THE MAG.COM PRESENTS:
ALL WORLD POWER RANKINGS

by Ted Bauer

WHEN IT COMES TO THE BEST SPORTING SPEECHES (MOVIES AND REAL LIFE!), WE'LL TAKE LOU GEHRIG'S FAREWELL

The 2008 Jimmy V Classic is tomorrow night at "The World's Most Famous Arena." (Do you ever wonder if that title offends people who work at The Bradley Center and stuff?) Jimmy Valvano is famous for being involved in two iconic visual moments: running around looking for someone to hug after the 1983 NCAA Final was done and this speech ("Don't ever give up") at the 1993 ESPYs. To nod to Jimmy V the day before Texas, Villanova, West Virginia and Davidson lock it up at "The Mecca," we're going to attempt to rank the greatest sporting-context speeches ever. Some are real and some will be from movies. For an exhaustive list of these (with clips!), go here.

TOP 5
RANK (YESTERDAY)		WHAT	WHY
	1 (4)	THE LOU GEHRIG SPEECH	The thing is fairly iconic.
	2 (6)	NORMAN DALE SPEECH IN HOOSIERS	So good. If we had a coach like this in high school, jeez, the sky would really be the limit for us.
	3 (7)	"RUDY AND THE JANITOR"	In truth, the best thing about Rudy is that Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau met on the set, and the second-best thing is that a kid from The Goonies played a member of Notre Dame football less than a decade after the former flick. The third best thing? This speech. Our dad once walked in on us watching this, saw us crying and goes, "Ugh."
	4 (9)	TONS OF STUFF FROM REMEMBER THE TITANS	Cue the commenters: "Disney homers!" Naw. (Well, somewhat.) There's a lot of good stuff in this movie. We picked out this clip as our fave, although there are other good ones. Side note: remember Denzel's Oscar acceptance speech for Training Day? It's underrated.
	5 (11)	CUBA GOODING JR'S OSCAR SPEECH	Speaking of Oscar speeches, we had to get this in here. Think it's not "sporting-related?" He won it for playing a wide receiver on the Cardinals, right? With the possible exception of Jack Palance, this might be the funniest Oscar acceptance ever. The look on Tom Cruise's face is priceless.

HONORABLE MENTION
RANK (YESTERDAY)		WHAT	WHY
	19 (180)	ED REED'S HALFTIME SPEECH, MIAMI VS. FSU	Because he plays with Ray Lewis in the pros, you sometimes forget Reed is a fired-up dude and a true leader. Here's the proof.
	138 (1,651)	AL PACINO'S SPEECH IN ANY GIVEN SUNDAY	Too high? Maybe. What really intrigues us about this movie is that Jessie Spano plays a hooker, but this speech is pretty money too. Any Given Sunday gets shafted in many discussions: best sports movie, best football movie, best Al Pacino role, best Oliver Stone movie, etc. It's better than most people think.

RISING AND FALLING
MOVEMENT		WHAT
		BILLY DONOVAN SPEECH BEFORE THE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP (Florida's on the way back. Mark our words.)
		PHIL FULMER BEFORE THE '01 FLORIDA GAME (Uh, he's fired now.)

For more All-World Power Rankings, CLICK HERE

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