Sunday, July 31, 2022

Bill Russell and the Mount Rushmore of American Sports

Joe Posnanski has posted an item talking about whether Bill Russell belongs on the Mount Rushmore of American sports.  To me, if you really want to do a Mount Rushmore of sports, you should start with the original Mount Rushmore, which features the two greatest Presidents from the Founding Era (Washington and Jefferson), then the President who held the country together through its greatest crisis (Lincoln), and then a recent (at the time Mount Rushmore was built) President who showed America still had the stuff of greatness (Teddy Roosevelt).  If you try to find parallels for those four men in the history of American sports, I think your best choice would be this:

Jim Thorpe
Babe Ruth
Jackie Robinson
Michael Jordan

6 comments:

  1. Your logic and list are perfect, and I suggest that you sculpt it into Paddy's Bluff in Crittenden County in your retirement.

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  2. I was thinking more like mount rushmore of sport being a representative from four different sports. So I would have Babe Ruth, Bill Russell, someone for football, and then I'm not sure who else.

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    1. Babe Ruth, Bill Russell, Babe Didrickson, and Red Grange or one of those guys for football.

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  3. Babe Ruth, Bill Russell, Babe Didrickson, Sammy Baugh

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  4. That would be my list because all of these players represent the launching point of the modern game and sport. Didrickson because she paved the way for female athletes, Ruth because he was the first of the modern game we see today, Baugh because he was the father of the modern QB, and Russell because is at the heart of the modern game today.

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  5. This is a great argument, too. I'm embarrassed to admit that it didn't even occur to me to include a woman.

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