How dumb of him to get out of the game filthy rich and not have to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.

How many years do you think Sanders would have played? He retired at 30 after 10 years in the league, how many RBs are above average in their post 30 seasons? and for how long do they maintain it? Reality is that Sanders lost 2 or maybe 3 good years and some mediocre ones after that. Its unlikely that he lost more than 1 great season, he retired at his peak, but he likely retired at thee end of it and at a position where the drop off is fast and hard.

Jim Brown is similar to Barry Sanders in that regard, but he probably made a wise career choice since in those days actors made a lot more money than athletes. I think Dick Schaap said once, "of course Jim Brown was going to film the Dirty Dozen rather than going to training camp with the Browns, if you can make 50K to roll around in the dirt with other men, or 100K to make out with Raquel Welch, what are you going to do?" or something like that.

I never meant to imply that Charlie Ward wasted his athletic ability, he had a nice career in the NBA and might have made more money there. I was just trying to go in another direction with people that were considered at the top of their game in 1 sport but chose another sport and didn't have as much success as they were projected to have in their main sport. Also, I could be way off since I was very young back then, but when he was in the NCAA, didn't winning the Heisman mean a whole lot more to his draft status than it does these days?

This has to be one of the most soul crushing feelings in the world considering the circumstances of his injury

How dumb do you have to be to only get a 17 on the ACT?

Ki-Jana Carter
David Terrell
Alan Webb
Charles Rogers
Mike Williams
Jerod Ward

remember how dan vs dave and how dan didn't even qualify for barcelona

The top 5 in career rushing yards and their age during their last NFL season:

Emmit Smith (35) last 1000 yard season at 32
Walter Payton (33) last 1000 yd season at 32
Barry Sanders (30)
Curtis Martin (32) last 100 yard season at 31
Jerome Bettis (33) last 1000 yard season at 29)

"So many more years" was more like a couple years of decline. Skipping the decline phase on a bad team isn't a waste, its a pretty good decision.

What can this mean? Like, you're saying nobody would give him a chance? 'Cause I'm pretty sure they would.

...I mean, pretty damn dumb / ignorant, obviously, but these are athletes. I mean, how many 18s do you expect one guy to roll?

lol at the NFL wanting only 6'4"+ guys for QB.

Stafford and Sanchez are both 6'2" and got picked in the top 5.

Greg "Toe" Nash

http://espn.go.com/gammons/s/2001/0111/1007850.html

what happened

25th percentile... not dumb at all.

James Felton

http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?id=3471118

THIS is a good one.

I can't argue D. Coleman, or Lawrence Phillips, but how about Earl the Goat.

many great basketball players and Hall of fame credible players say he was the greatest but couldn't lay the dope down long enough to fulfill his potential

but at least he got it together and did TONS for NYC inner city hoops!

couldn't be more INCORRECT. but whatever you know what opinions are

Ken only hit what 600 HR's stole bases was a consistent all star early on and won several gold gloves hell when i was young i figured no other AL centerfielder was going to sniff a gold golve til griffey got old or left the AL.


oh yea and he wasn't all juiced up like those who should be on this list

Giambi, A(Fraud)Rod, Mcguire, Sosa, oh theres just too many

Griffey's a stud !

DUH how correct especially since he played for the train wreck Lions how have they done building a team around him (not so good) how did they do post Sanders well.............NOT TOO GOOD.

how about Matt Millian.

how about you guys quit ripping HOF'ers. cause its just rediculous to say oh this guy or that guy when their HOF'ers.

if this wasn't physical body athletic related I'd go Stu Unger cause i believe a poker tourney is a sport. he dominated but the drugs got to him.

so far my top 3 have to be

Earl the Goat Simply the greatest you never heard of.


Len Bias man wasn't he a special looking player too bad even if he hadn't died he could have easily had the V. Baker addiction killing all my talent syndrome.


Lawrence Phillips man had sick talent and no idea how to use it. Easily could have had a LT like career not as much upside but easily could have ran for 1500 yards for years and years.

There was a basketball player in my high school that was pretty good, could shoot very well, probably like 6-3. He wasn't a D-1 guy but did go to a Juco to play. Anyway, his shoe size was larger than his ACT score.

Yah for sure. The opinion of Bobby has taken a complete 180. I used to pretty much worship the guy and defend him to the death if anyone questioned him, but I couldn't give 2 craps about him or his wins record now. If the NCAA taking away wins causes him to retire even a day earlier than he might have otherwise, then I'm all for it.

I was also pretty young, but I don't think it's much different than it is now. In fact, I think you had a lot more guys who were great college QBs that you knew wouldn't project well to the NFL winning it like Ware, Torretta, Ward, Wuerffel, etc.

Ward was also drafted in MLB by the Yankees I believe. Dude was just an all around insane athlete.

...

...sooooo get back to me when you understand what "wasted" really means.

Someone in the A-Rod thread posited the "What's worse, being a marginal MLBer and taking 'roids to be an average MLBer, or being an all-star MLBer and using 'roids to become a GOAT MLBer"

I'd like to posit the reverse: What's worse, being a high-end talent who just flames out before doing anything spectacular (say, Kenny Powers) vs. having GOAT potential and floundering it to be merely great (he was never the same after he drank the nerve tonic and developed gigantism).

awesome. that program is so corrupt and he gets away with so much bull****. **** that guy.

The steroids question shouldn't matter...either you're for steroids or you aren't. I don't mind them but they are against the rules so some guys who want to prob don;t take them so they're both meh to me

I would say once you're great you aren't wasting anything so the worst would be the first choice in the second one. Putting Barry Sanders or Ken Griffey Jr. in here doesn't seem right to me

We talked about this one before in a previous thread, pretty devastating fall to a untimely death.

A similar thing happened to Lenny Cooke, a guy at one time considered to be lock lottery pick maybe even a #1 pick in the draft when he came out after HS. Instead of one dunk LeBron James throughly dismantled him in a summer camp game and he never was the same. He works as a order selector in a grocery warehouse now.

rofl @ Toe Nash.

That's some folksy BS Gammon found/made up and I don't think we have any real way of knowing how much talent he actually had.

I have a hard time with anybody referencing a high school kid in this thread.

do you have any reason for believing this?

+1

He had a skiing or snowboarding accident and never was the same again

Dan Blackburn

- Drafted 1st round, #10 overall in 2001
- Made his NHL debut at age 18, extremely young for a goalie
- Forced to retire at age 22 after a random workout injury caused permanent nerve damage in his shoulder
- Basically he lost the ability to rotate his glove hand and experimented with using two blockers instead of one blocker/one glove, before calling it quits
- He'd played 60+ NHL games in his young, young career and totally faded out of the spotlight