Table of contents for TIME Sports Greats in TIME Magazine

1942-2016 | Muhammad Ali, the lyrical heavyweight showman who thrilled the globe with his sublime boxing style, unpredictable wit, and philanthropy—especially later in life—died June 3, 2016, at age 74. Ali, the former Cassius Clay, was not just an athlete who embodied the times in which he lived. He shaped them. His conscientious objection to the Vietnam War and reasoned rants against a country fighting for freedom on the other side of the globe—while its own Black citizens were denied basic rights—energized a generation. When Ali refused to serve in Vietnam, he was convicted of draft evasion and stripped of the heavyweight crown he won from Sonny Liston in 1964. Imagine for a moment a 21st-century athlete who could command an audience with presidents and the pope, the Dalai…

B. 1977 | Tom Brady retired from the NFL in 2023 as a seven-time Super Bowl champ with records in passing yards and touchdown passes. He made his Super Bowl debut as a second-year quarterback in 2002 and secured six titles for the New England Patriots. His seventh Super Bowl ring came with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2021. In his last year on the gridiron, Brady was the oldest active player in the NFL, but his personal performance was still strong. His team finished the season with an 8-9 record and lost to the Dallas Cowboys in the wild card round of the playoffs. Brady left the game at 45½ years old, more than six years older than the next-oldest NFL starter and the oldest starting quarterback for…

B. 2002 | Much of the country became familiar with Caitlin Clark during the 2023 NCAA championship game, when Clark, who’s known for her on-court trash talk, received a ribbing from LSU’s Angel Reese near the end of the Tigers’ victory. In case you missed it: With the victory in hand, LSU’s Angel Reese covered her face in front of Clark, mimicking Clark’s “you can’t see me” gesture, which she had deployed during an earlier NCAA tournament game. Reese followed this up by approaching Clark and pointing to her ring finger, a less subtle level of taunting. “I’m about to get a championship ring,” Reese was saying. “And you’re not.” Social media went wild, as it does, but many credit the nation’s unprecedented interest in women’s basketball to the…

B. 1949 | He might not have been one of the greatest boxers of all time, but George Foreman—for railing against the crushing inevitability of age—deserves some recognition. After retiring from the sport as a rather grizzled bruiser in the 1970s, the lovable heavyweight—and there’s a sporting oxymoron if ever there was one—got back into the ring a decade later, claiming that his primary motive was to raise money to fund his youth center. He was 38. (Foreman had become a successful entrepreneur during his time off, as buyers of his famous George Foreman grills can attest). Critics snickered that the only opponent he could knock out would need to be hooked to a respirator. Although he looked out of shape, Foreman beat Steve Zouski by KO in four…

1903-1941 | In 1941, when the news broke that Yankee great Lou Gehrig died of ALS at age 37, flags were lowered to half-staff at ballparks across the country. At New York’s Polo Grounds, Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field, and Detroit’s Briggs Stadium—where New York ball clubs were playing—the fans stood for a minute of silent tribute. In baseball’s Hall of Fame, mourners filed past a black-draped plaque. The emotional flood was the likes of which few old-timers could remember. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Westbrook Pegler wrote in the New York World-Telegram: “Lou Gehrig, when he came to die, was given miles of white paper covered with the tenderest tributes for his obituary, principally because he was a decent man.… Is character then so rare that a good man merits such tributes…

B. 1985 | The son of mixed-race parents, Lewis Hamilton became the first Black driver (and as of 2023, the only Black driver) in Formula One after growing up in public housing north of London, rather than being groomed in the gilded garages that typically breed championship drivers. Since winning his first title in 2008 at just 23, Hamilton has become as much of a celebrity off the track—he’s a Fashion Week regular whose Instagram feed is filled with shots of him chumming with A-listers. He’s recorded hip-hop songs and had a role in “Call of Duty.” “He’s an ambassador for Formula One,” said Christian Horner, head of the rival Red Bull Racing Team. “He takes it to places where you wouldn’t normally see it, particularly in the U.S.”…

B. 1965 | Ice is slippery, and speed-skating great Dan Jansen prefers it that way. The ice has been his friend and partner, providing him a surface upon which to set world records and achieve fame on ovals in the Netherlands, Canada, and the U.S. Beyond the land of the five-colored rings, he was recognized as a hero and the greatest sprinter on long blades in the 1980s and 1990s. But Olympic gold eluded him. He was only 16 in 1984, when he placed fourth in the 500 meters. In Calgary in 1988, he learned of the death of his beloved sister, Jane, the day he was to race the 500 meters and 1,000 meters. He fell in both races. In Albertville 1992, he finished fourth in the 500 meters…

B. 1963 | Michael Jordan, widely considered basketball’s greatest of all time, became a worldwide cultural phenomenon in the 1980s and 1990s. He was named the top North American athlete by ESPN in 2009. Perhaps one of the most enduring symbols of Jordan’s popularity is Nike’s Air Jordan sneakers, which are still prized after nearly 40 years on the market. At 6 feet, 6 inches, Jordan was not tall by NBA standards but made up for it with his athleticism and his incredible leaping ability. He became a symbol of American values—a winner with a blue-collar work ethic, tenacity, focus, and supreme self-assuredness. As TIME put it in 1998, “Jordan is a vessel into which America can pour anything it wants. He’s noble, charming, righteous and kind, not because…

B. 1989 | If you look beyond the tabloid headlines, Travis Kelce is a big deal on his own. Kelce grew up in a sports family in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, alongside his older brother, Jason, who retired from the Philadelphia Eagles in 2024. The two played together at the University of Cincinnati, where, after being suspended for testing positive for marijuana, Travis redeemed himself and had a breakout senior year. The Kansas City Chiefs took Travis in the third round, 63rd overall, in the 2013 NFL Draft. Kelce was sidelined in 2013 due to a knee injury, but came back the next year as the Chief’s leading receiver, totaling 862 yards off 67 receptions. He finished the 2015 season with 72 catches for 875 yards and five touchdowns, and…

B. 1997 | To date, Katie Ledecky has won more gold medals than any other female swimmer: seven Olympic golds and 21 World Championship medals. She also has 16 individual World Championship medals, more than any other male or female swimmer. Born in Washington, D.C., and raised in suburban Maryland, Ledecky made her Olympic debut at age 15, at the 2012 London Games. She stunned the swim world by winning gold in the 800 meters, setting a fast pace that has become her trademark in distance races. In the years that followed, Ledecky continued to carve seconds off her previous personal best times, most of which were world records, and for a while, she set new records each time she dove into the pool. At the 2016 Games in…

B. 1987 | Lionel Messi’s record eight Ballon d’Ors and a record six European Golden Shoes not only cement his place in the galaxy of greats, they also make him the centerpiece of a singular argument: whether he’s the greatest of all time. Born in Argentina, Messi was unique among his country’s top soccer stars because he never represented an Argentine club. At 13, he left Argentina for Barcelona, Spain, where he played the majority of his career. He did play for Argentina’s national team starting in 2005, but he didn’t collect a lot of hardware for them, so he was far more popular across the world than at home. It wasn’t until a Copa América and CONMEBOL–UEFA Cup of Champions in 2021 and the Argentinian team’s 2022 World…

B. 1955 | Ohio native Edwin Moses is a two-time Olympic gold medalist in the 400-meter hurdles and set the event’s record four times. His unprecedented run of 122 straight wins between 1977 and 1987 still stands. You might recognize him from the Wheaties box or the Olympics coverage in 1976, 1984, or 1988, but what you might not know is that Moses is a really smart guy who pioneered reform movements in athletic eligibility and drug testing. Born in Dayton, Ohio, Moses attended Morehouse College in Atlanta on an academic scholarship, majoring in physics and engineering. Morehouse didn’t have its own track, so he practiced at local high schools, perfecting his form. Most hurdlers take 15 strides between hurdles, but Moses, who clocked in at at 6-feet, 2-inches…

B. 1940 | The year was 1962. A 22-year-old from Columbus, Ohio, named Jack Nicklaus shambled across the 18th green like a young grizzly bear, his face ruddy from the sun, his white cotton shirt soggy with sweat, his cream-colored cap perched precariously on the back of his close-cropped blond head. Intently, impassively, he hunched over his 2-foot putt. Daintily, deliberately, he stroked the ball toward the hole. When it plunked safely into the cup, he permitted himself a change of expression—a boyish grin and tip of his cap to the crowd. With that putt, the first-year pro won one of the biggest golf tournaments of them all: the U.S. Open. That kid would go on to win a record 18 major championships—six Masters, five PGA Championships, four U.S.…

1940-2022 | Brazil has had its dictators and detractors, but they did not raise the passions that its heroes did. In 1970, when Brazil defeated Italy 4-1 to win the World Cup in Mexico City, the country erupted in what Jornal do Brasil bannered as “The Biggest Carnaval in History.” Empty streets filled with honking processions of cars, samba bands, and conga dancers who happily chanted “Bra—zil! Bra—zil! Bra—zil!” In Rio, fireworks exploded in the evening sky, while air-force jets trailing plumes of smoke swooped low over Copacabana Beach. The center of much of the fuss was Brazil’s No. 1 hero, Edson Arantes do Nascimento, better known as Pelé. The star of Brazil’s Santos team was one of the most successful and popular sports figures of the 20th century.…

B.1985 | American swimmer Michael Phelps is the most decorated Olympian of all time. Of his 28 medals, 23 are golds. He won six gold medals in Athens in 2004, eight in Beijing in 2008, four in London in 2012, and five in Rio in 2016. When he retired in 2016, Phelps amassed more golds than 66 entire countries. He set 39 world records during his career. To say Phelps was a phenom in the water would be an understatement. But what he did for mental health awareness after his retirement made an impact that cannot be measured with a stopwatch. He became one of the first high-profile athletes to talk about his struggles with it. He opened up about living with ADHD and depression, revealed he experienced suicidal…

B. 1947 | Baseball is too often a cruel reminder of life’s diminishing returns. Fans watch an aging hitter’s creaky swing, or a runner’s lethargy on the base paths, or a pitcher’s loss of velocity and feel the beer breath of mortality on their own necks. But Nolan Ryan, whom sportswriter Thomas Boswell has called “the Act of God,” is the wondrous exception to this melancholy rule: He pitched two no-hitters when he was in his 40s. In total, Ryan pitched seven no-hit games during his 27 seasons—more than anyone else in baseball history. His all-time strikeout total (5,714) is more than 800 higher than Randy Johnson’s second best. He allowed the fewest hits per nine innings (6.55) of any player in the game. He was the first pitcher…

B. 1995 | American Mikaela Shiffrin has 97 World Cup wins—the most of any alpine skier, male or female. At the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, she became the youngest competitor to win a gold in the slalom event at just 18 years old. In 2018, she earned another Olympic gold medal in Pyeongchang in the giant slalom and a silver in combined. “Mikaela’s the best I’ve ever seen, male or female, in a few different categories,” six-time Olympic medalist Bode Miller told TIME in 2018, ahead of the 2018 Olympics. He said he considered Shiffrin’s technical prowess and risk management unparalleled and couldn’t decide whether she compares more to LeBron James because of her physical gifts or to Michael Jordan, since she makes dominance look easy. She may make…

B. 1989 | Former NFL defensive end J.J. Watt may have hit hard, but he was a heck of a nice guy. On the field, he was known for his power, speed, and agility. The three-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year ended his 12-year career, primarily with the Houston Texans, with 586 tackles, 114.5 sacks, 70 pass deflections, 27 forced fumbles, and 17 fumble recoveries. Off the field, he is known for his generosity. In 2017, Watt started a relief fund for the victims of Hurricane Harvey and personally donated $100,000. His crowdfunding efforts drew support from high-profile individuals in and out of Texas. Former President George H.W. Bush shared Watt’s fundraising page on Twitter, and talk show hosts Ellen DeGeneres and Jimmy Fallon contributed $1 million each.…

1918-2002 | Ted Williams, who retired in 1960 but still has the highest on-base percentage of all time, earned the fear of pitchers. But what he wanted was the respect of the boo-birds in Boston. “The Splendid Splinter”—the last major leaguer to hit .400, and owner of six batting titles over a 22-year span (during which he took five seasons off for World War II and, as a combat pilot, in the Korean War)—was himself as conflicted, splintered, as a Eugene O’Neill tragic hero. He felt most sportswriters rode him unjustly and that the fans—especially in Boston—were a loud, unappreciative lot. “I will never,” he liked to repeat, “tip my cap to them!” Sullen yet sensitive, he gave the finger to Red Sox fans but was eager to hear…

1867-1955 | One summer afternoon in 1890, a gawky farm hand named Denton True Young came down from the Ohio hills to try out as a pitcher for the Canton baseball team of the Tri-State League. He had no uniform, and the Canton manager did not even bother to use a catcher. One of the team’s best batters simply stood in front of the grandstand, and the kid started firing the ball past him. The batter never got a piece of it, and the big farmer’s fastball almost tore up the grandstand backboard. “Looks like a cyclone hit it,” said the Canton manager. That day, “Cyclone” Young had earned a nickname and a place in organized ball. Even in that era of iron men, the 6-foot, 2-inch, 210-pound fireballer…

1934-2021 | With a single swing of a baseball bat through a misty Atlanta evening in 1974, a fast, graceful stroke that sent a ball soaring over the fence in left center field and knocked Babe Ruth right out of the record books, Hank Aaron gave America nothing less than a remedy for its ills. He offered dignity and commitment over putrid cynicism, courage in the face of hatred. Despite the deep personal toll the chase laid on Aaron, whose family was also threatened during the ordeal, there he stood on the night of April 8, 1974, bearing down on a fastball from Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Al Downing, putting 715 into the books. Nearly one in four American television sets were tuned in to watch Aaron make history.…

B. 1940 | In 1967, Mario Andretti told TIME, “I don’t have any feeling of accomplishment about anything unless there’s a lot of risk to it.” He was already racing automobiles—90-mph Formula Juniors—in Italy at an age when no state in the U.S. would have given him a license to drive the family Volkswagen: 13. “I was crazy,” he agreed. “None of my relatives even knew what I was doing except my old priest uncle, and I had him hiding it because I told him in confession so he couldn’t tell.” Born near Trieste, Italy, diminutive (5 feet, 6 inches) Mario Andretti came to the U.S. in 1955 and settled in Nazareth, Pennsylvania. He originally intended to be a welder, but gave up that idea when he discovered that…

B. 1997 | As the greatest of all time in a sport that captivates the globe every four years, Simone Biles is all about control. Her life is dedicated to micromanaging every possible element—her diet, her training, her sleep—that goes into performing, so when the lights are brightest, and the stakes highest, little is left to chance. But for Biles, control isn’t just about winning; it can be the difference between life and death. Avoiding disaster requires a constant, firm grip on mental acuity. On July 27, 2021, however, the careful tapestry of control that Biles, 24, had stitched began to unravel. Or at least started to, until she responded in a way that stunned millions of viewers around the world. In the middle of the Olympics for which…

B. 1986 | Eight-time Olympic gold medalist Usain Bolt, aka “Lightning Bolt,” started sprinting as a boy in the Jamaican parish of Trelawny, a sugar-farming area that was the former stronghold of the Maroons, Jamaica’s 18th century freedom fighters who resisted British attempts to enslave them. Bolt’s father ordered his lanky son to carry buckets of water for miles to their home, which had no running water. Lugging all that water proved to be valuable training. Bolt won gold in the 100 meters and 200 meters in the 2008, 2012, and 2016 Olympics—the only sprinter to have done so in three consecutive Games. He also won gold twice in 4 x 100-meter relays (2012 and 2016). He holds world records in all three–having run 9.58 seconds in the 100-meter…

1978-2020 | During his 20-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers, Kobe Bryant won five NBA championships, made 18 All-Star teams, won an MVP award, two scoring titles, and two Olympic gold medals. He finished his NBA career with 33,643 points, good for fourth on the NBA’s all-time scoring list. Bryant craved competition and broke down basketball like a scholar; his brain was as elevated as his body. Bryant skipped college to take over the NBA, but after one conversation with him, you just sensed he would have thrived in the classroom, the boardroom, or any path he chose. But he was complicated. Never cuddly, he could be ruthless to his underperforming teammates. Critics called him selfish and knocked him for not passing the ball. He embraced his villainy,…

BORN 1961 | In 1976, Romanian Nadia Comaneci, age 14, became the first gymnast to earn a perfect score in the modern Olympic Games, which date back to 1896. She earned the 10 mark six more times that year, and four years later, she earned two more. Comaneci won nine Olympic medals for Romania, then under Communist rule. Known for her steely reserve, she was discovered by legendary gymnastics coach Béla Károlyi when she was just 6 years old. He was impressed by her lack of fear. “At first it was like a game,” said Comaneci after the 1976 Games, showing no trace of nostalgia for her presumably more carefree days. “But by the age of 8,” Coach Károlyi noted, “the students must be serious about gymnastics.” When asked…

1911-1956 | Babe Didrikson was a multi-sport athlete who rose to fame at the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics, setting records and winning gold medals in the 80-meter hurdles and javelin throw. She also earned a silver medal in high jump in Los Angeles that year. At the 1932 Women’s U.S. Olympic trials, Didrikson competed as a team by herself and won five individual events and tied for the sixth (80-meter hurdles, high jump, javelin throw, long jump, shot put, and baseball throw), earning enough points to take the team title. Didrikson also played basketball on the women’s All-America team from 1930-1932, winning one championship. She set the Guinness World Record for longest baseball throw (female) in 1931 at 296 feet. In 1934, she played baseball on a barnstorming team…

1951-2001 | With an eighth-grade education, a push-broom mustache, and a from-the-gut driving style that earned him the nickname “The Intimidator,” Dale Earnhardt was as apt a face as any for a sport whose roots lie with Prohibition-era bootleggers who souped up their cars to outrun fat sheriffs on dusty roads, and he had a devilish grin to match anything Burt Reynolds flashed in Smokey and the Bandit. But on February 18, 2001, in the last lap of the first and biggest race of the 2001 NASCAR season, the sport’s greatest driver got tangled up with another car and slammed his trademark No. 3 black Chevrolet into the wall at the Daytona International Speedway. Earnhardt, 49, was killed instantly. Part of Earnhardt’s legend is that he once crawled out…

B. 1935 | Fast cars were nothing new to A.J. Foyt: He practically cut his teeth on a camshaft. The son of a Houston garage owner, Foyt won his first auto race at the age of 4—in a scaled-down midget with a one-cylinder engine and a top speed of 18 mph. He quit school at 17 to turn pro, fought his way up from the dirt tracks of the Southwest to the big time and the big money at Milwaukee and Trenton and Indianapolis. In 1960 he won his first (of seven) United States Auto Club championships; a year later, he won the Indy 500. Foyt would go on to drive in 34 more consecutive Indy 500s, winning it three more times—he was the first driver to win it…

B. 1969 Steffi Graf’s father, a car-insurance salesman from Brühl, Germany, taught her how to swing a racket in their living room when she turned 3. She never stopped. Although Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert hit the ball hard, Graf brought new explosiveness to the game: Her forehand remains one of the greatest shots in women’s tennis. She contested 31 Grand Slam singles finals and won 22 of them (with at least four titles at each Grand Slam tournament). In 1988, she completed the calendar-year Grand Slam by winning all four majors, and walked away at age 19 with an Olympic gold medal to boot. An enigmatic champion, she let her racket do the talking, and still remains mysterious as a result. The finals of Graf’s last French Open…

B. 1972 | Mia Hamm has been a role model for girls since she established herself as one of the greatest female athletes of all time. Hamm held the record for most international goals scored by a soccer player—male or female—from 2004 until 2013. She won FIFA world player of the year twice, and won gold at the 1996 and 2004 Olympics. In 1987, at age 15, Hamm joined the U.S. women’s national soccer team. They captured World Cups in China in 1991 and in the U.S. in 1999. Over 17 million Americans tuned in to see the U.S. beat China in the final, setting a record for the largest U.S. television audience for a soccer match. Between 1989 and 1994, she helped the University of North Carolina Tar…

B. 1974 | Derek Jeter played 20 seasons for the New York Yankees, won five World Series rings, and had 3,461 hits–the sixth-best of all time, cementing him in the Hall of Fame. In the years spanning Jeter’s AL Rookie of the Year award and first World Series win in 1996 to Derek Jeter Day, a celebration of Jeter’s retirement in 2014, Yankee fans adored him. His popularity extended past fans and teammates too. According to Q Scores Company, among active athletes recognized by more than half the U.S. population, Jeter owned the second-highest “Q score” in 2014—a general favorability rating—trailing only Peyton Manning. What’s surprising: No other baseball player ranked in the top 15. “Baseball players aren’t even on the national radar for the general population,” Henry Schafer,…

B. 1943 | After winning Wimbledon in 1968, the men’s champion, Rod Laver, walked away with $4,800. Billie Jean King, the women’s champion, left with just $1,800. At other events, the gap in pay was even wider. King—who won 129 career titles, including 12 Grand Slam singles titles—fought to change that. As the dominant force in tennis at the time, she had a lot to lose, but she never lost sight of the bigger picture. She turned her back on the U.S. Tennis Association as leader of the “Original 9” group of women who fought for gender equality in tennis, and founded the Women’s Tennis Association. “We had one dream, and that was to create an opportunity where any girl—if she was good enough—could make a living playing professional…

1913-1970 | There the 1966 Green Bay Packers team stood, some as tall as 6 feet, 6 inches, bulging with the kind of muscles it takes to bend a railroad spike between thumb and forefinger. Their team had already won its fifth National Football League division championship in seven years, and they likely could have cared less that they still had one regular-season game to play against the Los Angeles Rams. So why were they doing push-ups and running wind sprints? Could it really have been because a chubby man with dark-rimmed glasses was screaming at them: “You don’t have any pride! All you have is shame! You’re a disgrace to the National Football League!” It could indeed. When Coach Vince Lombardi chewed out his Green Bay Packers, they…

B. 1964 | In 1982, a high school senior from Riverside Polytechnic High School, in Riverside, California, scored 105 points in a basketball game against neighboring Norte Vista High School. Her name was Cheryl Miller, and she would go on to have a stellar career at the University of Southern California, become a four-time All-American, win a gold medal in the Olympics, and grace the airwaves as a sportscaster. She is widely credited in helping draw attention to women’s basketball in the 1980s. The 6-foot, 2-inch forward led USC to a 112-20 record and championship titles in 1983 and 1984. Her senior year, Sports Illustrated named her best college basketball player of the year, male or female. She set numerous records as a Trojan, including career points with 3,018…

B. 1986 | Raised on the island of Majorca, Rafael Nadal has athleticism in his blood. His uncle Miguel Angel, dubbed el Carnicero (the Butcher), was a bruising defender on Spain’s national soccer team. Another uncle, Toni, was Nadal’s first coach, who taught the natural righty to play tennis left-handed. The King of Clay has won a record 14 French Opens and 22 Grand Slam men’s singles titles. He is one of only a handful of players to have achieved a career Golden Slam, winning all four majors and an Olympic gold, and one of just two men (with Andre Agassi) to have achieved a career Golden Slam in both singles and doubles. As one of tennis’ Big Three (with legends Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic), Nadal helped revive…

B. 1985 | Megan Rapinoe, who played the bulk of her professional career with the Seattle Reign, is a two-time FIFA World Cup winner with the U.S. national women’s team. She won the Golden Boot and Golden Ball awards at the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup in France, and received the Ballon d’Or Féminin that season as best player. She is also an Olympic gold medalist: At the 2012 Olympics in London, she scored three goals. Her creative and joyful play helped elevate women’s soccer to the status of appointment viewing. Rapinoe is one of the most talked-about American athletes of our time, a symbol of excellence and a fearless competitor on and off the pitch. More than a decade ago, she came out as gay, giving many other…

B. 1960 | On September 6, 1995, Baltimore Oriole Cal Ripken Jr. played his 2,131st straight game and broke the record for consecutive games played set by Lou Gehrig, the first baseman for the New York Yankees from 1925 until 1939. The Streak, as it has come to be called, officially began on May 30, 1982, when Orioles manager Earl Weaver started the 21-year-old Ripken at third base. The following season, Ripken shifted to shortstop. Ripken never set out to eclipse the “Iron Horse,” who he modestly and somewhat mistakenly believed was a much better ballplayer than himself. “I’m not even in Gehrig’s league,” Ripken told TIME in 1999. Offensively speaking, Ripken may have been right, although he had two MVP Gehrigian seasons in 1983 and 1991, and was…

B. 1985 | One could argue that Portuguese soccer star Christiano Ronaldo is arrogant or amazing, but there’s no doubt he’s an influencer. Ronaldo holds the overall record for goals as well as the records for most club goals of all time and most international goals of all time. He has played in a record-tying five World Cups, scoring eight times with two assists in 22 appearances. He was the first person ever to score in five different World Cups. He also holds the record for most Champions League goals of all time (141). He debuted in September 2002 for the Portuguese professional team Sporting. He went on to play for English, Spanish, and Italian giants Manchester United, Real Madrid, and Juventus, respectively, before returning to Manchester United for…

B. 1968 | In what is widely considered the greatest single season in college football history, Oklahoma State running back Barry Sanders set 25 NCAA records in 1988, including the marks for most rushing yards (2,628) and touchdowns (39) in a single season. Few have ever matched that performance. Then Sanders, a quiet star who shunned the limelight, became the NFL’s third all-time leading rusher; he would have obliterated the record had he not abruptly retired after a sterling 10-year career. During his 10 seasons with the silver-and-blue, Sanders became a darting, dodging Detroit institution. But there was one tackle he couldn’t break: Detroit’s other institution, losing. So Sanders woke up one day in 1999 and decided he couldn’t do it another year. As his old teammates got ready…

1931-2003 | Willie Shoemaker was a thoroughbred jockey who rode winners in 11 Triple Crown races. At under 5 feet tall and weighing around 100 pounds, Shoemaker was a horse-track heavyweight, with 8,833 victories in 40,350 races between 1949 and 1990. He held the record for most wins as a professional jockey for 29 years. Late Los Angeles Times sports columnist Jim Murray said Shoemaker rode “with the effortless ease and grace of a guy born to do what he was doing.” At age 54, when many thought his skills were in decline, Shoemaker steered 17-to-1 long shot Ferdinand to victory in the 1986 Kentucky Derby, making him the oldest jockey to ride a Derby winner. Key to Shoemaker’s remarkable record was his flawless, sensitive riding style, TIME reported…

B. 1950 | American swimmer Mark Spitz won seven gold medals at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, each in record time. It took 36 years for another swimmer, Michael Phelps, to beat that medal count. Between the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City and his Munich haul, Spitz took home 11 medals: nine golds, a silver, and a bronze. As a cocky 18-year-old in Mexico City, Spitz bragged that he would win six golds. Although he had already set many world records, he only won two golds, one in the 4 x 100-meter freestyle relay and one in the 4 x 200-meter relay. He took silver in the 100-meter butterfly and bronze in the 100-meter freestyle. The kid retreated from Mexico City like a wounded shark and enrolled that winter…

B. 1934 | On April 2, 2024, Milwaukee Brewers (and Minnesota Twins) fans welcomed 90-year-old Bob Uecker with a hearty ovation: “Ueck! Ueck! Ueck!” when the broadcaster appeared on the video board at American Family Field. Why? Uecker, aka Mr. Baseball, was there to do play-by-play for his 54th straight season with the Brewers. Uecker was a catcher in the majors from 1962 to 1967 with the Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves, St. Louis Cardinals, and Philadelphia Phillies, but he didn’t become a national celebrity until after his playing career was over. Uecker, a Milwaukee native, began calling Brewers games in 1971 and also worked as a national color commentator for ABC and NBC baseball telecasts. His charisma and self-deprecating humor landed him on late-night talk shows—he was a favorite of Johnny…

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B. 1956 | When he was at the top of his game, Bjorn Borg, at 5 feet, 11 inches and 165 pounds, was lean as a greyhound, his limbs long and supple, his shoulders almost incongruously broad. He practiced at tournament speed four hours each day to keep in condition. No other player spent more time in workouts. Sweden’s Davis Cup captain Lennart Bergelin explained Borg’s success with two gestures. First he slaps his thigh: “It’s all here.” Then he points to his head: “And here.” Borg was a teen sensation who boosted the popularity of tennis in the 1970s. At 15, he helped Sweden’s Davis Cup team to a first-round victory in the European Zone competitions. He was then the youngest player ever to take part in a…

1918-1995 | Love him or hate him, Howard Cosell left his mark in sports media. Wordy, brash, and grandiose, the former trial attorney had a natural gift for annoying, but at least his style was infinitely more lively than the usual “golly-gee-you’re-terrific” sports interviews on TV. He was among the first sports broadcasters to use an intellectual, hard news approach. “I’ve gotten where I’ve gotten in the world of sport just by applying the principles of journalism,” he told TIME in 1968. Cosell did get his share of scoops; he was the first, for example, to report Wilt Chamberlain’s move from the Philadelphia 76ers to the Los Angeles Lakers. But it was more his capacity for outrage than reporting that made him so hard to turn off. Unabashedly confident,…

1914-1999 | Baseball’s mythmaking machinery went into overdrive when it encountered Joe DiMaggio. Sportswriters for New York City’s nearly dozen daily papers fell in love with the shy 21-year-old who came up with the Yankees from spring training in 1936. This handsome new kid, the son of a Sicilian immigrant fisherman, looked promising. His awkwardness and reticence with reporters was somtimes portrayed as enigmatic, as was his deadpan demeanor on the field. But the reports from his minor league stint with the San Francisco Seals were spot on. DiMaggio could “do it all”—hit, hit for power, run, field, and throw. Whatever pressure the rookie felt from all these high expectations never showed on the diamond. He not only did it all, he did it with a stylishness that awed…

B. 1981 | Anyone who lived through Roger Federer’s apex was fortunate to witness it. From 2004 through 2007, the four consecutive calendar years he ended his campaign as No. 1 in the world, Federer won 93% of his tennis matches. In 2004 and 2005, he reached the finals in 23 tournaments. He won 22—or 96%—of them. “He’s a once-in-a-lifetime type athlete, in any sport. When it’s all said and done, we’re going to be celebrating Roger like we celebrate Michael Jordan,” Justin Gimelstob, a former Tennis Channel analyst and tour player, told TIME in 2017. But unlike Jordan or other supremely driven stars like Kobe Bryant and Tiger Woods, Federer never sacrificed decorum on the altar of success. Jordan and Bryant, for example, were notoriously rough on less-talented…

1912-1969 | At about the same time Babe Ruth was knocking ’em over the fence and Jack Dempsey was knocking opponents out, Sonja Henie was busy transforming figure skating. Before Henie, the sport was a dull display of skill exercises—by incorporating ballet choreography and glamor, Henie turned it into the spectacular exhibition we know today. Henie was the first figure skater to wear skirts above the knee and chose to don white boots, which elongated the leg and provided a more pleasing focal point for judges and spectators. Other skaters quickly followed suit. Today, we can’t imagine figure skating without the glitzy outfits. During her reign as amateur queen of the ice, Henie won the world championship 10 consecutive times, an unequaled record. She also won six European championships…

B. 1984 | After nearly two decades in the NBA, LeBron James has fully embraced that his talent on the court is a means to achieving something greater off it. In 2020, when we needed it most, he showed why he is unrivaled in both. Despite misgivings, James played on in the bubble and led the Los Angeles Lakers to the NBA championship—his first with the team and fourth overall. By staying, James increased his leverage and influence, and got deep-pocketed owners, fellow athletes, and fans the world over to engage directly with democracy. And through it all, he spoke personally to the anguish of Black Americans, channeling the pain and outrage that exploded onto the streets into a plan of action. In June of 2020, James launched the…

B. 1955 | At the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Belarus-born gymnast Olga Korbut revolutionized the sport. Before Korbut, gymnastics was influenced by ballet-inspired elegance, pleasing to watch but lacking the excitement we see today. Korbut’s explosive and technically brilliant routines were infused with pure athleticism, and paired with her charisma and endearing smile, pushed the popularity of gymnastics to new levels. Korbut began a grueling training regimen with Soviet coach Renald Knysh (who she later accused of sexual abuse) as a young girl. At the time, the Cold War was raging and the historically stoic Soviet athletes were viewed with skepticism and rarely, if ever, showed emotion. Up until 1972, the Soviets dominated gymnastics with their graceful, flowing routines. The 17-year-old Korbut, standing at under 5 feet tall,…

B. 1956 | In 1990, Sugar Ray Leonard received the Mark Grossinger Etess Award for Boxer of the Decade for the 1980s, which, considering his competition (Tyson, Hagler, Spinks, Holyfield, Holmes), says a lot. At the close of his successful amateur career, which culminated in an Olympic gold medal in 1976, Leonard planned to attend the University of Maryland on scholarship. However, his girlfriend and the mother of his young son filed a paternity suit shortly before the Olympics and the bad press scared off any lucrative endorsements he was expecting. Leonard had to support his child, his girlfriend, and his ailing parents, so he turned pro. Leonard won his first title in the WBC Welterweight Championship in November 1979 against Wilfred Benítez, then lost it in April 1980…

1914-1981 | Between 1937 and 1949 Joe Louis was unstoppable in the ring. He held the heavyweight crown for a record 12 years, successfully defending his title 25 times—a pro boxing record. He is considered one of the top heavyweights of all time. The seventh of eight children, Joseph Louis Barrow was born in Chambers County, Alabama, and moved with his family to Detroit when he was a boy. Young Louis toted ice for fishermen to keep shoes on his feet and left school after the fifth grade. He found refuge from the rough city streets at a local rec center, where he learned to box. While fighting as an amateur, he was discovered by John Roxborough, a boxing manager and gambler who set Louis up with promoter Louis…

1960-2020 | Soccer great Diego Maradona hailed from a shantytown on the outskirts of Buenos Aires and made his professional debut with the club Argentinos Juniors when he was 15. A decade later, that kid would score what was called the “Goal of the Century” during the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. In a quarterfinal match against England, Maradona led a 70-yard charge down the pitch. England goalkeeper Peter Shilton was the last line of defense: Maradona shimmied to his right, the ball still somehow on his left foot. Shilton slid right past him, before Maradona punched in the goal, giving Argentina a 2-0 lead. Argentina would go on to win its second World Cup title in that tournament. Maradona netted that goal just four minutes after scoring the…

B. 1931 | Willie Howard Mays, a young man from Westfield, Alabama, almost single-handedly transformed the perennially losing New York (later, San Francisco) Giants into a winning club. His charisma and obvious love of the game made him a fan favorite, setting the stage for wider mainstream acceptance of Black talent in all professions. At centerfield, the Say Hey Kid was fast and canny, foiling batters at every turn. One of Mays’ most famous plays, The Catch—considered by many baseball fans to be the greatest defensive play ever made — had him running down a 425-foot swat from Cleveland’s Vic Wertz in the eighth inning of Game 1 of the 1954 World Series at the Polo Grounds. Mays caught it over his shoulder, his back to the plate, the…

B. 1956 | Born in Prague, Martina Navratilova wanted to conquer the tennis world, and she knew she had a better shot at doing that in the U.S. than in communist Czechoslovakia. “The [Czech] tennis federation did not let me play the tournaments I wanted to play,” she told TIME, noting that it routinely denied her visas to tournaments in the West. So during the 1975 U.S. Open, American authorities helped her defect, the Czech government subsequently stripped her of her citizenship, and she went on to dominate women’s tennis, winning 18 Grand Slam singles titles. She retired in 2006, and still holds the record for career titles (167), consecutive Wimbledon singles titles (6) and Grand Slam doubles titles (31). Her unprecedented off-court training program and dietary regimen raised…

1913-1980 | He was a superlative athlete, but that was almost incidental to the role he came to play in history. He happened to be Black, and his timing was perfect. Thus James Cleveland (“Jesse”) Owens became forever a symbol of the triumph of the individual over man’s more malevolent impulses. At the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, which Adolf Hitler hoped would be a showcase of Aryan supremacy, Owens won four gold medals in track and field events. The sight of the graceful American’s soaring victory in the long jump and his Olympic-record wins in the 100-meter and 200-meter dashes and 4 x 100-meter relay put the lie to der Führer’s simplistic myths about race. While Owens’ performance vindicated his own belief that the Olympics should not be suborned…

1953-1999 | Chicago Bears running back Walter Payton, the teddy bear whose cloying nickname was “Sweetness,” is counted among the greats. When Payton passed rushing great Jim Brown in 1984 to become the leading rusher in league history (Payton retired with 16,726 career yards), Brown gave him a blessing: “Payton is a gladiator,” he said, “Walter follows the code.” During his 13 seasons with the Bears (1975-’87), Payton was all-around the most productive football player of the two-platoon era. “For most of his career, teams have been able to key on him alone,” then Dallas Cowboys defensive tackle John Dutton told TIME in 1986, “and still no one has stopped him.” How Payton endured 13 seasons, physically and spiritually, is more than a wonder. In 1985, the year the…

B. 1962 | Legend has it that former NFL wide receiver Jerry Rice was discovered by a high-school assistant principal who caught him skipping class—Rice ran away so fast, the principal advised the football coach to give him a spot on the team. The young Rice, who was the sixth of eight children and raised in tiny Crawford, Mississippi, often helped his bricklayer father on the job, carrying bricks up scaffolds. Rice attended college at Mississippi Valley State. There, he teamed up with quarterback and fellow future college football hall-of-famer Willie Totten under the direction of coach Archie Cooley, aka “the Gunslinger,” whose innovative passing offense, known as the “Satellite Express” helped the duo set passing and receiving records. The underdogs routinely ran up scores against schools with more…

B. 1969 | A closer could never be considered the Roger Federer of baseball—it’s just not a role that allows enough overall contribution to fully justify that comparison. But New York Yankee Mariano Rivera was certainly the Federer of closers—and for far longer than Federer was the Federer of tennis. It’s as if Rivera’s failures, however brief or small, signified some sort of cosmic shift. He was perfect so often that imperfection from him seemed unnatural. Nearly every summer, Rivera went through a stretch where he blew a couple of saves in a week, almost as though he were a pitching machine that had to briefly recalibrate before launching headlong into the final months of the season. And every time, commentators would wonder aloud, “Is this the end for…

1895-1948 | Babe Ruth was unforgettable, even when he struck out. His swing whirled him around until his slender legs were twisted beneath him. And the times when his bat did connect were baseball’s biggest moments. The spell lasted until the Babe had trotted around the base paths, taking mincing steps on his small feet, tipping his cap to the mighty, reverent roar from the stands. Sportswriters knocked themselves out thinking up new names and superlatives for him: “The Sultan of Swat,” “The Bambino,” “The Colossus of Clout.” He didn’t need all that; he was color itself—a fellow built on heroic, swaggering lines, an enormous head on a barrel of a body. In the golden ’20s, the years of the big names—Dempsey, Tilden, and Bobby Jones—Babe Ruth was the…

B. 1969 | The Dallas Cowboys were in a bit of a slump when they drafted University of Florida’s Emmitt Smith seventh in the first round of the 1990 draft. It didn’t take Smith long to prove that he could help Dallas turn things around. During his first season, he rushed nearly 1,000 yards and scored 11 touchdowns, earning him Offensive Rookie of the Year status. Twelve years later, Smith surpassed Walter Payton as the league’s all-time leading rusher. He played for the Cowboys for 13 seasons, collecting three Super Bowl rings, and finished the last two years of his career with the Arizona Cardinals, amassing a NFL record 18,355 yards and a record 164 rushing touchdowns. But Smith, who was a high-school standout in his home state of…

B. 1984 | There’s no doubt about it, alpine skier Lindsey Vonn is tough. Despite being bitten by injuries throughout her remarkable career, she compiled more World Cup wins—82—than any female ski racer in history. At the 2006 Torino Olympics, for example, she crashed during a training run and had to be airlifted off the mountain. The accident, however, didn’t keep her from competing in the downhill, where she finished eighth. But crashes did end her 2013, 2014, and 2016 seasons prematurely. In November 2016, Vonn broke her right arm while training in Cooper Mountain, Colorado. And that December, she hurt her back during a Super-G race in St. Mortiz, Switzerland. She roiled in pain after crossing the finish, and came in 24th place. But just a week later…

B. 1975 | Tiger Woods has won 15 major golf championships. His 82 PGA tournament victories are tied with Sam Snead for most of all time. Like many greatest-of-all-time players in other sports, Woods not only dominated his sport but changed the way it was played—and the way it will be played by the next generation. “It’s cool now to play golf,” Woods told TIME in 2000. In 1996, he started the Tiger Woods Foundation to help make courses and equipment available to more underprivileged kids, many of them Black, Hispanic, and Asian. “Just imagine,” Woods mused, his eyes lit, “if Michael Jordan, with his size and strength and hand-eye coordination, had started playing golf early?” Any would-be Tigers will, in fact, have to start early. Tiger’s dad Earl,…