25 Large

There's a very interesting debate going on at ESPN's Page 2: who are the greatest athletes of the past 25 years? It's one of those great questions which can be debated endlessly, with no objective way to determine the list's order. Which is why I love stuff like this. Anyone can vote for their top 25, but it's a shame that we'll have to wait till June 8 for the poll's results. Here's what my top 10 looked like:

10. Lance Armstrong
9. Martina Navratilova
8. Jerry Rice
7. Magic Johnson
6. Joe Montana
5. Larry Bird
4. Carl Lewis
3. Barry Bonds
2. Michael Jordan
1. Wayne Gretzky

My Bay Area roots may have caused a bias towards Bonds, Montana and Rice, but I feel pretty solid about my picks. I've always thought that Bird was better than Magic (he would routinely take over a game in a way that Johnson rarely did) and that Carl Lewis was never fully appreciated by the sporting public.

To me, The Great One was an easy choice for the top spot. No other athlete in history dominated his sport the way Gretzky did. The man has nine MVP trophies. His #99 jersey is retired- by every team in the league. Gretzky's career stats give you an idea of how much better he was than even his nearest competitor. In hockey, scoring titles are determined by points, where 1 goal=1 assist=1 point. Well, not only does Gretzky have more points than anyone (2857), more goals than anyone (894), but he has more assists (1963) than anyone else has points. That means that if The Great One had never even scored a goal in his career, he would still be the NHL's alltime scoring leader. Unreal.