Move over Roger Bannister, Muhammad Ali and Arthur Ashe, Dwyane Wade in da house

You make your argument look real desperate when you try to equate Federer with someone who lost a testicle to cancer, who created a new fashion statement and won a torture test seven times. There's utterly no comparison. Federer will need to win the Grand Slam or not lose a single match to overcome his lack of meta-impact.

 

The criteria for this 'award' should be: In ten or twenty years, when you're sitting around the bar betting on sports trivia, and some guy shouts out, '2006?' would everyone (or anyone) should shout back, 'Dwayne Wade!'?

Just sayin.

 

I think that Wade's accomplishment in the Finals is being woefully underrated and disregarded here,

 

And Tom Brady in 2005?

And David Robinson/Tim Duncan in 2003?

Dean Smith in 1997?

Wade has a better chance of being guessed than those three.

 

Re: Move over Roger Bannister, Muhammad Ali and Arthur Ashe, Dwyane Wade in da h

Your original argument was that Federer hadn't attracted more attention to his sport outside of the major events. Well, Armstrong didn't either. (He attracted a lot of attention to himself, but not to the sport.) That's all I'm saying. And yes, a compelling backstory like Armstrong's makes choosing him easier, but ultimately it's still based on performance. If Armstrong had been finishing second in the Tour all those years, he wouldn't have won the award. Federer's performance this year was so much better than anyone else's that he merited the award, in my opinion.

 

Why was Ryan Sonner not considered?

 

But Armstrong didn't finish second, he won. Seven times in a row. If "if" was a spliff, we'd all be tripping. With Armstrong, the Tour de France became as big here as Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, and bigger than any other tennis event. Again, no comparison.

To call Sonner the sportsman of the year would be to limit him. If there were an award for sportsman of all time, then we could talk.

 

Re: Move over Roger Bannister, Muhammad Ali and Arthur Ashe, Dwyane Wade in da h

Of course Armstrong won. That's my point. He won the award because he won the race. (But not because he won it seven times in a row. He'd only won it four times when he won the award, in 2002.) Did Armstrong win on the basis of his career achievement, or on the basis of his performance in 2002? I don't know. But I'd feel comfortable arguing Federer's career performance at this point is superior to Armstrong's at that point, and I'd feel comfortable arguing that Federer had a better year in '06 than Armstrong had in '02.

The Tour de France is bigger here than Wimbledon or the U.S. Open? That's absurd.

 

Federer achieved, and a nation yawned. Maybe the nation's loss, but it's not losing sleep over it. And back when Armstrong was winning, the Tour was as big as those two majors. With Armstrong gone, the Tour is back in its microscopic niche.

I don't mean this all to bash Federer. I was just responding to somebody being incredulous that I wouldn't say "well, jeez, we gotta pick somebody." And now I'm saying judge Federer on his merits and don't equate him to Armstrong.

 

Federer should have won.

As for least Sportsman of the Year: BODE MILLER in a landslide.

 

Would the nation have yawned if Federer was an American?

 

Re: Move over Roger Bannister, Muhammad Ali and Arthur Ashe, Dwyane Wade in da h

Fair point. Tis an American magazine, tho, run by humans, so....

And workmanlike doesn't generate much juice. But Sportsman of the Year does imply more than performance, it implies transcendence. I think Federer for now falls short on that. His year was nothing like a few years you could pick out for Navratilova, where she was unbeatable and she furthered the cause of gay people by embracing what she was. What "something extra" can Federer add? Good question.