The most amazing thing ever in sports

[Kelly the Dog]

There are a ton of amazing feats and accomplishments and plays and games and streaks and seasons in sports history. Wilt's 100 points. Secretariat's final leg of the Triple Crown. Bob Beamon's jump in the 1968 Olympics. The Amazing Mets season of 1969. The Immaculate Reception...

 

What do you think is the most amazing thing ever in sports? It can be a player, a team, a season, a stretch of games, a single play or feat, anything.

 

For me, it's clear. I find this absolutely astounding on several levels but not often talked about: Pete Maravich holds, to this day I believe, both the single greatest scoring average in a Division I season, AND the greatest scoring average in a career, AND, they are virtually the same number.

 

Maravich has a career average of 44.2 points a game. His best season ever was 44.5 points, only three-tenths of one friggin' percentage point away from each other. In three seasons of varsity ball, he scored 43.8, 44.2 and 44.5 PPG. Not only that, but freshmen werent allowed to play then so they had freshman teams. On his freshman team, he did the exact same thing, two-tenths of a point less, scoring 43.6 PPG.

 

Not only that but this was before the 3 point line, and he regularly shot NBA length three pointers. His average would likely have been 5-7 points higher per game. Oh, and he was one of the best passers in the nation, too. He scored 50 points 28 times out of 83 games. He shot 44% from the field, good for a guard.

 

Not the greatest player ever, but IMO that is the most amazing thing and stat in sports history. What is yours?

[Pete]

how about Wilt scoring 100 points in an NBA game and averaging over 50 a game. Or Oscar Robertson avergaing a triple double? Gretzkys season comes to mind. When Babe hit 60 Homeruns- more then many teams- that is quite impressive too

[Simon]

Mine would be Randy Johnson blowing up a bird.

 

The infinitesimal odds of that bird passing through that precise tiny space at the exact same milisecond as that fastball was passing through; well, it just rattles my cranium.

Most amazing thing I've ever seen in sports.

[Kelly the Dog]

how about Wilt scoring 100 points in an NBA game and averaging over 50 a game.  Or Oscar Robertson avergaing a triple double?  Gretzkys season comes to mind.  When Babe hit 60 Homeruns- more then many teams- that is quite impressive too

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Definitely there are a lot. Most of those were right up there. Although a lot of Wilt's baskets in his 100 game and 50 per game were the equivalent of me packing a sandwich in a picnic basket. Oscar's triple double season was remarkable. For my money, Ruth is the greatest player in any sport ever. He literally changed the world in some ways.

[Ghost of BiB]

Mine would be Randy Johnson blowing up a bird.

 

The infinitesimal odds of that bird passing through that precise tiny space at the exact same milisecond as that fastball was passing through; well, it just rattles my cranium.

Most amazing thing I've ever seen in sports.

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that was something to see. Can you imagine the bird's last thought "Oh fu.."

[Gavin in Va Beach]

It's hard to top Randy Johnson killing a bird...man that was insane!

 

http://media.ebaumsworld.com/birdball.mpg

 

I remember a few years ago, Green Bay was playing and a cornerback (safety?)defending Antonio Freeman looked like he was in the perfect place to just knock a pass down. Instead the ball got tipped around, the corner fell on his ass, the ball twirled around a bit more and Antonio reached down and took the ball off the defenders shoulder pad and ran in for a TD. I'm probably not doing it justice in my description, but that play was amazing.

 

That's why sports is the ultimate in entertainment, you never know if something truly spectacular is going to happen.

[Bill from NYC]

As far as records go, Nolan Fyan and his Ks come to mind. This is the one record that imo will be impossible to break.

Pitchers rarely go the distance now, so one would need perhaps a stellar 25 year career to strike out as many as Ryan.

By that time, the guy would be a billionaire and lose interest.

[Mark VI]

Edwin Moses won 122 straight 400 meter hurdles races, spanning 9 years,9 months and 9 days.

[Sound_n_Fury]

Mine would be Randy Johnson blowing up a bird.

 

The infinitesimal odds of that bird passing through that precise tiny space at the exact same milisecond as that fastball was passing through; well, it just rattles my cranium.

Most amazing thing I've ever seen in sports.

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I never get tired of watching the players (especially the catcher) react to that bird exploding!

[Sound_n_Fury]

Cy Young's 511 career wins over a 21-year span. He won 30 games five times and 20 games 15 times. He also pitched baseball's first perfect game while with Boston.

 

His size must've been a big (no pun) advantage...He was 6'2" 210 lbs playing at the turn of the century, when players were much smaller.

[Kelly the Dog]

There was a great story in Sports Illustrated about 20 years ago called "The Sugarland Express" about the greatest high school football player ever, Ken Hall of Sugarland, Texas. It was laugh out loud funny how good this guy was. 520 yards rushing in a game. 4000+ yards rushing in a season. There was one game when he was never tackled! He carried like seven times for seven TDs. One game they kicked off and he ran it back for a TD, but his team was offsides so they kicked it again and he ran that back for a TD, too.

 

There was one paragraph (I am paraphrasing as I don't recall the details) but it was something like: Hall rushed for 143 yards and had two touchdowns, threw a TD pass, intercepted a pass and ran it back for another score. It was, by far, his worst performance in a Sugarland uniform." Something like that. Ha.

 

It was also an incredible story because he went to college and Bear Bryant was his coach but he wouldn't give him the ball. He believed players had to play defense first so he made him a linebacker. The first time he touched it, he went for a TD. But he was never allowed to play regularly. Then he suffered a knee injury. Bryant later said that was his biggest mistake in his coaching career. Hall rehabbed, played for the Oilers for a year or two in the early 60s but never regained his legs. He may still, to this day, hold the Oilers team record for KR average one season.

 

He is now a multi-millionaire (or was when the article was written) who owns a sugar company but rarely talks about football.

 

"About Ken Hall (subject of a coach's question on Monday): Sports Illustrated did a great story on Hall's college and pro career (he played in the CFL, in the AFL with the Oilers and in the NFL with St. Louis). The story is in one of SI's college football issues from the early 1980s, I think. If you're ever in Fredricksburg, TX you can stop in and partake of Hall's BBQ in the restaurant he runs...

 

"As a kid, I used to buy a copy of Bill McMurray's Greater Houston Football magazine every year and look in the record section where Ken Hall's numbers were and just shake my head: 11,332 career rushing yards; 4,045 yards in his senior season (1953) alone; 520 yards rushing in a single game against Houston Lutheran High (his TOTAL yardage in that game was 687). He scored 899 points in high school and 57 TDs in his senior year. In that same Houston Lutheran game he scored 49 points (He also kicked PATs, 137 of his points were point afters). I mean, there are more numbers I could quote you straight out of McMurray's book on Texas high school ball but it starts to seem like Texas braggin' after awhile.

 

"Hall was the real deal. He was a 6'-1", 205 pounder with 9.6 speed and often competed in as many as seven individual track events. Bryant later called his mishandling of Hall (whom he tried to make into a fullback and linebacker at A&M) his greatest mistake in football. He also admitted that, with Hall and Crow in the backfield, he'd have won a national title at A&M.

 

"Gee, whatta shame, ole Bear never really did much after that, did he?"Whit Snyder, Baytown, Texas (I should have thought to ask Whit about Ken Hall sooner. He is a font of knowledge about Texas sports.)

[buckeyemike]

how about Wilt scoring 100 points in an NBA game and averaging over 50 a game. 

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That same year, Wilt averaged 48.5 minutes per game playing time, or more than 4 quarters per start.

 

That to me is even more amazing. I read somewhere that Wilt was on the bench only 11 minutes the whole season (1961-62).

 

Mike

[TigerJ]

To me, the most astounding single event was the Bob Beamon long jump because he broke the existing world record by such a long distance. I don't remember the exact numbers, but I think it was in the neighborhood of 2 feet.

 

My sentimental favorite, however, is the no punt football game between the Bills and the 49ers back when they were both great offensive teams.

[Sound_n_Fury]

It was also an incredible story because he went to college and Bear Bryant was his coach but he wouldn't give him the ball.

336889[/snapback]

 

Nice story. But it also reminded me of how much I hated Bryant. Could you imagine an !@#$ like that coaching college ball today:

 

http://www.texasobserver.org/showArticle.asp?ArticleID=111

[Kelly the Dog]

Nice story. But it also reminded me of how much I hated Bryant.  Could you imagine an !@#$ like that coaching college ball today:

 

http://www.texasobserver.org/showArticle.asp?ArticleID=111

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I was doing a little googling on Ken Hall and saw this little gem about the game mentioned above:

As a senior in 1953, against Lutheran High of Houston, he rushed for 520 yards, scored seven touchdowns and kicked seven extra points. Then, with the game in the second quarter, he came out.

I forgot to mention that when he rushed for 4000 yards in a season he rarely played more than a half. He was also very decent, matinee idols looks, well-mannered, soft spoken, etc.

[KD in CA]

There was a great story in Sports Illustrated about 20  years ago called "The Sugarland Express" about the greatest high school football player ever, Ken Hall of Sugarland, Texas. It was laugh out loud funny how good this guy was. 520 yards rushing in a game. 4000+ yards rushing in a season. There was one game when he was never tackled! He carried like seven times for seven TDs. One game they kicked off and he ran it back for a TD, but his team was offsides so they kicked it again and he ran that back for a TD, too.

 

There was one paragraph (I am paraphrasing as I don't recall the details) but it was something like: Hall rushed for 143 yards and had two touchdowns, threw a TD pass, intercepted a pass and ran it back for another score. It was, by far, his worst performance in a Sugarland uniform." Something like that. Ha.

 

It was also an incredible story because he went to college and Bear Bryant was his coach but he wouldn't give him the ball. He believed players had to play defense first so he made him a linebacker. The first time he touched it, he went for a TD. But he was never allowed to play regularly. Then he suffered a knee injury. Bryant later said that was his biggest mistake in his coaching career. Hall rehabbed, played for the Oilers for a year or two in the early 60s but never regained his legs. He may still, to this day, hold the Oilers team record for KR average one season.

 

He is now a multi-millionaire (or was when the article was written) who owns a sugar company but rarely talks about football.

336889[/snapback]

 

I remember that article as well. Pretty amazing guy, too bad Bryant was a stubborn prick and killed his career.

[Sound_n_Fury]

I was doing a little googling on Ken Hall and saw this little gem about the game mentioned above:

  I forgot to mention that when he rushed for 4000 yards in a season he rarely played more than a half. He was also very decent, matinee idols looks, well-mannered, soft spoken, etc.

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Do you know if Hall's Sugarland teams were full 11-on-11 squads, or the 7-on-7 teams that a lot of smaller Texas schools played? I can't seem to find any info on this point.

[Kelly the Dog]

Do you know if Hall's Sugarland teams were full 11-on-11 squads, or the 7-on-7 teams that a lot of smaller Texas schools played?  I can't seem to find any info on this point.

336901[/snapback]

I am 99.99% sure it was 11. He played quarterback a lot of the time but just ran most of the plays. He also played DB. 9.6 in the 100 yard dash in the 50s for a big white guy was pretty amazing, too.

[crazyDingo]

Gotta be Lance Armstrong winning all those Tour de France and never getting busted for the juice.

[Kelly the Dog]

Another interesting little tidbit from an article on Hall...

Recent Tennessee Volunteer Travis Henry rushed for 4,087 yards in his senior season of high school. But it took Henry 14 games to best the total Hall had made in 12.

That was, of course, back when it was okay to date 15 year old girls.

 

Hall still rules nation's

all-time rushing roost

Last year, Commerce's Monté Williams became the all-time leading rusher in his school's history. This year, he has a chance to break the Georgia record for career rushing yards. While those records may make Williams worth his weight in salt, he does not even come close to Sugarland.

For the next logical question could be, "Does Williams have a chance to break the national record?"

The answer would be "No."

The answer to the question is probably "Don't even ask the question."

While Williams has posted significant numbers that would make almost any high school running back envious, he is nowhere close to the all-time leader. He is just barely more than halfway to the record right now.

But that is nothing new. Ken "Sugarland Express" Hall has such a stranglehold on the national rushing record that no one has come within 2,000 yards of him for nearly 50 years.

Not Herschel Walker. Not Emmitt Smith. Not the current Georgia career leader Robert Toomer. Not anybody. No one comes close.

Hall ran for 11,232 yards in 1950-53 for Sugarland (Texas) High School. Running out of the single-wing, Hall was the feature back in the offense. He scored 899 points in his career, which is still second all-time.

Williams has made a name for himself by averaging more than 2,000 yards for his three seasons. Hall turned in 2,821 per year. It is always amazing to look at Hall's statistics.

The first night I ever worked for a newspaper, I started looking through a national record book. When I saw Hall's rushing records, I knew that no one could do more. I was wrong.

For somehow, in his four years of running 'round Texas, Hall found time to throw for 3,326 yards as well. That is a total of 14,549 yards in a career.

Hall's total yardage mark has not been eclipsed either. Not even by countless numbers of high-flying passing attacks that have come up in the past 20 years. The closest anyone has come to his total yardage was in 1996 when quarterback Romaro Miller amassed 12,315 yards.

If Williams were to rush for the 1,539 yards needed to break Toomer's Georgia career record, he would still be 3,364 yards short of Hall's mark.

If Williams could play a fifth season after setting the state record, and he rushed for 3,364 yards, that would be a mark The Sugarland Express bested twice in his four-year career.

A sure pro Hall-of-Famer, Smith gathered a staggering 8,808 high school rushing yards. That total is still almost 2,500 yards away from Hall.

Walker holds the Georgia single-season rushing record with 3,167 yards in 1979. Over 15 games, that was better than 200 yards per game.

But that is so pitiful when compared to what Hall did in 1953. Hall ran for 4,045 yards in his senior season.

Recent Tennessee Volunteer Travis Henry rushed for 4,087 yards in his senior season of high school. But it took Henry 14 games to best the total Hall had made in 12.

So it will be fun to see if the Tigers' Williams can make a run at the state record. But remember Hall and take Williams' local and state marks with a grain of, well, sugar.