Whitlock: "Jim Brown is the Most Important Athlete in American History"

Oh yeah. I have no idea how rugby or cricket is scored either. I can figure what they are trying to do, but how the points go up or possession changes? no clue.

 

He blazed the trail for athletes to avoid jail time for domestic abuse.

 

I knew LAX was short for lacrosse, but -- for the record -- I begrudge the gratuitous capitalization.

 

Man, you are just going down the list of my favorite sports.

(Rugby is easy, it's just football without the safety and with 5/2 instead of 6/1 on touchdowns).

 

Ace - you were suppose to FED EX me your resume. I have not received yet.

 

quit that. i only buy adidas and read e e cummings for a reason, you know.

 

Now that's funny. I just XEROX'ED it for my archives.

 

Thank Little Joe Morgan, who got the shit beaten out of him while he was running for a plane.

 

I respect Jason's opinion, but I'm with Hondo on this one: No athlete had a greater impact on American sports -- if not all of American society -- than Jackie Robinson. And I'll put Jackie's athletic prowess up against anyone's, including that of the great Jim Brown.

 

The Satchel Paige supporter earlier in this thread was dead on. There would've been no Jackie Robinson if there weren't a Satchel Paige.

That being said, Paige didn't have nearly the patience or the ability to turn the other cheek required to accomplish what Robinson did. If there weren't a Robinson or a Paige, there wouldn't have been a Jim Brown because if Robinson had failed, it would've been at least another 25 years, IMO, before another black man got a shot to integrate professional sports. So on that premise alone, there's no way in hell that Jim Brown was the most important athlete in american history.

 

Jason knows better than this. But he's so in love with his role as America's Sports Contrarian, he has to keep topping himself.
Jim Brown was an astonishing athlete, the greatest pro football player of all time, and one of my childhood heroes. But important? I didn't even think that when I was 12.

 

So what are the documented successes of Amer I Can that make Jim Brown the most important athlete in American history?