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THE RANKING

1… Jackie Robinson, baseball player, broke the Major League color barrier in 1947

From the book: THE SPORTS 100 contains three types of sports. First there, are those who changed the way the games were played, like basketball’s Bill Russell and hockey’s Bobby Orr. Then there are those whose presence and performance forever altered the sporting scene in a fundamental manner – such as Roone Arledge and television’s influence, or Red Grange’s impact on professional football. And finally, there are the handful of sports figures whose influence transcended the playing fields and impacted American culture, like Ali and Billie Jean King. Robinson, to a greater extent than anybody else, was all three types in one… (Branch) Rickey’s grand design placed the burden squarely on the success or failure of one man. Had that man been a .220 hitter with a chip on his shoulder larger than the courage in his heart, the game’s first modern attempt at integration might have gone up in flames.

“The most important black person in American history is Martin Luther King. A close second, I would argue, is Jackie Robinson, who came before Martin Luther King and began the consciousness raising of whites and blacks that resulted in Martin Luther King’s career.” – George Will

2…. Muhammad Ali, The Greatest of All-Time

From the book: Ali was probably the most photographed, interviewed, chronicled and talked about athlete in history; the most loved and the most hated; one of the most triumphant and tragic; perhaps the most recognizable person on earth, and, as it turned out, a surprisingly important figure in American history. Essentially, he had Babe Ruth’s charisma, Jackie Robinson’s courage, Bill Russell’s agenda, Arthur Ashe’s sense of priority, Michael Jordan’s fame and Charles Barkley’s mouth. It all combined to form perhaps the most compelling figure in sports history.

“I would think that anyone with young grandchildren coming along had better be prepared one day to answer, ‘Tell me about Muhammad Ali.’” – George Plimpton

3… Babe Ruth, baseball player

From the book: Arthur Daley of The New York Times once claimed that writing about Babe Ruth was like trying to paint a landscape on a postage stamp. He was – and remains – bigger than life; the most mythical athlete ever to step on a playing field, the ultimate sports celebrity… No athlete has become such a symbol of supremacy, not only in sports, but in every facet of American culture.

“For almost two decades he battered fences with such regularity that baseball’s basic structure was eventually pounded into a different shape.” – historian Lee Allen

4… James Naismith, inventor of basketball

From the book: Organized basketball is played by more than 250 million people worldwide, and the game is threatening to overtake even soccer as the most popular sport on the globe. The basketball hoop is the centerpiece of the inner-city playground, the focus of the farmland, the staple of every high school gymnasium. The NCAA Tournament and the NBA Finals have taken their places next to the Super Bowl and the World Series as mega-events. Various basketball figures rank among the publicized and lionized icons in American sports. Yet before James Naismith posted his original set of thirteen rules on December 21, 1891, basketball simply did not exist. Of all the major sports in America, only one was invented in America by a single man with a singular vision.

“Invention of the game of basketball was not an accident. It was developed to meet a need.” – James Naismith

5… Albert G. Spalding, baseball player and executive, publisher, sporting goods magnate

From the book: It can be argued that the rise of American sports came about due to various intertwining factors; the drama of athletic display, the opportunity for participation, the organizational principle behind the business of professionalism, publicity, innovation, historical account and the creation of mythical heroes. Only one person, Albert Goodwill Spalding, had a hand in every one of those factors… Any one of about a half-dozen Spalding influences would have been enough to earn him a spot among The Sports 100. Taken as a whole, he ranks among sport’s elite figures.

“Able to recognize the possibilities for personal gain and social purpose inherent in the promotion of sport, Spalding acted on them in a manner that encouraged the commercialization of sport and its transformation into a significant social institution in America.” – biographer Peter Levine

6… Walter Camp, football coach and innovator

From the book: As the ‘Father of American Football,’ the most important figure in the history of what many believe has become America’s national game, he should be far better known to the layperson than he is. If football can be considered a Frankenstein-like combination of sports, Camp is the doctor (he did attend Yale Medical School) responsible for the brain, the heart and a limb or two.

“If Walter Camp had contributed not a single thing else to football, his name would still rest secure on the scrimmage, perhaps the greatest single invention in any game. From the scrimmage evolved the set plays, the sequence of plays, the strategy.” – John McCallum and Charles Pearson, authors of College Football U.S.A.

7… Joe Louis, heavyweight champion and African-American pioneer

From the book: Through some magic mix of time, place, talent, fame and courage, a handful of athletic figures – black athletes in particular – have made more of a difference, in a short span of success, than other role models have made in a lifetime of achievement… Few people were more significant national figures in the transition of race relations that occurred between the 1930s and the 1960s. It was Joe Louis who cracked the door open for Jackie Robinson, and together they heralded the integration of professional sports.

“One hundred years from now some historian may theorize, in a footnote at least, that the decline of Nazi prestige began with a left hook…” – Heywood Broun in the New York World-Telegram after Louis knocked out Max Schmeling in 1938

8… Billie Jean King, tennis player and feminist icon

From the book: There arguably has been no sports figure who actively did more to further one cause more often, and with more success, than King has done in her fight for financial and social respect for women in athletics. In the struggle for equal rights in the 1970s, on an doff the tennis court, she served as a symbol, an advocate, an educator, a promoter, a lightning rod and a role model.

“When in doubt, she charged, and with that philosophy she shifted the spectrum of female possibilities from the decorative to the active.” –writer Sally Jenkins in Sports Illustrated

9… Roone Arledge, television executive

From the book: No single person is solely responsible for the success of televised sports and its myriad peripheral influences, but one man does tower about all others in his contribution to the industry – technically, aesthetically and financially – and so he must rank among the elite figures in sports… That man is Roone Arledge… Television sports had been as bland as oatmeal; Arledge spiced it up.

“Television is largely responsible for having made sports the global and moneyed enterprise that it is, and Roone Arledge is largely responsible for having made sprots on television look and sound and succeed the way it does.” – Steve Rushin in Sports Illustrated

10… Branch Rickey, baseball executive

From the book: Rickey’s sporting legacy is simply yet monumental – the expansion of baseball’s grasp, the expansion of its opportunities and the expansion of the game itself. By almost single-handedly designing the concept of the farm system in the 1920s and 1930s, Rickey turned his imaginative scheme into the blueprint for modern professional baseball, likely saving the minor leagues in the process. By signing Jackie Robinson to a professional contract in 1945 and then carefully planning each step of the integration process over the next few years, Rickey choreographed the most momentous development in the history of the game. And finally, by presiding over the attempt to form a third major league late in his career, Rickey scared Major League Baseball executives into an expansionist mode, which translated to new franchises from Montreal to Miami, from Seattle to San Diego.

“I really believe that in breaking down the color barrier in baseball, our ‘national game,’ he did more for the Negroes than any white man since Abraham Lincoln.” – Jackie Robinson

11… Marvin Miller, baseball union boss

From the book: The dramatic inflation of sports salaries – in baseball, in particular, which has always served as a model to the other games – was largely caused by a man who never made it much past the sandlots… As the first executive director of the Major League Baseball Players’ Association, a position he held for what Sports Illustrated called “17 undefeated years,” Miller reversed nearly 100 years of owner-dominated, legally backward virtual-slavery.

“He was the man who saw the absurdity in The Natural Order of Things and took the trouble to expose it.” – baseball historian Bill James

12… Mark McCormack, founder of International Management Group

From the book: McCormack is, for all intents and purposes, the father of sports marketing; the man who generated the merger of sports and business to such an extent that what were once simply playing fields and players have grown to become vast corporate playgrounds and playthings.

“You look at the billion-dollar business sports has become in this country, you look at the multimillion-dollar salaries and the ancillary takes of the players and, if you had one man to thank (or curse), that man would be Mark McCormack.” – L.A. Times columnist Jim Murray

13… Jack Johnson, heavyweight champion and racial lightning rod

From the book: No figure in the history of American sports has a more divergent legacy than Jack Johnson… He broke free from the shackles of racial barriers, yet, largely because his behavior was so contrary to what was expected of him, he strengthened those shackles just the same. His arrival gave African-Americans a place in the pantheon of sports heroes, yet his behavior may have temporarily hindered their hopes for more. Jack Johnson represented and evoked both the best and the worst in black America’s struggle for recognition and equality. He was a pioneer in the fight, yet also a pawn—a 6-foot-2, 200-pound paradox.

“Nothing that Frederick Douglas did, nothing that Booker T. Washington did, nothing that any African-American had done up until that time had the same impact as Jack Johnson’s fight against Jim Jeffries.” – Arthur Ashe

14... George Halas, football coach and executive

From the book: The contributions of the people profiled in The Sports 100 essentially fall under three categories – creation, transformation and long-term guidance. Among the 100 sports figures, no one combined all three to the extent of George Halas, a player, coach and owner with the Chicago Bears for 63 years and the most important person in the history of professional football. Halas was a founder of the National Football League, its most successful publicist, its most willing innovator and its most powerful executive.

“He will never need a monument as long as pro football endures. The Bears and the National Football League are his giant markers.” – biographer George Vass

15… Michael Jordan, basketball player

From the book: Jordan’s legacy is one of dimension, of reaching new heights – aesthetically, athletically and financially. Julius Erving revealed basketball’s potential for aerial artistry; Jordan raised it higher. Magic Johnson and Larry Bird turned the NBA into a national phenomenon; Jordan made it a global passion. Arnold Palmer demonstrated the marketability of the athlete; Jordan showed how to dominate the market. Muhammad Ali emerged as a worldwide superstar; Jordan, thanks to television’s impact, advertising’s influence and basketball’s ascension, may even have surpassed him.

“He leaves behind  a new breed of American team-sports athlete, the one-man corporate powerhouse.” – Harvey Araton in The New York Times

16… Harry Wright, manager of first all-professional baseball team

From the book: By the early 1870s, Wright was widely known as the ‘Father of the Game’… Though Wright insisted that his players retain the spirit of amateurism, he himself, by introducing professionalism, ushered in an age of win-at-all-costs baseball.

“Every magnate in the country is indebted to this man for the establishment of base ball as a business, and every patron, for furnishing him with a systematic recreation. Every player is indebted to him for inaugurating an occupation by which he gains livelihood.” – an 1893 tribute in Sporting Life

17… William Hulbert… founder of the National League

From the book: Hulbert’s aggressive actions essentially created Major League Baseball as we know it today, and the organizational theory behind his actions has had an equally resounding effect on the business of sport.

“Hulbert’s great contribution to sports history is the idea of a professional league that was controlled by capitalists, rather than by players. He was the first one to apply that idea to sports.” – baseball historian John Thorn

18… John L. Sullivan… bareknuckled boxing champ

From the book: When Sullivan first began boxing, in the late 1870s, he was a poor, indistinctive member of a downtrodden ethnic minority who was taking up an activity that the great majority of Americans considered one step above thuggery. There was a significant social stigma against his Irish American ancestry and his so-called un-American sport. But within a decade, boxing matches were drawing thousands of spectators and Sullivan was the most recognizable man in the country, a figure approaching mythical proportions and the first of countless athletic icons to follow.

“John L. Sullivan emerged as the first significant mass cultural hero in America.” – biographer Michael T. Isenberg

19… Amoz Alonzo Stagg, college football coach and innovator

From the book: Sheer longevity is not enough to crack The Sports 100 – if it were, the likes of Bear Bryant, Don Shula, Gordie Howe and Nolan Ryan would appear on the list. But in the case of Amos Alonzo Stagg, his longevity is second to none in the world of sports. Stagg was born during the Civil War, on August 16, 1862. He died on March 17, 1965, at the age of 102, while the United States was embroiled in Vietnam. He was born before the arrival of American football, yet he lived to see Gale Sayers run. He scored his team’s only points in the first-ever public basketball game in 1892, yet he lived long enough to see Wilt Chamberlain score 100 exactly 70 years later. In fact, Stagg has the remarkable distinction of having been a contemporary of ever single person listed among The Sports 100.

“Any time anybody thinks he has come up with something new, he soon discovers it is merely a reclamation with modification of something first used 65 to 70 years ago, and probably by Stagg.” – football writer Tim Cohane

20… Red Grange, football player

From the book: College football as king, and Grange was it most princely performer. When the lure of money prompted him to continue his athletic career, it was only a matter of time before he carried – literally – pro football into the realm of respectability.

“Grange single-handedly took professional football out of the dark ages.” –John Underwood in Sports Illustrated

21… Arnold Palmer, professional golfer

From the book: Arnold Palmer’s legacy comes in two forms: Arnie’s Army and Arnie’s bank account… Palmer, the player, was greatly responsible for golf’s evolution into a major American sport; Palmer, the pitchman, contributed to sport’s evolution into a major American business.

“In a sport that was high society, he made it High Noon.” – Vin Scully

22… Jim Thorpe, World’s Greatest Athlete

From the book: Before Red Grange, there was Jim Thorpe. Before Jesse Owens, there was Jim Thorpe. Before Bo Jackson, there was Jim Thorpe. And before Michael Jordan, there was Jim Thorpe. Their various feats were, to some extent, merely imitations of his.

“Rules are like steam rollers. There’s nothing they won’t do to flatten a man who stands in their way.” – Jim Thorpe

23… Babe Didrikson Zaharias, World’s Greatest Female Athlete

From the book: At a time when female athlete were considered freakish at best, downright unacceptable at worst, Didrikson became one of the most popular athletic figures in the nation – and, for the most part, she maintained that popularity for more than two decades.

“She was a woman who in her athletic career certainly won the admiration of every person in the United States.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower

24… Henry Chadwick, sportswriter

From the book: What are the chances of this happening today? A sportswriter has been heralded for his innovations and lengthy tenure as a chronicler of baseball games, but he has repeatedly criticized players for their behavior, has never been shy to announce his importance to baseball, and often implies that he has meant more to the game than those who play it. Finally, at the age of 83, he passes away. And here’s the kicker: To honor him, the following day, flags in every big league ballpark are flown at half-mast.

“He was like a one-man publicity machine for baseball… The game would look nothing like it looks now without him.” – baseball historian Tom Gilbert

25… Pete Rozelle, NFL commissioner

From the book: When Rozelle took office in 1960, there were 12 NFL teams, there was no Super Bowl, most teams were worth about $1 million and there was a Gallup poll out revealing that 34 percent of the nation considered baseball their favorite sport while only 21 percent preferred football. By the time he left office, there were 28 teams, the Super Bowl had become America’s preeminent sporting event, the Dallas Cowboys had just been sold for $140 million and the Gallup Poll results were virtually reversed.

“I believe Pete Rozelle forevermore will be the standard by which all sports commissioners are judged.” – New York Giants owner Wellington Mara

26… David Stern, NBA commissioner

From the book: Stern, with the strategy of a lawyer and the personal touch of a deli-owner, has essentially done with the NBA in the ‘80s and ‘90s what Pete Rozelle did with the NFL in the ‘60s and ‘70s.

“David Stern could sell an anvil to a drowning man. He can sell a pogo stick to a kangaroo.” – Orlando Magic general manager Pat Williams

27… Bobby Jones, amateur golfer and Masters Tournament founder

From the book: What Jones did in his farewell tour – win golf’s Grand Slam – has never been matched, and what Jones did for golf in his brilliant career is just as unparalleled.

“It was a battleground of hope for people experiencing the dread of the Depression. Jones held the promise of a man fulfilling his greatest potential against staggering odds.” – biographer Dick Miller

28… Knute Rockne, Notre Dame football coach

From the book: Almost single-handedly, Rockne created the notion of intersectional rivalries and forged the legend and national following of Notre Dame football. And since the game’s beginnings at Harvard and Yale, no institution has been more important to college football. Rockne was to the Irish what Ruth was to the Yankees.

“Every so often, a genuine colossus appears whose influence and teaching cannot be underestimated, and Rockne towered head and shoulders over the best of his profession.” – Paul Gallico

29… Jesse Owens, track and field superstar

From the book: The grandson of an Alabama slave grew up to be a national hero, performing one of the most profoundly symbolic feats in the annals of American sports. His four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, under the eyes of Adolph Hitler, turned him into one of the first African-American athletic heroes in the United States, as well as a symbol of patriotism and promise in America.

“Although he was never a spokesman for black rights, he represented an essential ingredient of black progress.” – biographer William J. Baker

30… Kenesaw Mountain Landis, baseball commissioner

From the book: He was a white-haired, frail, overly serious, undereducated, vindictive, grandstanding judge who often made legal decisions based on personal predilections and who had an ego the size of the Green Monster… In the end, it may be the fact that these decisions were the sole responsibility of just one man – rather than the actual decisions themselves – that proves to be Landis’s most important legacy.

“Landis was a showboat judge who finally found a jurisdiction in which he couldn’t be overturned.” – baseball historian John Thorn

31… Lester Patrick, hockey player, coach and executive

From the book: Hockey without the Patricks (brothers Lester and Frank) might not resemble hockey at all. In fact, to some extent, (Bobby) Orr’s career actually symbolized the Patricks’ impact on the game. It could be seen in everything, from his offensive domination to the simple act of standing side-by-side with his fellow defenseman, from his #4 jersey to his performance in the playoffs, from his roots in Canada to his feats in America.

“No single individual contributed more to the improvement of professional hockey on every level – playing, coaching, managing and operating – than Lester Patrick.” – hockey historian Stan Fischler

32… Magic Johnson, basketball player

From the book: Who could call him Johnson? It was too plain, too common. Even The New York Times must have been tempted to call him Magic. And never once did the nickname appear ill fit to the man, until the day a killer virus forced him into retirement, providing a stage for his most significant performance and allowing the world to realize he was just Earvin after all.

“Magic Johnson did no less than force everyone who watched basketball to examine the preconceptions about what constituted the prototypical NBA player.” – Jack McCallum in Sports Illustrated

33… Larry Bird, basketball player

From the book: Bird made a significant impact of his own simply by being a white superstar in a league that had become nearly 75 percent black. The United States, sadly, remains a race-conscious nation, and white would-be basketball fans, particularly in Boston, a city not known for its racial harmony, may have harbored a desire to see a little bit of themselves in their heroes. Bird fit the bill.

“The college game may have already been on the launching pad. But if it was, it wasn’t until Bird and Magic came along and pushed the button that it took off.” – Al McGuire

34… Ban Johnson, founder of the American League

From the book: Johnson’s legacy is the American League and, by extension, its impact on the game – form the World Series to the Yankee dynasty to the designated hitter. Had he realized the significance of his role in shaping the game, instead of later despairing about his diminished role in ruling it, he might have died a happier man.

“Some people believe that the man makes history. Others argue that history makes the man. More likely, history is to be made when the times are ripe and the right man is on hand to seize the opportunity.” – baseball historian Harold Seymour

35… Lamar Hunt, football, soccer and tennis entrepreneur

From the book: Lamar Hunt had money, and he used it to make more. But he also used it to become of the most influential figures in American sport. In fact, he can lay claim to being arguably one of the ten most important figures in each of three different sports. How many people can say that?

“Wait ‘til George Halas gets ahold of this punk.” – unnamed and unwise NFL executive, upon first meeting Lamar Hunt

36… Arthur Ashe, tennis player and humanitarian

From the book: His sporting legacy is as broad in scope as his convictions were deep. He was a racial symbol, inspiring a generation of blacks to take up a previously uninviting sport. He was a publicist of sorts, joining with the likes of Billie Jean King, Chris Evert and Jimmy Connors to fuel the tennis boom of the 1970s. He was an author… exhibiting a brilliant intellect. He was a practical and productive activist. He was a so-called crossover hero… In the end, he was simply a tennis player – in the sense that Frederick Douglas was a writer, Abraham Lincoln was a politician and Martin Luther King, Jr. was a reverend – but he was  a man who redefined the notion of the athlete as statesman. He was a child of segregation, a product of the worst in America, and yet he was a symbol of the very best.

“You are the first truly free black man I have ever seen.” – young black South African boy to Arthur Ashe

37… Walter Byers, first executive director of the NCAA

From the book: The NCAA evolved dramatically – from a group formed by a handful of institutions hoping to solve the problem of violence in football into a monolithic organization generating billions of dollars in revenue… The man most responsible for that evolution is Walter Byers.

“The NCAA was nothing without Walter Byers… In the same way that shoe companies have made pro basketball superstars, Walter Byers made college basketball and the Final Four.” – Donna Lopiano, executive director of the Women’s Sports Foundation

38… Wayne Gretzky, hockey player

From the book: Even more important than Gretzky’s impact on the ice has been his influence off of it, his role as the most marketable and marketed hockey player in history, the most visible symbol of a game desperate to reach into mainstream America.

“Hockey needed a shot in the arm when he came along. It needed a champion.” – Bobby Hull

39… Curt Flood, baseball player and free agency martyr

From the book: In 1969, he began a fight for justice that would prove to have a dramatic effect on professional athletics in America. It was a fight Flood technically lost, but decades of hindsight have labeled it an undeniable moral victory. And more than any other athlete, Curt Flood can be credited with ushering in the big-money era of sports.

“I am pleased that God made my skin black, but I wish He had made it thicker.” – Curt Flood

40… Joe Namath, football player

From the book:  The marriage of person, place and time – Namath, New York and the nation’s budding social revolution – produced a celebrity the likes of which sports had never seen. The nation’s quarterback was also the Great American Bachelor; he was an excellent passer, an even better swinger… Namath became a marketing sensation, the first great modern commercial property out of professional football. He mixed Madison Avenue finesse with tie-dyed inclinations, sexual innuendo with blue-collar appeal.

“Namath may be Johnny Unitas and Paul Hornung rolled into one. He may, in fact, be pro football’s very own Beatle.” – Dan Jenkins in Sports Illustrated

41… Bill France, Sr., NASCAR founder

From the book: NASCAR is the creation of one man… a man whom The New York Times called “as close to being a racing institution as any man can be… France turned a bootleggers’ diversion into a major sport, an American passion.

“I can always go back to pumping gas.” – Bill France, Sr.

42… Tex Rickard, boxing promoter

From the book: Hype is the lifeblood of boxing, and George Lewis “Tex” Rickard was the pioneer of boxing hype. He was the man most responsible for taking the fight game from the outback to the arena; the promoter who not only made boxing big business, but also turned it into an increasingly respectable one.

“He was a hayseed, a rube, but he beat New York at its own game.” – L.A. Times columnist Jim Murray

43… Bill Russell, basketball player

From the book: Had Russell done nothing else but redirect the flight of the ball – in a game based almost entirely on the flight of the ball – he would still own an impressive spot among The Sports 100. But he also happened to be the first African-American head coach of a major league team in the modern era… To Russell, his color was of the utmost significance. He was always a black man first, an athlete second… His influence off the court, then, was much like his impact on it – startling, powerful, reverberating.

“He put a whole new sound in the game, the sound of his footsteps.” – Red Auerbach

44… Jack Kramer, tennis player and promoter

From the book: As a player, Kramer revolutionized court sense and strategy. As a professional, and then a promoter, he set the game on its modern course by showing the financial promise of professionalism… And as a powerbroker, he pushed for the advent of “open” tennis and presided over the infancy of the Association of Tennis Professionals.

“The Kramer theory of modern tennis completed changed the complexion of the game.” – Julius Heldman

45… Avery Brundage, Olympics czar

From the book: Avery Brundage is perhaps the most enigmatic personality in The Sports 100. For nearly half a century, he was the single most important American figure in amateur sports… But in many ways, Brundage’s impact was as muddled as his character. He was a hypocrite, an autocrat, a narrow-minded idealist, a man who spoke of the future but worshipped the past, and who preached Olympic brotherhood but failed to practice the same.

“When I’m gone, there’s nobody rich enough, thick-skinned enough and smart enough to take my place.” – Avery Brundage

46… George Mikan, basketball player

From the book: He was nearsighted, clumsy, benign. Growing up on a farm in Joliet, Illinois, the biggest athletic accomplishment was winning the county marbles championship. He was cut from his first basketball team… But George Mikan grew to be 6-foot-10 and 245 pounds, and he proved to be the big man who opened doors for all other big men in basketball.

“He began the process of reshaping it from a game of workmanlike earnestness to a captivating spectacle of leaping, soaring giants.” – historian Wells Twombly

47… Jim Creighton, baseball player

From the book: No position in sports – not football’s quarterback, not basketball’s point guard, not even hockey’s goaltender – has more influence on the outcome of a game than baseball’s pitcher. Indeed, over the years the evolution of baseball has essentially been tied to the evolution of the pitcher… How did a transformation in technique and philosophy turn a virtually punchless position into an assortment of split-fingers and spitballs, changeups and chin music, brushbacks and breaking pitches, relief specialists and rotator cuffs? It was a 17-year-old pitcher, in 1858, who got the ball rolling.”

“Until Creighton, the idea of the pitcher was just lobbing the ball up to the batter. He established the position as a direct opponent of the batter, rather than an ally.” – baseball historian John Thorn

48… Bill Tilden, tennis player and pedophile

From the book: He ranks among the most important figures in American sports history for the both the heights he reached – for willing American tennis into maturity – and the depths to which he plummeted, the lesson that forgiveness is far more elusive than fame.

“Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey, Red Grange and the other fabled American sweat lords of the times stood at the head of more popular games, but Tilden simply was tennis in the public mind: Tilden and tennis, it was said, in that order.” – Frank Deford

49… Roy Hofheinz, baseball executive

From the book: Hofheinz merely thought he was creating a peek into the future when he built the Astrodome. Had he known it would lead to an alteration of the tactics, the fabric and the perception of the games, he might have named it after himself.

“If the Astrodome is the Eighth Wonder of the World, the Judge’s price for a lease is the ninth.” – Houston Boilers owner Bud Adams

50… Satchel Paige, baseball player

From the book: “Perhaps the most significant weapon in the fight against baseball’s color barrier was Satchel Paige’s right arm… Paige’s pitching became a pitch for integration. He repeatedly proved the quality of black ballplayers in front of packed houses all over the country. In doing so, he set the stage for his former Negro League teammate, Jackie Robinson, to sign a professional contract in 1945.

“I ain’t as fast as I used to be. I used to overpower ‘em; now I outcute ‘em,” – Satchel Paige, as a 42-year-old major league rookie

51… Paul Brown, football coach

From the book: For the man who brought professionalism to professional football, who conquered the gridiron at every level, and who was to Ohio football what Casey Stengel was to New York baseball, the residents of Cleveland voted to name their ballclub the Cleveland Browns. Even Chicago’s NFL team isn’t called the Halases, yet Brown’s impact as a coach and executive was second in pro football only to that of Papa Bear himself.”

“Where George Halas fathered the NFL, it was Brown who gave birth to coaching as we know it.” – Kevin Lamb in Sport magazine

52… Jim Brown, football player

From the book: Whether he is an innocent man burdened with the guilt of suspicion, a good man who suffers occasional bad moments, or a bitter person searching for his own goodness, Jim Brown is certainly one of American sport’s most complex and compelling figures. For a man described as having nearly superhuman athletic qualities, he has proved, as well, to possess a healthy dose of both humanity and human imperfection.

“For mercurial speed, airy nimbleness and explosive violence in one package of undistilled evil, there is no other like Mr. Brown.” – Red Smith

53… Jack Dempsey, heavyweight champion

From the book: As baseball exploded in the 1920s with Babe Ruth’s mighty swings, football expanded around Knute Rockne and Red Grange, tennis matured with the performance of Bill Tiilden, and golf rode the coattails of Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen, so did boxing enjoy a boom in popularity, much of it due to the power and personality of the man later voted the greatest boxer in the first half of the twentieth century.

“It was the dawn of a new age – the age of a champion who hit so hard that he changed the very nature of his sport.” – Charles Fountain

54… Wilma Rudolph, track and field

From the book: Hers was a story of courage that superseded color and of elegance in a sport so long regarded as antithetical to femininity… Perhaps more than any other athlete in American sports history, Rudolph symbolized perseverance.

“There she was, with the whole world focused on her. And wasn’t it wonderful. Here was someone who looked like me, and she’d done something that everybody celebrated.” – Olympic bronze medalist and IOC member Anita DeFrantz

55… Jack Nicklaus, professional golfer

From the book: There was Nicklaus and Palmer, Nicklaus and Player, Nicklaus and Trevino, Nicklaus and Miller, Nicklaus and Watson, Nicklaus and Ballesteros. But always there was Jack Nicklaus. In a sport perhaps most in need of a dominant figure at the top, Nicklaus was that person for nearly a quarter of a century.

“How many other champions have become so identified with their sport, with every aspect of it, with the very essence of it, that it is impossible to think of one without the other?” – Frank Deford

56… Andre Laguerre, Sports Illustrated editor

From the book: Touting itself as “the conscience of sport,” the nation’s only weekly sports newsmagazine has been at the forefront of the transformation in coverage of the games and in the games themselves over the past forty years… A magazine about boomerangs and baseball cards has evolved into one of the most pervasive and persuasive voices in American sports, and it essentially began with Andre Laguerre.

“Sports Illustrated is still organized from his blueprint. It is still a product of his vision. And it is still judged today against what he did then.” – Michael MacCambridge

57… Bill Rasmussen, ESPN founder

From the book: Bill Rasmussen gave sports junkies and couch potatoes a haven in which to indulge their obsessions. His creation fed the public’s growing appetite for sports. It legitimized the all-sports concept as a recipe for success in various markets and mediums, and it turned into a broadcasting giant, powerful enough to transform sports television, creatively and financially.

“If you love sports, if you really love sports, you’ll think you’ve died and gone to sports heaven…” – first words spoken on ESPN’s SportsCenter, by Lee Leonard

58… Ned Irish, basketball promoter

From the book: Through a little foresight and a lot of business sense, he took a regional game and transformed it into a national phenomenon…. Until the 1930s, few profits could be found in either college or professional basketball. College games were crowded into campus gyms, and pro contests were relegated to dance halls and armories. Irish believed the game could only grow as large as its surroundings.

“Irish was Congress, court and executive of big-time basketball.” – Roger Kahn

59… Hank Luisetti, basketball player

From the book: Until Luisetti arrived, basketball featured two basic shots – the driving layup and the two-handed set shot. The set shot had the effect of slowing the game down, both physically and aesthetically. But in Luisetti’s case, necessity (the need to loft the ball over his taller playmates) led to invention (using one hand to loft the ball and the other to guide it)… He brought a fluidity to the competition, turning a sport of stops and starts into a frenetic, kinetic experience. And he did it on college basketball’s biggest stage.

“It was a pivotal game in the sport’s history, introducing the nation to modern basketball.” – Ron Fimrite in Sports Illustrated

60… Howie Morenz, hockey player

From the book: Morenz was considered the “Babe Ruth of hockey,” but he was Ruthian in more than just his skills; he was hockey’s ambassador in spirit, as well. He was colorful, glamorous, well-liked. He was the face of pro hockey, and it was an appealing countenance.

“When American investors looked at hockey and saw him, they said this game can sell here.” – hockey historian Stan Fischler

61… Grantland Rice, sportswriter

From the book: It is no accident that several athletes listed among The Sports 100 peaked in the years between the World Wars. It is also no accident that the Golden Age also saw the maturation of newspaper sports coverage and the emergence of writers who called on all their hyperbolic talents to immortalize the heroes of the day and bestow upon them mythic names like Sultan of Swat and Manassa Mauler. And the most well-known practitioner of it, the most influential voice in the days when sportswriters were the most influential of voices, was Grantland Rice.

“The twenties are the ‘Golden Age’ of sport because Rice saw them as golden.” – biographer Charles Fountain

62… Phil Knight, Nike founder and CEO

From the book: With one large “swoosh,” Phil Knight, the founder and chairman of Nike, Inc., has transformed the games… Knight and Nike have not only led the way in marketing athletes over the past decade, but in making them as well… Now the businesses define the athletes as much as the athletes promote the businesses.

“Knight is clearly in a position to derive more power from a product than any man ever in sport.” – Frank Deford in Vanity Fair

63… Althea Gibson, tennis player and golfer

From the book: Gibson had the triple challenge of being black, female and a participant in what had always been primarily an upperclass, country-club sport… Her success as a tennis champion, and later as a golf pioneer, combined with the gold medals and grace of Wilma Rudolph, served as a symbol of social mobility to African-American sportswomen

“Shaking hands with the Queen of England was a long way from being forced to sit in the colored section of the bus.” – Althea Gibson

64… Bert Bell, NFL commissioner

From the book: As a coach, owner and then the second commissioner of the National Football League, Bell represented a transition from professional football’s small-town, fringe-of-respectability  origins to its big-time emergence under his successor, Pete Rozelle. The evolution from leather helmets to helmet cams would have been nearly impossible without Bell’s influence and innovations.

“Bert Bell kept a kid glove on his iron fist, and the owners loved him.” – New York Times columnist Arthur Daley

65… Theodore Roosevelt, U.S. president

From the book: It was his voice, more than any other, that had the power to determine the fate of football… Midway through the 1905 season, he called several football leaders to the White House and presented them with a choice – reform the game or abandon it. He made it clear that he strongly favored the former alternative.

“Having received the Nobel Prize for helping to end the Russo-Japanese War, he considered it well within his prowess to bring peace to the football fields of America.” – historian Wells Twombly

66... Walter O’Malley, baseball executive

From the book: It took dozens of years, but professional sports finally evolved from an Eastern creation into a national concept. And Walter O’Malley took the first big leap by donning a black hat and rising West.

“Brooklyn fans view O’Malley as third in line to Stalin and Hitler. But historians like myself might say that he is the Johnny Appleseed of baseball. Baseball was definitely going to move west, but nobody had the nerve to do it until O’Malley did.” – baseball historian John Thorn

67… Abe Saperstein, basketball entrepreneur

From the book: As one of the few outlets for pre-World War II African-American athletic participation, as world-famous representatives of the game in the years when it was still struggling for widespread acceptance, and as a collection of talent and innovation that heralded and helped spawn the modern court game, the Globetrotters rank as one of the most important creations in American sport. And thus the team’s founder, Abe Saperstein, owns a place among The Sports 100.

“No team in history has done more for their sport. Not the ’27 Yankees, the Four Horsemen of Notre Dame, the Dream Team or the Lombardi Packers.” – L.A. Times columnist Jim Murray

68… Vince Lombardi, football coach

From the book: He, more than any other figure, would embody the emergence of professional football. His name became a symbol for his profession; his game became the standard.

“Where does that leave Pope John?” – Vince Lombardi, upon being named Italian of the Year

69… Bill Veeck, baseball executive

From the book: If a man can be defined by an image, Veeck could be summed up by the way he spent his final years, roaming the Wrigley Field bleachers, shirtless, chatting with fans, waving to the cameras, stubbing his cigarette out in the ashtray he built into his peg leg. This was a man who always answered his own phone, who watched his team not from an owner’s box but alongside his paying customers, who never wore a tie, and who seemed to live on beer and cigarettes. It was this common touch that he brought to the most uncommon of businesses.

“Before Bill, baseball was just win or lose. But he made it fun to be at the ballpark.” – Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg

70… Pop Warner, football coach

From the book: The first game Pop Warner ever saw was the one in which he first stepped into a football uniform. His last game, some 60 years later, was a decidedly different form of football, and he had much to do with it… Among the innovations credited to Warner are the three-point stance, the screen pass, the spiral punt, the wingback formation, the rolling body block, the blocking dummy, numbering players’ jerseys, and the use of thigh and shoulder pads. Even his name is now synonymous with youth football.

“I consider Warner to be the greatest creative genius in American football. Most of us coaches are imitators, but Pop was an inventor.” – Hall of Fame coach Andy Kerr

71… Howard Cosell, sports commentator

From the book: Perhaps the most impressive thing one can say about Howard Cosell is that he may have been as important as he thought he was. In more than three decades as the dominance voice on the dominance network (ABC) in sports broadcasting, Cosell redefined the role of the man behind the microphone, breathing life into an athletic scene in danger of becoming stagnant.

“Howard Cosell is not providing commentary for the sporting event; the sporting event is providing commentary for Howard Cosell.” – TV critic Tom Shales

72… Francis Ouimet, amateur golfer

From the book: He was a blue-collar champion, an Everyman, who had not only put an end to America’s inferiority complex versus the exceptional British golfers but who had also taken the game from the privileged and handed it to the public.

“When we may go for weekend golfing trips to Jupiter and Mars, I will perhaps believe what little Ouimet did today.” – British journalist, after Ouimet’s 1913 U.S. Open win

73… Martina Navratilova, tennis player

From the book: No tennis player has won more matches, more titles or more prize money than Navratilova, who won nine Wimbledon, four U.S. Open, three Australian Open and two French Open championships. But it was the evolution of her public perception – from animosity to acceptance to adulation – that became her most profound legacy. Navratilova’s career was about freedom – political freedom, sexual freedom, athletic freedom.

“In going from Communist Czechoslovakia… to the forefront of the U.S. gay-rights movement, she simply redirected her indignation.” – Alexander Wolff

74… Alexander Cartwright, early baseball innovator

From the book: He is underrated because the myth of Abner Doubleday, which has no basis in fact, still retains the lust of truth to the general public. Doubleday’s hold on the legend of baseball’s creation has obscured Cartwright’s very real role in the process… He suggested formation of the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club of New York, the team that essentially marks the beginning of organized baseball.

“If any individual or group must be singled out as the founder of modern baseball, the credit has to go to Alexander Cartwright and his friends.” – baseball historian Harold Seymour

75… Gary Davidson, founder of ABA, WHA and WFL

From the book: Davidson’s influence on professional sports in the 1970s was dramatic, if brief, and while his name has faded into the background, for a moment he was at the forefront of a sporting revolution.

“What man, more than any other, has had the greatest impact on professional sports in America? You’d have to say Gary Davidson.” – 1977 Sporting News editorial

76… Julius Erving, basketball player

From the book: On the court, he was a descendant of Elgin Baylor and Connie Hawkins, a forerunner to Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. But he was a vital link between the two generations. He was among the first basketball figures to blur the line between athleticism and artistry.

“Erving, both as an athlete and as a man, intelligent, proud, respected, was so important to black players, he was to them an almost mythic figure, the epitome of the black game,” – David Halberstam

77… Bobby Hull, hockey player

From the book: The NHL, when he first joined the Chicago Blackhawks in 1957, was vastly different from the NHL when he played his last game with the Hartford Whalers in 1980. And Hull was more responsible for that change than any other hockey figure.

“As great as Howe was, as great as Orr, Esposito and Beliveau were, they didn’t have Hull’s charisma. His style of play matched his personality – open, dramatic, uncompromising, utterly joyful.” – E.M. Swift

78… Roberto Clemente, baseball player

From the book: He was, in many ways, a Hispanic Jackie Robinson, a man of courage and conviction, a peerless talent, fearlessly outspoken and, most importantly, a symbol for hundreds of players who followed his lead and turned major league baseball into an ever-increasing national stage… He began as “Bob” Clemente, misunderstood and stereotyped; he became Roberto Clemente, respected by baseball figures, revered by baseball fans.”

“He fell into the ocean so that his spirit could be carried by the ocean to more places.” – Vera Clemente, after her husband’s earthquake relief airplane went down

79… Tony Hulman, racing executive

From the book: Tony Hulman did not build the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He did not create the Indy 500. But he saved them both and turned them into the Rose Bowl of racing, the Super Bowl of speed.

“I began to wonder what would happen if I held a race and nobody came.” – Hulman

80… Walter Hagen, professional golfer

From the book: He was the kind of a man who would arrive late to an important match still wearing his tuxedo from the previous night’s party, who would meet a woman on the 15^th hole and have a date set up by the end of the round, who would net the unheard-of sum of $23,000 on an exhibition tour and then return home too broke to do his laundry… But not only did he prove that the life of an independent professional could be remarkably lucrative, he made certain the fame and fortune translated into acceptance.

“All the professionals who have a chance to go after the big money today should say a silent thanks to Walter each time they stretch a check between their fingers.” – Gene Sarazen

81… Bobby Orr, hockey player

From the book: While Gretzky carried offensive hockey to new levels, Orr brought it to new dimensions – and that was his most significant impact… There had been only a handful of defenseman who were talented enough to make their mark in the scoring column. And none had the ability to take over a game like Orr could.

“Orr did something that Gretzky had no opportunity to do, and that was change the very nature of the game.” – Frank Deford

82… Don Hutson, football player

From the book: Hutson, more than anyone else in the era, was responsible for elevating the passing game, and he did it through a unique combination of talent and technique… It was essentially Hutson who, as a student of the game, did much to transform the passing game from a rather primitive game of catch to a precise craft.

“He came to the game in 1935 like an emissary from another planet.” – Paul Zimmerman

83… Charlie Finley, baseball executive

From the book: He wore a trademark Alpine hat, but it may as well have been black as coal. Everybody, it seemed – his players, fans, journalists, many of his fellow baseball owners, three different baseball commissioners – hated Charlie Finley. But it was his maverick personality, his insatiable ego and fearless disregard for tradition that allowed Finley to play an integral part in transforming baseball in the 1960s and 1970s.

“Ours is the only franchise I know that has people talking more about the owner than the players.” – Oakland A’s outfielder Joe Rudi

84… Red Auerbach, NBA coach and executive

From the book: Every major professional league seems to have one franchise that has emerged as the backbone of the league. The Boston Celtics are that franchise in the National Basketball Association. And for nearly half a century, Red Auerbach has been the Boston Celtics.

“The single most arrogant act in sports.” – Bob Cousy, on Auerbach’s victory cigar

85… Danny Biasone, NBA executive and shot clock inventor

From the book: Pro basketball before Biasone was rather boring. In the early days of the NBA, the professional game was on the verge of extinction due to inaction. The stall was the most potent weapon in the game… But of all the saviors – a 5-foot-6 Italian immigrant who owned a bowling alley in Syracuse, New York?

“Someone else would have done it – like Columbus discovering America – but he was the one who did it.” – NBA Hall of Famer Dolph Schayes

86… Matt Winn, horseracing entrepreneur

From the book: In the half-century during which Winn controlled, nurtured and promoted the Kentucky Derby, he saw it evolve from a regional event with a purse of $6,000 and even fewer spectators into a national event with the winner’s share – and the crowd – exceeding 100,000.

“(Winn) made himself and the Derby national institutions.” – Frank Deford

87… Sonja Henie, figure skater and movie star

From the book: She made the sport both more athletic, adding primitive jumps and spins, and more artistic, incorporating aspects of ballet. She merged style with still, dance with daring, and inspired thousands of young women to take up figure skating.

“I want to do with skates what Fred Astaire is doing with dancing.” – Sonja Henie

88… Richard Petty, stock car racer

From the book: Say all you want about Elvis, but there are a good many racing fans who don’t think of “Hound Dog” when somebody mentions The King. They think of a blue-and-red blur, #43, a winning smile, an oversized hat and dark sunglasses – images as vivid to them as Magic Johnson’s grin, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s goggles, Babe Ruth’s stutter-stepped trot and Red Grange’s #77 were to others. They think of the ambassador of stock car racing for 35 years, Richard Petty.

“Petty does not tower over his followers as much as minister to them.” – Ed Hinton

89… Cap Anson, baseball player and bigot

From the book: If one man can be blamed for instigating baseball’s segregated system, that man would be Cap Anson… One can only wonder what might have happened had his energy been channeled in the opposite direction.

“His repugnant feeling, shown at every opportunity, toward colored ball players was a source of comment throughout every league in the country, and his opposition, with his great popularity in base ball circles, hastened the exclusion of the black man from white leagues.” – Sol White, former African-American ballplayer

90… Pelè, soccer player

From the book: Having almost none of the history that fuels the sport around the world, U.S. soccer has largely had to grow by bringing the world’s passion to the American stage. Appropriately then, the most important figure in American soccer history is not an American at all. It is Edson Arantes do Nascimiento, known to the world as Pelè.

“Edson is a man like other men. Edson is going to die someday… But Pelè doesn’t die. Pelè’s immortal.” – Pelè

91… William Randolph Hearst, newspaper publisher

From the book: An unabashed baseball fan, he was tired of having to leaf through the pages to locate scattered sports results… William Randolph Hearst, the man who had started wars, created and destroyed presidencies, and turned a newspaper empire into a personal pulpit, had added yet another item of lasting significance to his resume: He had invented the sports section.

“The rich have always seemed to have more money than fun. William Randolph Hearst was the great and memorable exception.” – Life magazine, after Hearst’s death

92… John Wooden, basketball coach

From the book: Until John Wooden turned the UCLA Bruins into college basketball’s Goliath, we had a mistaken sense of just what a dynasty was. We thought to repeat was a feat. Wooden made it a starting point… And so, while he claimed to abhor the trappings of big-time college basketball, John Wooden played a pivotal role in ushering in just that.

“He had the discipline of a monk but the will of a hurricane.” – former UCLA star Mike Warren

93… Harry Edwards, activist

From the book: In 1968, the athletic fields became a political battleground. Reality invaded the games. And the person most responsible for the revolution was Harry Edwards… a man with a mission: to strip away the myth of sports as a haven of racial equality and to use the athletic arena as a means of social protest. He was remarkably successful on both counts.

“Like it or not, face up to it or not, condemn it or not, Harry Edwards is right.” – Sports Illustrated’s Jack Olsen in the late 1960s

94… Peter Ueberroth, Olympics and baseball executive

From the book: Ueberroth’s legacy is a demonstration of potential – that the Olympic Games were a potent marketing vehicle and that they could be used to publicize not only countries, but cities as well.

“Not since Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon has America had such an opportunity to lift its best face to the world. Ueberroth arranged the showing.” – Time magazine, after the 1984 Summer Olympics

95… Charles McNeil, bookie

From the book: The three most obvious ways in which the point spread had influenced sport – more interest in the games, more betting on the games and more opportunity for scandal – reveal the influence of the man whom many consider most responsible for its emergence: Charles McNeil.

“He did for sports what Adam Smith did for economics.” – Robert H. Boyle

96… A.J. Foyt, racecar driver

From the book: Foyt is included among The Sports 100 because, like Jack Nicklaus in the 1970s, his performance gave him mythical status, and his mythical status carried his sport.”

“You’re nobody unless you’ve had a fist shaken at you by A.J. Foyt.” – Bobby Rahal

97… Gilbert Patten, author of the Frank Merriwell stories

From the book: Before television and newsreels and radio, before Nike created the athletic image of the ‘90s and Grantland Rice spawned the sporting giants of the ‘20s, before Sports Illustrated took shape and newspaper sports sections took the country by storm, before Jordan and Namath and Palmer and Louis and Ruth and Dempsey, there was Frank Merriwell, fictional character, bona fide sports hero… Pattern planed in the minds of thousands, perhaps millions, of young readers the image of the ultimate athletic icon.

“Of all the athletic heroes who have appeared on the American scene, probably none ever aroused the admiration or left so enduring an impression as one who never really existed.” – Robert H. Boyle

98… Eleanora Sears, sportswoman

From the book: “Sears chose to flaunt convention and shock conservatives by using her freedom to satisfy her love of sport. In doing so, she merged her social standing with her athletic skill to make athletics a more acceptable diversion for women.

“When you really think about the women’s movement, it has always been led by the privileged.” – Donna Lopiano, executive director of the Women’s Sports Foundation

99… Jacques Plante, hockey goaltender

From the book: Jacques Plante, is the man most responsible for giving goalies the freedom to move and, ironically, the freedom to stay put. One Plante innovation, his tendency to roam out of the goal crease after the puck, brought goaltenders more into the flow of the game. Another Plante innovation, the goalie mask, brought goaltenders added confidence, the willingness to watch the puck that much longer in a game in which split-second timing makes all the difference. Because Plante was so effective, his methods and his mask soon became the standard.

“It was a revolutionary change… Now the mask is so strong that goalies will use it as a puck-stopping device.” – hockey historian Stan Fischler

100… Jim Bouton, baseball player and author of Ball Four

From the book: There is a sign posted in major league baseball clubhouses. It says, “What you say here, what you see here, what you do here, and what you hear here, let it stay here.” Jim Bouton ignored that sign, and because of the repercussions, he owns the final sport in The Sports 100… Ball Four turned the sports world on its head.

“I think we’re all better off looking across at someone, rather than up.” – Jim Bouton

“Brad Herzog may not be one of the 100 most important people in sports, but with this book he’s off to a great start.”
– Dick Schaap