ESPN.com - The 'greatness' debate

ESPN.com: Page 2

Friday, March 15, 2002
Updated: March 27, 12:41 PM ET
The 'greatness' debate

By Bob Halloran
Special to Page 2

How delicate the mantle of greatness. How frail the perception of magnitude. We, the people, are capricious and parsimonious in our willingness to hold others in the highest esteem. For instance, when it comes to coaches, some men are born for greatness, others have Michael Jordan, or Magic Johnson, thrust upon them ... or Bill Belichick as their defensive coordinator. Among players, we tend to believe that to be truly great they need to win a championship, yet Ted Williams never did, and he's considered 1-2 with Babe Ruth as the greatest hitter who ever lived.


	Is Tom Brady a "great" quarterback now that he's won a Super Bowl?

Greatness is an exclusive club, one seemingly with its roots in high school cliques. We pick our favorites, and exclude the unpopular. Membership must be earned. It is limited to a select few -- the cool, the clutch, the predetermined. Pat Riley had gobs of talent in Los Angeles, but he was viewed as a great coach. K.C. Jones had equal gobs in Boston, but never received the Riley Respect.

You see, ultimate admiration is determined by arbitrary and subjective observations, each individual seeing what they want to see, or are instructed to see. And when enough of these observations come together to form a consensus, then we have enlightenment. Then we know what or who is great, or merely near-great. However, based on my observations, I'm inclined to believe that greatness is frequently determined by happenstance, circumstance and providence.

How merciless we are as judges. History tells the tale of our cruel and unusual standards. John Elway was a great quarterback having a Hall of Fame career, but he wasn't permitted among the pantheon of great quarterbacks until he finally broke through and won his first Super Bowl. In the game that helped define his greatness, Super Bowl XXXII, Elway threw for 123 yards. He was elevated to a higher level of greatness because Terrell Davis ran for 157 yards and three touchdowns. This makes sense ... exactly how again?

Growing up, I can remember how unfairly Ivan Lendl was perceived. Lendl won 36 tournaments between 1980 and 1983, but never achieved "greatness" until he rallied from two sets down to beat John McEnroe in the 1984 French Open. That was his first Grand Slam title. He finished with 94 titles, including eight Grand Slams. But if he had won twice as many titles, but zero Grand Slams, history wouldn't remember him nearly as fondly. By the way, history doesn't remember him fondly enough anyway.

Tom Kite had to endure a similar frustration. Kite won 19 titles on the PGA Tour and was the leading career money-winner for years, but until he won the U.S. Open in 1992, there was always a big "but" following him around. And it wasn't Charles Barkley ... it was the phrase: But he's never won a major.


	Major victory or not, Phil Mickelson's a great golfer.

That big "but" now stalks Phil Mickelson. Is he a great golfer? You bet he is! He has won 19 titles, and he's ranked second in the world. Why wait until he wins a major to acknowledge he's great? Join with me now. Say it loud and say it proud: Phil Mickelson is a great golfer!

Yet, for some reason, the mail going to his house is addressed to: The Best Player Never To Win A Major. His vanity plate reads: "NEVER 1 1." His two beautiful children say: "We love you, Daddy. But we'll love you more when you knock the crap out of Tiger Woods and win your first major."

We've placed a large, living, fly-picking, bug-eating monkey on his back. You try keeping your head down and your elbow straight when there's a monkey on your back.

We can all agree he's not as good as Tiger Woods, but why should that eliminate him from consideration for greatness? Mickelson could win every week, and come in second in the four majors, and he'd still have a scarlet letter "N" sewn on to his sweaters. That's "N" for No majors. For Not yet. For Never came through when it mattered most. Aren't we kind?

Like Elway, whose legacy was vastly improved when he contributed very little in Super Bowl XXXII, Mickelson could have shocked the monkey and gotten it off his back ... if fate had presented him with an unexpected gift. Remember David Toms getting up and down at the 18th hole of the PGA Championship? If Toms misses his putt, Mickelson's great!


	The only thing standing between Jim Kelly and greatness is one kick that went wide right.

All the forces must come together for a person to achieve greatness. Opportunity must knock, and luck must open the door. If Troy Brown doesn't get out of bounds, or if Adam Vinatieri misses the kick, Tom Brady's not great. If Roger Clemens doesn't join the Yankees and win a ring, his great career would have an unsightly blemish on it, as if he were a teenage chocoholic.

Like Elway before him, Clemens was enjoying a great career, but with a poor postseason record. He joins the Yankees, wins a ring and, despite pitching less than great in the playoffs, he's perceived as a great pitcher who accomplished what great pitchers are supposed to accomplish. His performance that first year with the Yankees was beneath his standards, yet fate rewarded him with an opportunity.

But you see how fickle we are in our judgments. Ray Bourque won a Stanley Cup in Colorado, but that was for him. His place in history was already secure. We the people didn't require that he win a championship to be considered great. The fact that he won the Cup was nice, but unnecessary. Yet, we'll require that Mickelson wear a green jacket or lift a claret jug some day.

We can be both miserly and munificent when passing out the label of greatness. We reluctantly give praise to some by throwing in some of those big "buts" for people such as Jim Kelly, Dan Marino, Patrick Ewing and Barry Bonds, while at other times, we seem to have fallen into this habit of giving anything and anyone some kind of extreme superlative. "The greatest," "the best," "the most clutch," "the strongest man," "the weakest link." I think it's the "most ridiculous development" in the history of the world!!

I think what happens is we expect too much of our athletes. We expect the great ones to be great, no matter what the circumstance. But sometimes you need a great running game, or a tipped pass, or a missed putt. What separates Tom Brady's greatness from Jim Kelly's near-greatness is "wide right." Such small twists of fate shouldn't change our perceptions of the men and women in question. There should be an infinite number of chairs in the greatness club.

Let's start filling them up -- and leave the big "buts" outside.

Bob Halloran is an anchorman for ESPNEWS.