GOATS are everywhere in sports. So what really defines greatness?
If you are reading this column, I have good news: you are the GOAT!
That’s right: among those who have come across this space, I consider you the greatest reader of all time.
On the other hand, if you’re LeBron James, or Serena Williams, or Nikola Jokic – with that sparkling NBA championship ring – then you already know you’re the GOAT. Everyone has already said that.
“Bahhh, bahhh, bahhh,” sounds the bleating of a goat. It is also the sound made by James’ Los Angeles Lakers teammates when he walks into the locker room. GOAT hosannas are practically the soundtrack to his life.
Driven by its ubiquitous use around sports, Merriam-Webster’s wordsmiths entered the dictionary as an acronym and a noun five years ago.
A Merriam-Webster editor defined the term as “the most accomplished or successful person in the history of a particular sport or category of achievement or activity” and nodded to the ubiquitous use of Tom Brady’s name along with GOAT in a popular search engine as a example of why the acronym dictionary had become official.
Yeah I know – this GOAT thing, it’s a little confusing. Being the greatest implies singularity, doesn’t it? But now there are GOATS everywhere.
Worse than the overuse of the acronym is its stupid simplicity. There isn’t enough nuance. Too much emphasis on outright winning, not enough on overcoming.
What are our options here? Perhaps we should outright ban the use of the term in sports, following Lake Superior State University, which brazenly placed the blurry, lazy acronym No. 1 on its 2023 list of banned words.
“The many nominators didn’t have to be physicists or grammarians to ascertain the literal impossibility and technical vagueness of this wannabe superlative,” said a statement from the university.
However, banning doesn’t really seem like a possibility – not when a word has drilled a hole so deep into our collective consciousness.
No doubt being a goat isn’t what it used to be. In sports it was once a terrible insult, a disgraceful term for athletes who snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. GregNorman, also known as the Shark, was a goat for coughing up a six-stroke lead in the final round of the 1996 Masters, a tournament he lost by five strokes.
Before Norman, there was the Boston Red Sox’ grounder-through-the-legs-at-the-worst-possible-World-Series moment goat, Bill BuckneR .
Need I say more?
Muhammad Ali is widely credited with injecting the greatest of all time into the mix. When he went through Cassius Clay in the early 1960s, he recorded a comedy album based on the title poem:I’m the best.”
After his upset victory over George Foreman in 1974, he added a swing, admonishing his doubters and critics and reminding them of his status: “Told you I’m still the greatest of all time!”
But was it really Ali who came up with this particular selfish flourish?
Some say that GOAT’s origins actually stem from a flamboyant blonde-haired wrestler, George Wagner, who was known as Gorgeous George and who made lavish payday in the 1940s and ’50s by turning nonsense into fine art.
In a precursor to WWE-style boasting, Gorgeous George once claimed before a big fight that if he lost, he’d “crawl across the ring and cut my hair!” He added, “But that’s not going to happen because I’m the greatest wrestler in the world.”
Ali said he learned much of his boasting from Gorgeous George.
“A lot of people will pay to see someone shut up,” the wrestler reportedly told Ali after a chance encounter. “So keep bragging, keep being sassy, and always be outrageous.”
This week marks the moment when the sport’s most legit GOAT talk hovers over tennis and an event the organizers don’t so modestly refer to as the Championships.
Wimbledon starts on Monday. Men’s favorite Novak Djokovic has 23 Grand Slam tournament titles, one short of Margaret Court’s record of 24. If he wins this year, his hugely devoted fan base will confidently proclaim the Serb’s GOAT status.
That will drive fans of Rafael Nadal, who is tied for 22 major titles, to distraction. They will argue that their idol would have won 25 major titles (or more) by now if he wasn’t injured.
Then Roger Federer’s devotees will enter. He lost records against both Nadal and Djokovic. But god damn it, he’s Roger Federer, fine linen with a forehand with 20 Slams and a string of epic finals fights to his credit.
Not so fast, Serena Williams supporters will remind you. Not only has she earned 23 Grand Slam singles titles — including one while pregnant — Williams defied playing in a predominantly white sport and bent it to her will. Plus, she’s just as much a cultural icon as she is an athlete. Can a male player say that?
Then there are the old-school followers of Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe, Martina Navratilova and Billie Jean King. Stop the dishonesty, they will shout. No more comparing superlative athletes from vastly different eras.
Time has changed everything in every sport – better equipment, better training methods, new rules – so how can we compare reliably? Before McEnroe lost to Borg in the 1980 Wimbledon final, neither had the benefit of sleeping, as Djokovic reportedly does, in a performance-enhancing hypobaric chamber.
The argument will go on and on.
That’s the crazy thing about it. The folly and the fun of it.
Who is the GOAT?
Well, to be fair, I have four. Willie Mays. Joe Montana. Willems. Federer.
I can, of course, remember each for their sublime victories. But also their stumbling blocks. A 42-year-old Mays lost in the outfield. A fragile Montana in its twilight, playing not for San Francisco but for Kansas City.
I was on hand to watch Williams struggle and come up short as she chased that elusive final slam. I was on Federer’s feet as he had two match points against Djokovic in the 2019 Wimbledon final. Then the Swiss collapsed in defeat.
“It hurts for now, and it should – every loss hurts at Wimbledon,” Federer said at the post-match press conference. But, he added, he would persevere. “I don’t want to be depressed about actually having a great tennis match.”
No one escapes disappointment and vulnerability. But if we do well, we will continue.
You know what that means? It means we can all be GOATS!
Bleat, my friends. Blow up!