The greatest female athletes of all-time

The greatest female athletes of all-time
By Eric Williams

As the ultimate "sports guy," I've always enjoyed women's athletics, but it seems like, the older I get, the more appreciation I have for the women who perform various athletic feats of amazement in a multitude of sports spread across the globe.
From the time I was just a youth, I can remember being mesmerized by the breathtaking performance of gymnast Nadia Comaneci at the 1976 Olympics. During that same era, I can recall the epic tennis battles of Martina Navratilova and Chris Everett with stunning clarity, not to mention the meteoric rise of Steffi Graf a decade later and the game-changing play of hoopsters, Cheryl Miller and later, my personal favorite, Dawn Staley.
My point is, that, although women's athletic events don't generally receive the same amount of heaping media coverage that most men's events garner, that fact doesn't lessen their legitimacy or greatness one iota.
In honor of some of the greatest women to ever participate in any professional sport, I have decided to put toether a list of the ten greatest female athletes ever. Of course, this is just one man's opinion, so readers are encouraged to contact me with their own respective lists and comments, many of which will be published at a later date.
Now enough with the small talk, let's get busy.
1. Jackie Joyner-Kersee
With all of the incredible female athletes to ever play any sport, I found it amazingly easy to put Joyner-Kersee in this spot.
Joyner-Kersee, who was often described as "the best all-around female athlete in the world," was an amazing athlete who overcame her ashtmatic condition to establish herself as one of track and field's most competitive and determined performers ever.
In 1988, she won two gold medals at the Olympics in Seoul, Korea exhibiting incredible will power in the heptathlon (a punishing, two-day contest that tests an athlete's strength, speed and stamina) and the long jump.
In the 1992 Games in Barcelona, Spain, Joyner-Kersee retained her title as the "world's greatest female athlete" with another gold medal performance in the heptathlon. The two-time world champion in both the long jump (1987, 1991) and heptathlon (1987, 1993) was also the 1986 recipient of the Sullivan Award, presented to the nation's top amateur athlete.
Joyner-Kersee was also an excellent basketball player who routinely competed with many of the game's best players in her free time. I looked long and hard at putting another athlete in this spot, but I just couldn't do it. The thing I kept coming back to is the fact that I truly believe that Joyner-Kersee would have been a world-class athlete in whatever sport she chose to pursue.
2.Nadia Comaneci
The number two spot was a tough call but ultimately, it came down to Comaneci's stellar performance in the 1976 Olympics that did the trick for me.
When the 14-year-old Comaneci of Romania dismounted from the uneven bars in the compulsory round at those 1976 Olympics, the scoreboard didn't even have the space for the proper number of digits to display her perfect 10.00 score. The scoreboard could only flash 1.00.
No gymnast before Comaneci had ever achieved numerical perfection until she scored seven perfect 10s in winning five medals, including three golds, that summer in Montreal.
Four years later Comaneci was robbed in her attempt to defend her all-around Olympic crown at the Summer Games in Moscow when Elena Davidova of the Soviet Union outscored her for the gold medal by less than .1 percent of a point in what many observers felt was a hometown scoring decision.
Judges debated for nearly a half hour before awarding Comaneci a score of 9.85 for what seemed to be a flawless balance beam routine. She still managed to win golds on the balance beam and floor, boosting her lifetime Olympic haul to five gold, three silver and one bronze.
Comaneci 's record-setting, sport-altering dominance was truly a sight to behold and anyone who missed those performances in 1976 missed the performance of a lifetime.
3. Babe Didrikson-Zaharias
1911-1956 I don't generally like to give out awards to people that I haven't seen for myself firsthand, but Didrikson-Zaharias was so dominating and gifted, that it is clearly apparent she would have achieved greatness in any era.
Amazingly, the ultimate "multi-sport" athlete won three Olympic medals to go along with 31 LPGA titles.
Didrikson, who came along in an era when nice girls supposedly didn't sweat, was as brash as any woman anywhere. For almost 25 years, from the Olympic Games of 1932 to her death, in 1956, Didrikson out-boasted and out-competed any rival to her reign as America's greatest female athlete.
However, it wasn't just her two Hall of Fame careers, in track and field and golf, that cemented Didrikson's place in the pantheon of American sports champions. Beyond her physical talent, Didrikson's intense, competitive spirit and supreme self-confidence set her miles apart from her brethren.
Didrikson came to national attention later in '32 during the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, winning gold medals and breaking her own world records in both the javelin and the 80-meter hurdles. She was awarded the silver in the high jump despite clearing a world-record height because her jump technique -- in which she cleared the bar headfirst -- was ruled ineligible for the gold.
She began her second Hall of Fame career on the amateur golf tour, in 1934 and would go on to 35 career victories including 10 majors and three U.S. Opens (1948, '50 and '54) - as well as an unprecedented 17 consecutive tournament titles from April 1946 to August '47. She was one of the founding members of the LPGA in 1950.
Didrikson was still at the top of her game in 1953, when she was diagnosed with rectal cancer and underwent surgery. The next year she was back on the LPGA tour and won the '54 U.S. Open by a record 12 strokes, but by 1955 the cancer reappeared in her spine and she retired from sports permanently. She died on Sept. 27, 1956, at 45, six years after the Associated Press had named her the Greatest Female Athlete of the First Half of the 20th Century.
4. Wilma Rudolph
1940-1994 When I began writing this column, there is no way I would have ever thought Wilma Rudolph wouldn't be in my top three of all-time greats because she was just that special.
Long before becoming the world's fastest female, Rudolph beat her greatest odds by learning to walk on her own. As a child, Rudolph (the 17th of 21 children) was afflicted with polio, scarlet fever and double pneumonia and grew up wearing a brace on her right leg.
To her everyone's shock, she removed the brace and walked unassisted at age nine. By age 13 she was outracing all of the neighborhood kids, including the boys. By 16 she had qualified for the 1956 Olympics where she won a bronze in the 4x100-meter relay and in Rome four years later, she became a nationally beloved figure when she won the 100 and 200 meters and 4x100.
Rudolph was also an outspoken Civil Rights advocate who parrticipated in sit-ins at "whites-only" restaurants, ran a community center and established the Wilma Rudolph Foundation, which sends schools tutors and books about American heroes - a category that surely includes the incomparable Wilma Rudolph.
5. Martina Navratilova
All I can say is that Martina Navratilova is the finest female tennis player I have ever seen. Not only that, but I also believe that Navratilova was such a fine athlete she could have also participated in other sports had she wated to.
At any rate, Navratilova overcame several obstacles to become the world's greatest female tennis player ever.
Navratilova won only three major singles titles before she was 25 but finished with 18, including four U.S. Opens, three French and two Australian. Adding in her 38 doubles titles, Navratilova won 56 Grand Slam championships. Only Margaret Smith Court has won more total (62) majors.
Since the Open era began in 1968 (and statistics began being recorded more carefully), no player -- male or female -- has won more tournaments than Navratilova's 167 or more matches than her 1,438 (against just 212 defeats). She was ranked No. 1 for 331 weeks, second only to Steffi Graf's 373 since rankings began in 1975. Her earnings of $20,344,061, was a record until surpassed by Graf in 1998.
Navratilova also had consecutive match winning streaks of 74 (the women's record), 58 and 54; won six consecutive Grand Slam singles titles in a 14-month stretch; and had years with the unbelievable records of 86-1, 78-2, 90-3 and 89-3.
In her autobiography, Navratilova wrote, "For the first time in my life I was able to see America without the filter of a Communist education, Communist propaganda. And it felt right. ... I honestly believe I was born to be an American. With all due respect to my homeland, things never really felt right until the day I got off the plane in Florida."
6. Annika Sorenstam
Annika Sorenstam's accomplishments are so vast that listing them is almost akin to reading the entire Webster's Dictionary on a sunny Saturday afternoon for fun.
Sorensatm has been so dominant throughout her career that she has established herself as the only member on this list who is still oficially competing in her respective sport.
Since Sorenstam captured her first LPGA Tour victory at the 1995 US Women's Open she has not stopped winning. The "cool as ice" Swede collected more LPGA titles than any golfer in the 1990s (18) and in 2002, joined Mickey Wright as the only players in LPGA history to win 11 times in a season.
Sorenstam, who took up golf at the age of 12, has won 66 LPGA tournaments and nine major titles to date and holds numerous LPGA records, including the lowest round in LPGA history (59) and the only player to win the same event five consecutive years (Mizuno Classic 2001-2005).
As cool as Sorenstam always appears to be, behind her stoic appearance is a singular focus and drive that is unparalleled. By winning the LPGA Championship and Women's British Open 2003, she became the sixth woman to complete the career grand slam.
Sorenstam seeks the unseekable, reaches what had seemed unreachable and then looks higher.
World Golf Hall of Fame member Betsy King, summed up my feelings on Sorensatm succinlty by saying, "In terms of just playing golf and the scores that she shoots, I would say Annika's the best there's ever been."
Enough said.
7. Cheryl Miller
Although I have Miller ranked 7th on this list and the first basketball player to make the list, I don't know if I can necessarily say that Cheryl Miller is the best female basketball player ever. Weird, huh? That's what I initially thought as well. But here's what I came up with.
Miller is ranked this high on my list because she is one of the greatest female basketball players ever. Not only that, but her "in-your-face" aggressive style of play altered the women's game forever and lifted its popularity to heights that had never been seen before.
Miller was a four-time All-American in high school and once scored 105 points in a high school game. After enrolling at the University of Southern California, she became a four-time All-American, and for three consecutive years, she won the Naismith Award as the nation's outstanding female basketball player (1984-1986). She finished her collegiate career with averages of 23.6 points per game and 12 rebounds per game, and was the first basketball player at USC--male or female--to have a jersey number retired.
In addition to her Olympic achievements, Miller also starred on the United States national basketball teams that won gold medals at the 1983 Pan American Games in Caracas, Venezuela, and at the 1986 Goodwill Games in Moscow. In that same year, she was drafted by several professional basketball leagues, including the United States Basketball League, a men's league. Injuries shortened Miller's career, and in 1995, she was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.
So, in the end, although I'm a little more partial towards either Dawn Staley or Cynthia Cooper as the greatest female basketball player of all-time, Miller earned this spot with both, her on-court and off-court contributions to the game.
8. Chris Evert
This was another difficult selection for me. Although I think Steffi Graf was a better tennis player, I almost had to put Evert on this list because of her legendary rivalry with Martina Navratilova.
Just like the NBA had Bird and Magic, women's tennis had Evert and Navratilova. There's no other way to describe it.
Simply put, their rivalry is as historic as almost and rivalry in any sport - ever. For me, the rivalry only served to add credibility to her skill whereas maybe Graf didn't face any opponent worthy of her caliber for nearly as extended a period as Evert.
Don't get me wrong, Evert didn't just snag this spot because of this rivalry, she was a great player in her own right who accomplished tons of achievements that speak for themselves.
"Losing hurts me," Evert once said. "I was determined to be the best."
Evert used her relentless baseline game and strength of character to win 18 Grand Slam singles titles -- six U.S. Opens, three Wimbledons, seven French Opens and two Australian Opens. Most impressively, she won at least one Grand Slam tournament for 13 consecutive years from 1974 to 1986 and reached the semifinals in 52 of her 56 Slam events, including her first 34.
Her .900 winning percentage (1,309-146) is the best in pro tennis history and she also won 125 straight matches on clay, the longest winning streak on any single surface.Her 157 tournament victories are second (among men and women) only to Navratilova's 167.She was also the first woman to earn $1 million and was selected as the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year four times.
Even Evert knows that her legendary rivalry with Navratilova will always be remembered.
"Martina and I are linked, whether we like it or not," Evert said.
9. Bonnie Blair
I can't profess to being the world's greatest skating fan, but as a knowledgeable sports columnist who has been watching sports for over 30 years, I can unequivocally say that Blair belongs on this list.
Blair once said that all she wanted was to create the wind around her and all she ever wanted was to skate. Well, she skated her way into history and the hearts of millions.
As a 20-year-old in 1984, Blair made her Olympic debut, placing eighth in the 500 meters at Sarajevo but never again would she lose an Olympic 500-meter race. Blair won consecutive golds in the 500 at the 1988 and '92 Games (where she also won the 1,000) and concluded her career two years later by winning the 500- and 1,000-meter races at the '94 Games in Lillehammer.
Her five individual gold medals over three Olympic Games is still a U.S.-record and one that may never be broken.
Blair was so dominating that leaving her off of this list would have been a travesty.
Blair was, without a doubt, he best ever.
10. Mia Hamm
Whether you are a soccer fanatic or don't know a cleat from a high-top, chances are you know Mia Hamm. She is one of the most talented players ever to boot a soccer ball—and surely the most popular. In May, Hamm scored her 108th career goal, making her the world's all-time leading scorer, an accomplishment that outshines her many others like the four NCAA titles at North Carolina, an Olympic gold medal, two World Cup championships and five U.S. Female Player of the Year awards. Growing up as an Air Force brat, Hamm made friends of new teammates by blowing them away with her acceleration, dribbling finesse and willingness to plow through anybody to score. Even today, the soft-spoken striker is most at ease on the field, out of the spotlight. "I'm just a soccer player," she says. "That's pretty much all I know."
Hamm should also know that when it comes to the world's best female athletes, she's one of the best.
There you have it, my compilation of greatest female athletes ever.
However, the selections were so tough for me to make, I decided to add a few more names to the list a honorable mention recipients. So, in no specific order, here are me honorable mention female athletes.
Honorable mention:
Steffi Graf
"Fraulein Forehand" was my favorite female tennis player ever and although I think she was a better tennis player than Chris Evert, she somehow managed to not crack my top ten.
From the day of Graf's pro debut at the age of 13 to her retirement in 1998 at age 30 after winning the French Open, Graf was unable to tolerate anything less than flawlessness. Often described by her peers as "a machine," Graf was mirthless and merciless in plying her trade. But the results speak volumes.
"Steffi," says no less an authority than Billie Jean King, "is definitely the greatest women's tennis player of all time." However, it is virtually impossible to exaggerate Graf's greatness. She's the only player to have won all four Grand Slam events at least four times. After assuming the No. 1 ranking in 1987, she topped the charts for 186 straight weeks -- and a preposterous 377 weeks total -- the longest reign of any player, male or female. She retired having won more than 900 matches, $20 million in prize money and 22 Grand Slam singles titles. "Sometimes I wish I could have been a bit more relaxed," she says, looking back on her career. "But then I wouldn't have been the same player."
Cynthia Cooper
I don't think there's ever been a better leader or winner in women's basketball than Cynthia Cooper, who in my mind, was the female equivalent of Michael Jordan.
Cooper became the standard bearer for the WNBA and helped establish it as a thriving league, which is considered to be the ultimate showcase for professional female basketball players. After leading the University of Southern California to two championships (1983-'84) and winning a gold medal with the U.S. Olympic team in 1988, she excelled in the European leagues before returning to the U.S. to join the Houston Comets during the inaugural WNBA season. She was a two-time league MVP with the Comets, leading the team to four championships and was named playoff MVP in each of those years. She was the first to reach the 2,500-point plateau and held WNBA records for scoring in a single-game and for the season.
Althea Gibson
There is absolutely no way I would have ever thought Althea Gibson wouldn't be in my top ten of all-time female athletes, but I get paid to call it like I see it and this is the way things shook out.
At any rate, Gibson, who was the first African-American to win Wimbledon, brought grace, dignity and power to the world of tennis in the 1950's. She intimidated opponents with her powerful serve, pinpoint volleys and thundering overhead. But she is best remembered for having the courage to take on major tennis' all-white establishment.
Gibson was a pioneer who broke several racial barriers in the sport and paved the way for future stars such as Arthur Ashe, Zina Garrison, and Venus and Serena Williams. The first African-American to win the Wimbledon singles title (she did it twice, in 1957 and 1958), she also won the French Open and U.S. Open singles titles.
During the summer of 1941, a Police Athletic League supervisor watched Gibson win a local paddle ball tournament and suggested she take up tennis. Gibson began taking lessons, beating all comers and rapidly rising through the ranks of New York's all-Black American Tennis Association (ATA). In 1947, Gibson won the first of her 10 consecutive ATA national championships. She continued to dominate the ATA circuit while remaining shut out of all-white United States Lawn Tennis Association (USLTA) events.
After years of lobbying on the part of ATA officials and contemporaries such as former Wimbledon champion Alice Marble, Gibson made tennis history when she stepped onto Court 14 at the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills, New York on August 28, 1950 to compete in women's singles at the U.S. Championship. Gibson became the first African-American -- male or female -- to play in a major USLTA event. She defeated England's Barbara Knapp in straight sets, but lost to former Wimbledon champion Louise Brough in the second round. She made history again at Wimbledon that year, advancing to the quarterfinals.
Over the next five years, Gibson continued to win ATA titles, but her success in USLTA events was somewhat uneven. Gibson was nearly 30 when she won her first Wimbledon title in 1957. She returned to a hero's welcome and ticker-tape parade in New York. She won her first U.S. Championship later that year and became the top-ranked female tennis player in the world. After winning her second U.S. title in 1958, Gibson retired from amateur competition. She took up golf and broke another color barrier by becoming the first African-American woman to compete on the LPGA circuit. She won one tournament during a seven-year career.
After retiring from professional competition in 1971, Gibson taught tennis and also served as athletic commissioner for the State of New Jersey from 1975 to '77. She was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1971 and to the International Women's Sports Hall of Fame in 1980.
Gibson once summed up her life by saying, "Ain't that a blip, that a Harlem street rebel would go on to become a world tennis champion?"
Florence Griffifth-Joyner
Florence Griffith-Joyner, who set world records in the 100 and 200 meters, was not alone among athletes in burning herself into public memory. But she was alone in her sport. In 1988 she burst into the spotlight, having transformed herself from the workaday sprinter who had won silver in the 200 meters at the boycott-thinned 1984 Olympics into the fastest woman in history. She ran the 100 in 10.49 seconds in 1988, a world record that wasn't even approached for a decade.
The sister-in-law of Jackie Joyner-Kersee, "Flo-Jo" won three gold medals at the '88 Games and set a world record of 21.34 in the 200. A decade later, long retired but still a vital personality, she died of a heart seizure. It wasn't simply speed that formed Flo-Jo's legend, but also style. She wore one-legged unitards and lace attachments when other women wore shorts, melding athleticism and glamour like no one else. Sprint coach John Smith recalls watching her run in '88: "That year she had the outfits and the nails and the name, and she was in the best shape of her life. Suddenly, she had everything figured out. It was beautiful to watch."
Eric Williams is a sports columnist for the Philadelphia Sunday Sun who also writes for several other publications and online web sites across the country. Feedback and comments can be sent to eklass66@yahoo.com.