TIME Magazine TIME Sports Greats

It’s awe-inspiring to witness athletic greatness. The human species has strived to achieve physical perfection and mental acuity since our ancestors hunted for food with spears. In our modern times, the strongest and most skilled still reign supreme. We admire, and at times worship, those who are at the top of their game—whether it’s on skates or skis, on a track or a pitch, in water or on land, with a ball or a puck. When our heroes fail, we feel the agony. When they accomplish amazing feats, as so many have, we share the glory. The true icons, though, embrace their greatness with integrity and generosity and make a positive impact on their sport and the world around them. These are their stories.…

1934-2021 | With a single swing of a baseball bat through a misty Atlanta evening in 1974, a fast, graceful stroke that sent a ball soaring over the fence in left center field and knocked Babe Ruth right out of the record books, Hank Aaron gave America nothing less than a remedy for its ills. He offered dignity and commitment over putrid cynicism, courage in the face of hatred. Despite the deep personal toll the chase laid on Aaron, whose family was also threatened during the ordeal, there he stood on the night of April 8, 1974, bearing down on a fastball from Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Al Downing, putting 715 into the books. Nearly one in four American television sets were tuned in to watch Aaron make history.…

B. 1947 | Six-time NBA champion and record six-time NBA MVP Kareem Abdul-Jabbar dominated the court in the 1970s and 1980s. Abdul-Jabbar, then using his given name of Lew Alcindor, was not eligible to be drafted out of high school, so he played college ball for UCLA, where he led the Bruins to three national championships and was named the outstanding player of the NCAA Tournament a record three times. He was the first overall pick in the 1969 NBA draft, going to the fledgling Milwaukee Bucks, where he led the franchise to their first NBA championship in 1971. He was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers in 1975, where he spent 14 seasons and won five additional championships. As a center, his job was to score, and score…

1942-2016 | Muhammad Ali, the lyrical heavyweight showman who thrilled the globe with his sublime boxing style, unpredictable wit, and philanthropy—especially later in life—died June 3, 2016, at age 74. Ali, the former Cassius Clay, was not just an athlete who embodied the times in which he lived. He shaped them. His conscientious objection to the Vietnam War and reasoned rants against a country fighting for freedom on the other side of the globe—while its own Black citizens were denied basic rights—energized a generation. When Ali refused to serve in Vietnam, he was convicted of draft evasion and stripped of the heavyweight crown he won from Sonny Liston in 1964. Imagine for a moment a 21st-century athlete who could command an audience with presidents and the pope, the Dalai…

B. 1940 | In 1967, Mario Andretti told TIME, “I don’t have any feeling of accomplishment about anything unless there’s a lot of risk to it.” He was already racing automobiles—90-mph Formula Juniors—in Italy at an age when no state in the U.S. would have given him a license to drive the family Volkswagen: 13. “I was crazy,” he agreed. “None of my relatives even knew what I was doing except my old priest uncle, and I had him hiding it because I told him in confession so he couldn’t tell.” Born near Trieste, Italy, diminutive (5 feet, 6 inches) Mario Andretti came to the U.S. in 1955 and settled in Nazareth, Pennsylvania. He originally intended to be a welder, but gave up that idea when he discovered that…

B. 1994 | In February 2016, Milwaukee Bucks coach Jason Kidd told 6 foot-11 inch NBA superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo—known as the “Greek Freak” for his homeland and for his ability to dunk a basketball with one foot on the floor—that he’d be the team’s new point guard. The position requires unique leadership skills; a player must start offensive attacks, shout directions, and distribute the ball to veteran teammates hungry to fatten their stats. The task intimidated him—at 21, he was still the sheepish kid who had leaned on the Eddie Murphy comedy Coming to America to learn English. Most other point guards were way more experienced (and far shorter). But Antetokounmpo delivered. In 2017, he became the youngest player ever to start in the NBA All-Star Game, earned the…