10 Athletes That Changed Sports History
10.
Curt Flood
Though St. Louis Cardinals center fielder Curt Flood lost a U.S. Supreme Court case
against Major League Baseball in 1972, his actions ushered in the era of the free agent.
Refusing to let the Cardinals trade him at the end of the 1969 season, Flood challenged
the MLB about the reserve clause, which stipulated that a team owns a player for life until their
release or trade.
Flood was fully aware of the repercussions for his career, but knew the case would benefit
other athletes.
The lost Supreme Court case was not a lost cause, however.
In 1976, through collective bargaining, two pitchers became free agents when they agreed
to play one season with no contract.
Flood overcame a rough post-baseball life of alcoholism, debt and a failed marriage
to receive the NAACP Jackie Robinson Award in 1992.
9.
Joe Louis
Joe Louis was the first African-American athlete to receive crossover appeal in mainstream
America, earning reverence from black and white people alike.
His astounding wins as a heavyweight champion got him the name “The Brown Bomber,” a
man who, no matter what a boxing match or life threw at him, always rebounded.
He even famously overcame his only boxing defeat with German fighter Max Schmeling in
a much-publicized 1938 rematch.
To many Americans, this rematch represented the United States overcoming Nazi Germany.
Growing up in poverty, Louis started training at around 10 years old.
Though he was the top boxing champion from 1937 to his 1949 retirement, Louis maintained
his characteristic integrity, which instilled dignity in a sport long riddled with brutal
violence and gambling.
8.
Billie Jean King
With her tireless crusade for women’s equality in sports, Billie Jean King greatly leveled
the playing field.
She launched many organizations for women athletes including a sports magazine, a sports
foundation and a professional women’s tour.
Her numerous accomplishments include six Wimbledon singles championship wins.
However, the turning point in her life and women’s sports was when she accepted a challenge
to play against one-time Wimbledon champion Bobby Riggs.
In 1973 at the Houston Astrodome, the 29-year-old King defeated 55-year-old Riggs in straight
sets in what became known as the “Battle of the Sexes.”
7.
Jesse Owens
The first American athlete to win four gold medals in one Olympics, Jesse Cleveland was
born James Cleveland Owens in 1913.
He became known as “Jesse Owens” instead of going by “J.C.” when a school teacher
thought he said “Jesse” during a classroom roll call.
Owens’ record-setting track and field career began in high school, when he set national
records in the long jump and the 100 and 200-yard dashes.
He shattered more track and field records while attending Ohio State University.
The pinnacle of his career was the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany, when he garnered
four gold medals in track and field.
Gerald R. Ford granted him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1976.
Owens died from lung cancer complications in 1980.
In 1990, President George H.W.
Bush awarded him the Congressional Gold Medal.
6.
Charlie Sifford
In spite of his significant role in breaking the racial barrier in the Professional Golf
Association (PGA), Charlie Sifford said he wasn’t trying to make a historical statement,
but simply wanted to play the game he loves.
“I just wanted to play golf, you know?” he told Fox Sports.
“That’s all there was to it.”
Sifford honed his golfing skills as a young caddy in Charlotte, North Carolina, where
he practiced on the green after work.
In 1952, Sifford received an invitation to play in the Phoenix Open after boxer Joe Louis
passed on the invitation from the PGA.
As an African-American in those days, he received much mistreatment during his career.
Sifford’s career highlights include winning the UGA National Negro open five times prior
to winning his first PGA Tour.
He was the first black individual to get inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2004.
5.
Althea Gibson
Althea Gibson was an African-American woman who achieved greatness in not one, but two
sports: tennis and golf.
She found her athletic calling during a tough childhood, which she spent mostly in the Harlem
area of New York City.
Gibson won a college scholarship in sports after winning numerous tournaments and championships.
She was the first black woman to be invited to compete in Wimbledon in 1951.
She won the French Open in 1956 and Wimbledon and U.S. Open titles in 1957 and 1958.
She became a tennis professional in 1959.
Her brief professional golf career wasn’t as successful as her tennis career, but Gibson
nevertheless broke racial and gender barriers in golf as well.
After retirement, Gibson was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1971.
She served as the New Jersey Commissioner of Athletics and a member of the governor’s
council of fitness.
Gibson died of respiratory failure in 2003.
4.
Frederick “Fritz” Pollard
One of the first black trailblazers of professional football, Frederick Douglass “Fritz” Pollard
established a series of firsts.
He was the NFL’s first African-American coach and the first black person to play in
the Rose Bowl (in 1915).
This athletically gifted Chicagoan attended Brown University on a scholarship from the
Rockefeller family in 1915.
He played for the Akron Pros in the American Professional Football League (which was renamed
the NFL in 1922) and won a championship for them in 1920.
In 1921, Pollard became head coach while still playing pro.
He coached NFL teams in Indiana and Milwaukee until the NFL segregated the organization
in 1926.
Pollard fought back against the NFL’s decision until 1937, when he retired to pursue a career
in business.
Though the NFL discontinued segregation in 1946, actual integration didn’t occur until
1962 when Bobby Mitchell signed on with the Washington Redskins.
Pollard died in 1986.
Three years later, Art Shell became the first black coach (for the Oakland Raiders) in the
contemporary NFL.
Pollard was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2005.
3.
Babe Didrikson Zaharias
Babe Didrikson Zaharias defied traditional femininity and proved that women can make
exceptional athletes.
As “the World’s Greatest Woman Athlete,” Zaharias dominated tennis, track and field,
basketball, golf and baseball.
Born Mildred Ella Didrikson, Zaharias got the nickname “Babe” after baseball great
Babe Ruth, reflecting her baseball abilities.
Her participation in several sports at Beaumont High School in Beaumont, Texas was varied
and exemplary.
She won two gold medals and a silver medal in track and field at the 1932 Olympics.
Though very athletically talented, it was said that golf was her sport.
She won 82 tournaments, including amateur and professional, and was a founding member
of the Ladies Professional Golf Association.
She met her husband, professional wrestler George Zaharias, while playing golf; they
married in 1938.
She died from colon cancer in 1956 at age 45.
Among Babe Didrikson Zaharias’s legacy are a museum dedicated to her in Beaumont and
topping several greatest athlete lists in the media.
2.
Muhammad Ali
Two major media outlets, the BBC and Sports Illustrated, named Ali Sportsman of the 20th
Century.
He was recognized as one of the most famous faces of the last century, and he made his
personality — in which he famously boasted he could “float like a butterfly, sting
like a bee” — as big as his boxing skills.
There has been no one like Muhammad Ali.
Born Cassius Clay Jr. in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1942, Ali first trained as a boy after
his bicycle got stolen and said he wanted to “whup” the thief.
Five years later, in 1959, he became a Golden Gloves champion and an Olympic medalist in
1960.
After the Olympics, he turned pro and was unbeatable throughout the 1960s, becoming
the heavyweight champion of the world.
In 1964, he adapted the name Muhammad Ali (“Praiseworthy One”) after joining the
Nation of Islam.
He cited his faith as the reason for refusing to fight in the Vietnam War; this decision
stirred controversy that took a hit to his career.
Making a comeback in 1970, Ali reclaimed victory in elaborately named matches set in exotic
locations like the “Rumble in the Jungle” against George Foreman in Zaire and the “Thrilla
in Manila” against Joe Frazier in the Philippines.
He announced his retirement in 1981 after experiencing some defeats.
Since then, the continuously active Ali has supported and donated to numerous charities
and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005.
1.
Jackie Robinson
At the time Brooklyn Dodgers President Branch Rickey invited Jackie Robinson to join the
Major League Baseball team in 1947, the MLB hadn’t had an African American play for
it since its segregation in 1889.
Jackie Robinson’s legendary decade-long baseball career included winning six pennants
and one World Series Championship for his team.
He was recognized as the National League Rookie of the Year, Most Valuable Player of the Year
and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962.
Long after his death in 1972, Robinson has never left the American consciousness.
The world honored him in 1997, the 50th anniversary of his signing with the Dodgers.
He was featured on a commemorative stamp, was made the subject of a 2011 biopic starring
Harrison Ford as Rickey and Chadwick Boseman as Robinson, and starred in a 2014 Mazda3
commercial, the greatest of all honors.