OT: Who are the most underrated championship athletes in all of sports?
While driving home from Akron today (from spending the night up there for my grandpa's funeral) I turned on the radio and low and behold my most unfavorite radio show on 97.1 The Fan with Anthony Rothman and Dimitrius Stanley was on the air. Normally I HATE THESE TWO WITH A PASSION cause Stanley is full of himself and I could never stand Rothman but they had an interesting topic on the air and it was "most underrated chmapionship athletes in all of sports." This was a hard one because most of the athletes I was thinking of were either overrated or right where they should be. One player however stuck out in my mind. Chris Osgood. Who was also mentioned twice on the show, believe it or not. Osgood has 3 Stanley Cups, 2 Jennings trophies, 10th in all time wins as a goaltender, 4th in all time win percentage 7th best in GAA in NHL history. This man never gets the credit he deserves and in my opinion he's one of the greatest NHL goalies to ever play the game. Who are some of yours?
Easy...gymnasts. Two reasons:
#1. They are incredibly tough both physically and mentally. The work it takes to perfect a balance beam routine is truly amazing, while continuing to work at your craft, even after you have fallen.
#2. My wife was one.
Tim Tebow
/s
Jimmie Johnson.
Lebron
Alex Delvecchio. Kind of the forgotten member of the Production Line between Gordie and Ted, though he was a captain, has his number retired, and could skate, get to the net, and pass beautifully. At least of the limited things I've read and watched.
Any defender. Ben Wallace, Dennis Rodman, Ozzie, Makelele... Defense is the foundation of almost every championship, but most of the stats and praise get heaped on offensive players. Defense is always underrated.
In all seriousness, Rodman was underrated not only as a defender, but for his uncanny ability to rebound clankers not even in his area code.
Rodman was ever underrated as a rebounder by anyone who knew what they were talking about. He did lead the NBA in RPG seven years in a row.
Rumeal Robinson
Art Monk.
Just look what some of the greatest of all time had to say about him:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Laudrup#Quotes_on_Laudrup
If you want to talk about absolutely owning a tough sport, look no farther.
Edit - Since it is coming up in less than a month, the world's toughest spectator race: http://www.ausablecanoemarathon.org/
At least in the MLB, I would make an argument for Lou Whitaker. Five time All-Star, three Gold Gloves and five Silver Slugger awards to his name, as well as being a part of the 1984 World Championship team, not to mention part of one of the best middle infields in the game for a long time and he was a one-and-done candidate on the HOF ballot.
For pitchers, I would say Jeff Reardon, who was a highly effective reliever and part of the 1987 Twins squad, was pretty underrated in his career. He was also a one-and-done on the HOF ballot. It's interesting that there was always more chatter about Quisenberry than there was about Reardon when it came to HOF potential, even though Reardon pitched longer and has more saves and strikeouts.
John Navarre
Robert Horry.
Ozzie never gets enough credit simply because the teams in front of him were always excellent. There's a difference between Ozzie in the playoffs, and something like what Giguere did for the Ducks in the playoffs, or even J Quick this year.
I would say the most underrated athletes, in general, would be decathletes, guys like Roman Sebrle, Bryan Clay and Ashton Eaton . Most people never heard of them but they are, physically speaking, some of the best athletes in the world.
You're thinking of Tim Duncan. He said Tim Ducan.
titles.
Kurt Warner is pretty underrated IMO.
some of these stats are old now, but you get the point:
Definitely. He was unbelievable. Just bad luck that his championships got sandwiched between Magic/Bird era and MJ
Being underappreciated on a championship team is part of the nature of team sports. The players in the star positions (ex: QB, lead off or top of the order batter), who rack up the visible stats (ex: points scored in BB, goals in hockey) will always get more attention than the other players who do important necessary things: play defense, get loose balls, occupy space, kill penalties, make that extra pass, etc. Nearly every team that has won a championship in major league football, soccer, baseball, basketball, hockey, lacrosse, rugby, volleyball, water polo, etc. will have these players who did important things but didn't get that much publicity or fame.
Individual sports, especially the lesser known ones are often more overlooked. Since this is a summer olympic year, consider Al Oerter who was four time olympic champion in discus (1956, 1960, 1964 and 1968) as a good example. One can bring out the usual arguments about track and field as being a niche sport but to be the best in the world for such a long time and be able to peak at the biggest moment is incredibly difficult. Being the best at anything in the world takes a unique combination of singlemindedness and self-confidence that is pretty rare and to keep that up over a long period of time is even rarer.
The best teams usually have good camaraderie (can't think of a good example of a championship team in the modern era that hated each other). Team mates could count on each other to help keep focus but for an individual, it is often just him or her and a coach or spouse/significant other.
... Jim Kelly because the dude was 4 wins away from being one of the most dominant qbs of all time.
Ronaldo because he very well could be the second best player ever, and he stands in the long shadow of a magical midget.
Ronaldo has choked twice in important penalty shoot outs.
Meh, penalties are dumb. Ronaldo is like Megatron on the soccer field. There's nobody with his combination of size, speed, and skill.
That said, I love that magical midget (literally laughed out loud when I read that description of Messi).
While Sheed brought a lot to the Pistons at both ends of the floor - not seeing him play much when he was in Portland, I didn't realize how good a defender he was, and how good he was at communcating on the court - I'm going to say he was selfish in that he couldn't keep his mouth shut about the "felonious" things that refs did. Yeah, refs make bad calls - it's part of the game. As a pro he needed to deal with it better.
It's one thing to get a technical here or there, but if you're racking up double digits a season and getting yourself thrown out of games and suspended, it hurts the team, IMO.
Also later in his time with the Pistons, he didn't post up as much, taking more threes. I don't know if that's on him for not wanting to expend the effort, or the coach for not calling that play more. He could dominate, and it would have helped if he posted more and put people in foul trouble so they had to sit.
You know the issues, but his repeated arguing with the refs isn't selfish? I'm not calling his play on the court selfish, just his behavior. It didn't help the team, nor did his bad example getting other players to argue with the refs help the team.
scottie pippen
Eddie Feigner.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/10/AR2007021001394.html
Seriously, if you don't know about him, you have to read that stuff. My students never believe me when I tell them about the King and his Court beating everyone 4 on 9 and pitching from centerfield.
Now, you might say that softball doesn't have an elite-level championship, and that disqualifies Eddie from this thread. Well, true, technically, I suppose. But on the other hand, that kinda makes him even more underrated.
Lloyd Brady doesn't get enough respect at the national level.
It's going to be weird not seeing him in the student section anymore :(
I saw him after graduation. He said he has tickets for next season.
double post
Not a United fan but Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes.
Football-Willie McGinest
Baseball-Tony Perez
Basketball-Vinnie Johnson
Hockey-Already mentioned, but Alex Delvecchio
Golf-Tom Watson'
This might sound crazy, but one could argue Wayne Gretzky, I cannot think of a single team sport athlete that was more dominant in his game than Gretzky. But because hockey was given so little attention during much of his career, much of this country had no idea that they were missing the prime of one of the greatest athletes of all time.
LOL. How can someone called "The Great One" be underrated? Unappreciated, perhaps, but that's because many Americans don't appreciate hockey. And if people missed him, it's their loss.