Since its first year of publication in 1954, Sports Illustrated magazine has selected a Sportsman (now Sportsperson) of the Year. The first winner was English runner Roger Bannister, the first man to crack the four-minute barrier in the mile.
Since then, the award has gone to individuals, or teams, from every major sport. It has included foreign athletes like Bannister, black and whites, men and women (and children in the case of gymnasts), and even a handful of coaches and executives who made an extraordinary contribution in their fields.
At this point in history, I can’t resist saying that the qualifications for consideration are to be as far different from Donald Trump – an avid golfer and former pro football owner, by the way – as it’s possible to be.
Billy Reed is a member of the U.S. Basketball Writers Hall of Fame, the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame, the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame and the Transylvania University Hall of Fame. He has been named Kentucky Sports Writer of the Year eight times and has won the Eclipse Award three times. Reed has written about a multitude of sports events for over four decades and is perhaps one of the most knowledgeable writers on the Kentucky Derby. His book “Last of a BReed” is available on Amazon.
For example, the winners play by the rules and don’t cheat. They accept victory humbly and defeat graciously. They make sure others share the credit. They don’t boast, with the notable exception of Louisville’s Muhammad Ali, but with the exception of the Floyd Patterson fight, there was a comic element to Ali’s braggadocio that was different from Trump’s narcissism.
I am always proud when somebody remembers that I was associated with SI in one capacity or another from 1968 through ’99.
I never got to vote on the Sportsperson of the Year because I was never a Senior Editor. Along with the Managing Editor and his assistants, they were the one who argued with each other at a site outside our building on 6th Avenue, usually a swanky hotel dining room, until the winner—or winners, in several cases, was selected.
It was the worst-kept secret in the Time-Life Building because almost all the editors were close enough to various writers and researchers to keep it to themselves. I don’t ever recall being tipped off early because I was usually on the road and didn’t have much contact with my fellow staffers in New York.
Recently it was announced that five athletes would share the 2020 Sportsperson of the Year Award: basketball’s LeBron James for a record third time; Super Bowl MVP Patrick Mahomed of Kansas City; guard Laurent Duvernay-Tardiff, a Chiefs’ star lineman; WNBA basketball star Breanna Taylor, who returned from a serious injury to lead her team to the title; and Naomi Osaka, the U.S. Open women’s tennis champion.
In the past, I’ve generally been against multiple winners in the same year because I felt it diluted the significance of the award. But as we all know only too well, this year was different. Beginning with the cancellation of the NCAA basketball tournament in March, the Coronavirus pandemic has played as much havoc with the sports world as it has with every other part of the global society.
Some major events were played on new dates. All had little or no fans in the stands. Baseball played an abbreviated season. Many college football teams were so decimated and depleted by the virus that a lot of games had to be canceled, including classics such as Michigan-Ohio State and Indiana-Purdue.
It’s hardly surprising, then, that all five winners of the Sportsperson of the Year award also were social activists. Duvernay-Tardiff, for example, also is a doctor and he quit the NFL after the season to devote full time to fighting the Coronavirus pandemic.
The others spoke out against racism, voter suppression, inequality to women, and social injustice. They supported the Black Lives Matter and Education Reform movements. Four of the five are under 30. The elder statesman of the group, James, 35, also received the Muhammad Ali Legacy Award.
Said Lonnie Ali, the champ’s widow, of James: “He continues to embody Muhammad’s principles and core beliefs, using his celebrity platform to champion social justice and political causes that uplift all people.”
For a change, I applaud my former employer for selecting multiple winners who each are outstanding examples for all of us, especially young people. I’ve long taken athletes to task for putting money ahead of everything, including education, and being content with staying on the sidelines during political debates. As Michael Jordan once famously said, “Republicans buy sneakers, too.”
I also am disgusted with every pro golfer who played a round with Trump this year. What sort of message does that send to young people? Instead of declining Trump’s invitation in favor of making a strong political statement, these feckless golfers – in my opinion – made fools of themselves by acting like everything was hunky-dory in the nation Trump was trying to take apart.
If I’m not mistaken, two other of my former employers, The Courier-Journal and The Lexington Herald-Leader, the state’s two largest newspapers, also will borrow from the SI model and name a Kentucky Sportsperson of the Year.
But will they award political activists like the five SI winners or will they take the safe way out in our heavily Republican Commonwealth? I think I’ll go to an OTB parlor and see if I can get down a bet on the latter.
Walz and Davenport together at BU game at end of last season.
To be fair, however, I’m having trouble coming up with nominees that I deem to be worthy. I would not be unhappy to see two college basketball coaches on the list – Bellarmine men’s coach Scotty Davenport and Louisville women’s coach Jeff Walz – because they have continued to be the kind of leaders and teachers we want our young people to be around.
Bellarmine is playing in NCAAA D-I for the first time this season, and it could have never happened without Davenport developing a series of excellent D-II teams that also hit the books hard. The Knights, in fact, are the new tenants of historic Freedom Hall. Similarly the Lady Cardinals are a serious contender of this season’s NCAA tournament championship because of the classy program it has developed under Walz, a son of former Highland High and UK quarterback Roger Walls.
Who else is there?
Well, I know that former Western Kentucky basketball star Clarence Glover has been a champion for social justice. So, for that matter, has been former UK basketball star Derek Anderson. And former UK football quarterback Derrick Ramsey long has been an advocate for education reform and more diversity in government and business.
But here’s where I run into trouble and need some help. I can’t think of a current or former pro athlete from Kentucky who has been a prominent activist for any cause.
I’m sure there are some out there, but I’m either unaware of them or overlooking them. Is there a jockey who would qualify? An organization such as the Muhammad Ali Museum? A college or high school coach? A newspaper columnist or radio talk-show host? I just keep scratching my head.
I would have considered the Kentucky Historical Commission if, after removing a statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis from the state capitol rotunda, the members had immediately replaced it with one of Muhammad Ali. Instead, the space is vacant, a place of honor waiting for a new tenant.
I’ll end this by asking readers to send me their nominations to news@nkytrib.com; they will be forwarded to me. If you don’t think politics and activism have no place in sports, that will put you in sync with the talk-show hosts. Just tell me why you feel the way you do. And, by the way, are we ever going to have more females and blacks as talk-show hosts and sports columnists? Not in Republican Kentucky, you say? OK, I get it.
As Sports Illustrated has graphically shown us with its selection of five Sportspersons of the Year for 2020, sports doesn’t exist in a bubble or vacuum. It has all the same problems the rest of society has. It’s just that here in Kentucky, we would rather keep our heads buried in horse manure than talk about the issues that bother the SI Sportspersons of the Year.
The Link Lonk
December 13, 2020 at 01:48PM
https://www.nkytribune.com/2020/12/billy-reed-please-send-me-your-ideas-for-who-should-be-sportsperson-of-the-year-in-kentucky/
Billy Reed: Please send me your ideas for who should be Sportsperson of the Year in Kentucky - User-generated content
https://news.google.com/search?q=Send&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
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