GOAT – Greatest Of All Time. Humans have a tendency of making everything into a competition. Somehow, the sports fans marvel at this art and the word fan comes from “fanatic” so it is completely understandable but why can we not live with and accept the fact that the sports have been around for years and there isn’t a need to have one person as GOAT. Maybe it is not, when people say GOAT, it could mean multiple people, and someone might say that the superlative degree is used without “The” so it is not just one person.
Last week, there were two such debates. Tom Brady, NFL legend retired and everyone going gaga and saying he is the greatest and maybe he is. Likewise, Rafael Nadal won his 21st grand slam and moved ahead in the three-horse derby but any sane fan (don’t know if there is a term like that) would not anoint Rafa as the ultimate greatest especially when the race is still ON, at least between him and Novak and Roger to some is next best thing to God.
Got me thinking, what do these sportsmen who are even mentioned in this breath, have in common? There must be traits that make them unique and even merit putting their names in that GOAT hat. More research and analyzed a few such as Michael Jordan (NBA), Sachin Tendulkar and Don Bradman (Cricket Batsmen), Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic (Men’s Tennis), Serena Williams, Steffi Graf, Martina Navratilova (Women’s Tennis), Tom Brady (NFL), Tiger Woods (as a player), Louis Armstrong, Ayrton Senna, Michael Schumacher etc. to name a few. Obviously, all these men and women have jaw dropping stats, basic selection criteria but as some wise people had rightly said statistics are like bikinis, what they reveal is interesting but what they conceal is more appealing.
All these legends especially the ones in the greatest of all time discussions have tried to steer clear from the tag and opined that it is extremely difficult to compare players across generations and there shouldn’t be the greatest discussion, there are number of players who are in that conversation, and it is unfair to anoint one. Players and quality of opposition across generations, venues and locations where certain players have been more successful than others have always tilted the balance in favor of one player over the other.
When a sport has been around for 130-140 years like cricket or tennis, hundreds of thousands of players have donned the jerseys and have stepped onto the field. These GOATs are the ones who have truly transcended the sport across generations and if anything, they have made the sport much richer (no pun intended) and have influenced plethora of individuals to consider that as a career. These GOATs have embodied leadership and competitiveness like no other and have been successful against all odds. Their body of work has been consistently great over a long period of time amid all the challenges and health hurdles that playing physical sports subject one to.
GOATs have been amongst the biggest draws to their sport and have managed to keep the sport afloat by having spectators join the spectacle on offer. They have regaled the audiences world over with their abundant skills and have helped drive the ecosystem of merchandise that kids and adults have flocked to make their own. These legends have been able to make a mark even in team sport both as team players or as individual contributors and have taken the competition in its stride as fish takes to water.
Why do I agree that it is unfair to compare players across generations? We have all seen how the sports have proliferated over the years and number of venues have been added. Analytics have highlighted the flaws in someone’s techniques and video footages have provided the icing on the cake. Number of competitions, tournaments, opposition players, newer venues, travel and dealing with jet lags, add pandemic type of situation, have only muddied the water and the modern player must deal with all that. That doesn’t mean the player from an earlier era who didn’t have to deal with all that, didn’t have those challenges, they were deprived of some of the modern-day facilities which have helped elevate certain good individuals to great status because of the technology and support system pointed them in that direction and pinpointed the very flaw that had to be rectified. Nutrition and Workouts have also changed for the better and now there are as many if not more personnel provided to manage player’s needs as the number of players on a team.
GOATs have been successful against all stacked odds, and it is their will to succeed which has separated them from wannabe’s. There have been countless emulators who want to upstage GOATs and most of them are straight going for the destination rather than emulate the journey what made the GOAT who he/she is. This is another trait that I strongly consider before putting someone in the GOAT discussion is how they have been able to influence and motivate others from their own and future generations to be the next Them.
I strongly believe that we as fans need to leave the comparisons aside and just sit back and enjoy what’s on display rather than trying to find what or who next? We spend too much time trying to decipher through the stats to say what if? If wishes were horses, beggars would ride them. What if scenarios are played out on paper or computer and not in the real world where the dynamics change. It is akin to a Ph D developing empirical models where there is only one variable and other are kept as constants. We all understand life does not offer constants; it only offers variables. How you maneuver these variables and steer them to your advantage separates you from the crowd.
To me, the result of GOAT discussion should be a list of players who make the list of Greatest Of All Time and it should be a list and not one name. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and that’s what the fans are for, to root for their favorites and doing some smacking and trash talking but not at the cost of bringing other player’s laurels down. There are various criteria that go in who the greatest player is and, on their day, it could be anyone. Sports is for enjoyment and relaxation for fans. Do not tax your brains and make it more than what is needed.
