the past have to deal with as much media pressure and exposure as they do today? Have athletes really become "bigger, faster, stronger" as time has evolved or is it just the name of a workout plan to pump you up! (Geracie students, you know what I'm talking about) How about the fact that an athlete like Henry "Hank" Aaron had to constantly face a prejudice world when African Americans were fighting for their civil rights.

• How do you measure dominance?

Is it even measurable? Is it based off stats, championships, clutch performances or a combination of all of these things? Dan Marino holds nearly every NFL passing record, but he never won a Super Bowl. Does that make him any less of a dominant athlete? Pete Rose holds the record for most career hits in MLB history, but was he the most dominant hitter? Charles Haley, a very solid NFL defensive end throughout his career, has 5 Super Bowl rings. That does not make him a more dominant athlete than Reggie White (who has one, RIP Reggie, you may be the biggest reason the Packers won Super Bowl XXXI) because he has more rings. What about the fact that Peyton Manning or Phil Mickleson took a number of opportunities to come through with a clutch performance in a big event? Does that make them any less dominant? I think not.

• Then comes the biggest issue of whether or not most dominant is the same as greatest.

You know when you say greatest and most dominant to yourself, there doesn't quite seem to be an equality between the two terms. I can argue that Dominique Wilkins was the most dominant dunker in basketball history, but hands down, Vince Carter is the greatest dunker basketball has ever seen. Let's face it, these two attributes, qualities, or however you want to term them are apples and oranges. They might seem the same and fit into the same criteria but just are not.

The Candidates


The most dominant athletes in American sports history are a very select few. To name them is absurdly difficult, but the athletes that I immediate think of are MJ, Tiger, Muhammad Ali, Gretzky, Lance Armstrong, The Babe, Jerry Rice, Lawrence Taylor, and Edwin Moses. Why these select individuals? Besides the fact that I said so, each one has dominated their respective sport/competition to the point of evolving their respective sport/competition. Nobody can argue how each sport has changed since each one of these individuals performed.

One thing when debating this issue that never came to mind was charting out the major categories/qualities which make an athlete dominant. First is stats/feats, which is pretty self explanatory. Next is the winner category. This is based off of regular season/non major competitions performance. The champion category is simply the athletes ability to win or carry themselves/their team to victory in the big matches/games. I'm talking NBA Titles, Golf Majors, Boxing Titles, Stanley Cups, Tour de France victories, World Series wins, Super Bowl wins, and Olympic medals. Individual just means how they perform by themselves each time they compete (these guys gave it their all). Teammate is a very tough category to judge, but its based on the athletes ability to make others around them better. Clutch is how they performed when the pressure is on. Pressure might seems synonymous with clutch but there's more to it than that. It has to deal with exposure in their respective sport and an individuals ability to overcome societal and personal issues. Based on these categories, here's how it breaks down in terms of the most dominant athletes:

Athletes:
MJ
Tiger
The Babe
Lance Armstrong
Ali
Edwin Moses
Rice
LT
Gretzky




Stats/Feats
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
9
10

Winner
10
10
9
9
9
10
9
9
10

Champion
10
10
9
10
10
10
9
8
10

Individual
10
10
10
10
9
10
10
10
10

Teammate
9
NA
8
NA
NA
NA
10
10
10

Clutch
10
10
10
10
10
9
9
9
8

Pressure
10
10
9
9
10
10
9
8
8

Average
9.86
10
9.29
9.67
9.67
9.83
9.43
9
9.43

Explanations

I'm not going to defend why a certain athlete is or is not on this list, but the understanding for my grading. I know some people, including myself think of Ryder Cups as extremely telling of Tiger's teammate rating. However, after much thought, its not really fair based on how many times hes competed in pairings. It's just not a practice in golf and his teammates shot doesn't depend on his performance as much as say a pass in football or basketball. I know I know, anytime you represent our country in any competition you better step up. Tiger is just awful when it comes to Ryder Cups. He has the second most match losses in USA history with 13. He still plays single matches in the Ryder Cup, but even then as part of the US team he doesn't seem to have his usual "it" factor. If his presence and ability is that much more dominant than everyone else, than he should be the horse pulling the US to victory Ryder Cup after Ryder Cup. I'm still waiting for this to happen and want to see it bad, but its not fair to rate him on that. As for MJ's 9 rating in teammate, it's because he had to learn to play together. When he first started off with the Bulls, he was all about himself scoring. Ask Doug Collins. He did learn how to work as a team and make everyone around him better as his career went on and thats when he won titles. Gretzky getting an 8 in both clutch and pressure. He sure has his share of championships, but how many of them after he left an all star cast team in Edmonton? How about zero. That tells me in the playoffs, in the big games and big moments, he did not elevate his play enough to step up in the clutch. The pressure category simply deals with his sport. Don't get me wrong, hockey had a good following, but it's not even close to being on the same level as football, baseball, basketball, or other main events like the Olympics. Today the sport has an even more pitiful amount of exposure (What channel is it even aired on?? Oh and figure skating overtook its air time on ESPN). Other than that, I felt the rest of the grading is pretty right on. Ladies and Gentlemen, the debate seems to have a winner: Tiger Woods!!!

Tiger Woods-Most Dominant of All-Time

Tiger Woods is the most dominant athlete of all-time. He may not be the greatest athlete of all-time, I believe that title still belongs to Michael Jordan, but he dominates his sport like none other. He has been the number one ranked golfer forever it seems like. Other his if you can call it "slump" from 2003-2004, he has won a major every year of his career since 1997. He has won 14 majors (2008 U.S. Open was unreal and caused me to truly believe he is the most dominant), 65 tournaments, the youngest to a career grand slam, and the youngest and fastest to 50 career victories. He's been PGA player of the year a record 9 times, won the Byron Nelson Award for lowest adjusted score a record 8 times, has 2 team titles in the WGC-World Cup , defended a title 21 times (in golf thats unreal) and has won 29% of his PGA Tour pro starts. He never ever loses leads, thus titled the "greatest closer in history" (31-6 when leading after 36 holes, 44-3 when leading after 54 holes, and an amazing 14-0 when leading in majors going into the final round). His Tiger Slam in of winning 4 majors in a row in 2000-2001 span was crazy and only matched by Bobby Jones doing it in the same year. He has won several tournaments multiple times majors and other tournaments. It trully is not fair. He has the lowest career scoring average and the most career earnings of all-time. He has won majors by the largest margin of victory a couple of times (12 strokes in the 97 Masters, 15 strokes at the 2000 U.S. Open) and holds scoring records all over (-19 at the 2000 British Open was unreal). Stats could go on and on but the telling sign of his dominance lies in how his competition reacts to playing with him. It has been studied and written about. Sports writer Bill Lyon wrote asking if it was a good thing he was even in golf because of how often he wins and drives the spirit of competition out of others. Jennifer Brown, an economist out of Cal Berkeley, studied and found that players play worse by nearly a whole stroke when competing with Tiger. He is the measure of dominance in sports. He is a legend in every way. What can be done to stop him? He has shown he can win in all odds (knee surgery, father's death, marriage, children, pressure from an early age on, etc...). Tiger Woods is the most dominant athlete of all-time, simply put.

Just Watch the Man go to work:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gKSxUer_3I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DK9aS-tr1gE&feature=related