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SI Sportsman of the Year: Who Ya Got?

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by DanOregon, Nov 13, 2009.

  1. Starman

    Starman Well-Known Member

    Michigan State lost by 30-some points and unemployment in Detroit is pushing 20 percent.

    The "Sparty-lifting-the-hearts-and-souls-of-an-entire-state" stuff was media-generated hogwash.
     
  2. Steak Snabler

    Steak Snabler Well-Known Member

    I'm guessing it'll be Kobe or Jeter. Both had outstanding individual seasons and won championships (Kobe finally proved he could win it without Shaq) and both would sell magazines.

    As much as Bolt might deserve it, he's proven in the two lengthy features that SI has already done on him in the past that he's utterly uninteresting as a personality. I doubt they'd try to build an entire issue around him again.

    And who was the last "Olympic sport" athlete to win it in a non-Olympic year? I seem to remember Edwin Moses doing so in the early 80s, but I could be wrong.
     
  3. Michael_ Gee

    Michael_ Gee Well-Known Member

    No way it's Kobe. He has a bit of, uh, baggage for an award called "Sportsman."
     
  4. Lugnuts

    Lugnuts Well-Known Member

    When I think of Federer this year, the first thing I remember is that he lost. Unfortunately.

    I'm gonna go with Jenn Sterger's implants - they had a hell of a run.

    Righty beats out lefty.
     
  5. mjp1542

    mjp1542 Member

    If it happened once ...

    [​IMG]

    Not that it should be, and I'd vote for Federer, but could they go with maybe Harrison and Crosby? No, I doubt it.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 15, 2014
  6. outofplace

    outofplace Well-Known Member

    SI ran with a Red X on the cover once?
     
  7. ringer

    ringer Active Member

    Caster Semenya... just to see the headline writer struggle. Sportswoman? Sportsman? Sports It? Whatever of the Year? (Sorry, that was dark)

    But seriously: Pacquiao. World titles in 7 weight classes? WTF?
     
  8. outofplace

    outofplace Well-Known Member

    I like that one, too.
     
  9. Stoney

    Stoney Well-Known Member

    Thank you, OHB's post is an all-timer for melodramatic bunk.

    I'd like to see some evidence that it provided a "spark" to the city/state and that our "optimism was much lower than it is now." Detroit's misery is worse now than ever and, if there's been a grande surge of national optimism since April, then I missed it. Neither Izzo nor Jerome Bettis made a damn bit of difference in saving Detroit. Can we stop falling for these overwrought media fabricated storylines?
     
  10. Steak Snabler

    Steak Snabler Well-Known Member

    SI's "Project Detroit" fizzled pretty quickly when the Tigers failed to make the playoffs.
     
  11. da man

    da man Well-Known Member

    You are correct. You don't know, and neither do I.

    Apparently, you missed my point, which was NOT claiming Bolt is juiced and therefore doesn't deserve to be Sportsman of the Year (because, again, I have no idea if he's juiced or not), but rather that the argument that he has "done it clean" should not be part of the Sportsman of the Year equation. Because, again, WE DON'T KNOW. And anyone who is convinced any athlete -- including Bolt, Phelps, Jeter, Pujols or anyone else you want to name -- is not using PEDs simply because he or she has never tested positive is incredibly naive.

    I believe Bolt would have been a fine choice for Sportsman of the Year in 2008, when he performed amazing feats on the biggest stage in his sport (perhaps in any sport) -- the Olympics. This year, his feats were just as amazing, but the stage was smaller and so was the impact because it was almost expected. Therefore, I believe the best choice is Federer, who came back from a down year to dominate and become tennis' career leader in major victories.

    Bolt would still not be a bad choice this year. But the claim that he's clean -- when in fact we have no idea if that is the case -- is not one of the reasons.
     
  12. Stoney

    Stoney Well-Known Member

    Umm, NO, his feats were not "just as amazing" in 2009, they were considerably more so. The guy shattered his olympic records, which themselves were miles beyond anything anyone in his sport had ever done before. Indeed, he shattered world records pretty much every time he stepped on the track on 09, and by margins that barely seemed conceivable: you realize the guy, by himself, lowered sprinting records by as large a margin in only a year and half period as all the world's greatest sprinters were collectively able to do over the preceding 40 years?

    And I don't see how anyone can claim that it was "almost expected" for an athlete to crush world records by unprecedented margins every time he performed. And, if it was expected, that only strengthens his case in my book. Anyone who can achieve such superhuman dominance in his sport that something like that becomes "expected" deserves to be SOY.

    Federer had a tremendous year, but other tennis players have had equally dominant years. Jeter had a tremendous year, but a lot of baseball players have had better years. But NOBODY has ever done what Bolt has in sprinting over the last year and a half. He's performing his sport at a higher level than anybody in history, indeed nobody else is even close. And he's changed his sport by re-defining its physical outer limits like few, if any, ever before him. That's the difference.
     
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