Best dual sport (track/football) athlete of all-time

[parkerrclay]

You could start this forum for any combo of track and another sport but football is the most popular and arguably most athletic (besides track) of all American sports so who is the best combo track/football athlete of all-time?

Here are my top 5:
1. Jim Thorpe - great running back in early days of NFL and 1912 decathlon champion
2. Bob Hayes - arguably greatest 100m sprinter ever and near Hall of Fame caliber wide receiver
3. Renaldo Nehemiah - arguably greatest 110 hurdler of all-time and decent wide receiver (also 3-time Superstars champion)
4. Michael Carter - all pro defensive linemen and 1984 silver medalist in shot put
5. Ollie Matson - HOF running back, 400m bronze medalist

[dukehjsteve]

I have to disagree with:

Thorpe being 1st. Talent pool was immeasurably smaller then. How can he possibly be above Hayes ?

Nehemiah's football career was not a success.

Hayes, Carter and Matson are very worthy however. I give them 1, 3, 2, with Thorpe 4.

[BillVol]

Willie Gault was a good one. (Gault member of '80 Oly team; good NFL career.) Also Richmond Flowers, Herschel Walker.

[AS]

What about OJ?

[bambam]

I have to disagree with:

Thorpe being 1st. Talent pool was immeasurably smaller then. How can he possibly be above Hayes ?

We could go to the guys who rank football players ...

In late 1999, when everybody was doing their End of Century All-Time Lists and Teams, Football Digest ranked the 100 greatest players of the 20th century, and ranked Jim Thorpe #17. Only 6 players were on the list from pre-WW2, and Thorpe was surpassed only by Don Hutson (#11).

As Zarnowski once said to me when I asked him to rank his all-time greatest decathletes, "I think ya gotta go with the big Indian."

[Marlow]

We've done this before and after the most obvious answer - Jim Thorpe, I truly believe that erstwhile tracksters, Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders, were the best multi-sport athletes of all time.

[TrackDaddy]

What about OJ?

OJ certainly deserves mention as he was a GREAT ATHLETE and a phenominal running back.

But my choice is Neon Deion.

Especially if you consider these 4 sports (baseball, basketball, football and track).

[paulthefan]

I have to disagree with:

Thorpe being 1st. Talent pool was immeasurably smaller then. How can he possibly be above Hayes ?

We could go to the guys who rank football players ...

In late 1999, when everybody was doing their End of Century All-Time Lists and Teams, Football Digest ranked the 100 greatest players of the 20th century, and ranked Jim Thorpe #17. Only 6 players were on the list from pre-WW2, and Thorpe was surpassed only by Don Hutson (#11).

As Zarnowski once said to me when I asked him to rank his all-time greatest decathletes, "I think ya gotta go with the big Indian."

no doubt about it, Thorpe is #1 on any list track/football greats. I cant see any of the post WWII guys matching him in either arena. Remember the talent pool always looks small when there is a shark in the water.

[bambam]

Remember the talent pool always looks small when there is a shark in the water.

That's a great point and a great quote. I'll remember it and I'll use it - paulthefan

[cullman]

Bob Boyd, Buddy Young, Mel Renfro, Isaac Curtis, Ron Brown, Curtis Dickey...

cman

[dj]

What about OJ?

OJ certainly deserves mention as he was a GREAT ATHLETE and a phenominal running back.

But my choice is Neon Deion.

Especially if you consider these 4 sports (baseball, basketball, football and track).

If you consider the sum of all four sports, I don't think anyone touches Jackie Robinson.

[bambam]

If you consider the sum of all four sports, I don't think anyone touches Jackie Robinson.

Jim Thorpe

#17 of the 20th century per Football Digest as quoted above - Robinson played at UCLA but not at that level

Possibly the greatest decathlete of all time. Robinson decent long jumper but does not approach Thorpe in athletics

Thorpe played major league baseball for about 7 years - obviously not at Robinson's level in that sport.

Thorpe played on multiple barnstorming basketball teams in his era - all that was available to him. Don't know much about Robinson's basketball career.

So Thorpe wins in football and track, Robinson in baseball - no idea about basketball. Good choice though in Robinson - fairly close between the two.

[paulthefan]

http://www.the-surfs-up.com/sports/jimthorpe.html

"...in the spring of 1907, Thorpe, dressed in overalls and work boots, is wandering across the Carlisle campus with a group of friends from the tailors program (this was a program to help native americans gain skills towards earning a livelihood) . They pass the field where the varsity track team is practicing the high jump. Thorpe shyly asks if he can have a try at clearing the bar, which is set at five foot nine. The guys on the track team snickering, say, Sure kid, try it. Whiz, over he goes. The next moring, Thorpe is summoned to the office of Pop Warner, Carlisle's human-bulldog track and football coach. "Boy you've just broken the school record!" Warner exclaims..............(and elsewhere it is recorded).......Always reluctant to practice and so naturally gifted that he doesn't have to, he spends the voyage (to Stockholm) napping in a hammock rather than working out with the team."

besides being its greatest athlete he gives the 20th century one of its the greatest sports quotes:

King Gustav V of Sweden (to Thorpe): "Sir, you are the greatest athlete in the world!"

Thorpe replied: "Thanks, King."


case closed.


To get a good measure of how great Jim Thorpe was imagine a Rafer Johnson, Bill Toomey, Bruce Jenner, Daley Thompson, Dan OBrien or Roman Sebrle excelling at football or baseball... it would be considered an immense accomplishment.

But Thorpe did just that and he did it at a time when baseball was arguably MORE competitive than it is today, and football nearly as competitive as it is today. Baseball was truly the american pass time and every kid in the country played it. To excel at pro baseball in the 20s was to have excelled on the greatest stage that existed.

[Mighty Favog]

Basketball: Robinson led the Pacific Coast Conference in scoring for both of the years he played at UCLA
and a bonus, Tennis: he won the 1936 junior singles title in the Pacific Coast Negro Tennis Tournament

[dukehjsteve]

I think very highly of Thorpe... his accomplishments are amazing. But my main point is that I suspect that in 1912 the total # of people world wide training and competing in the Decathlon with any degree of seriousness was very small. Great that he won though.

On a similar vein, if Bob Mathias had been born in 1986 instead of 1930, do you think he could have made the 2004 Olympic team in the Decathlon ?