The List: My Favorite All-Time Non-Boston Athletes

Legitimate Category

Barry Sanders – My favorite non-Boston athlete of all time hands down. Every Lions game was must-see TV when I was little, even if they were like 6-10.

Gerry McNamara – The Pride of Scranton, PA! His guts-to-talent ration was off the charts. There’s a reason this guy is struggling in the new NBA D-League right now…he’s not that talented. That being said he had cajones and there was nobody in college basketball better than him in the last two minutes of a game. Nobody.

Phil Mickelson – Yes he’s goofy. Yes he’s smarmy. But even after he shed his lovable loser image, there was reason to root for him. I remember he was entering a playoff in some tune-up tournament a week before the PGA Championship and when he realized he had to play another three holes of golf he called his caddy over to go bring him a snack. Sure enough, Phil headed back out to 16 with a juice-box and some Smartfood, before dominating his hungry competition.

Brett Favre – I was standing on the field at Lambeau when on a third down just outside of field goal range (in overtime) Favre unleashed a deep ball to Antonio Freeman who was absolutely blanked by Viking cornerback Chris Dishman. Dishman jumped and deflected the pass then celebrated while Freeman writhed around on the ground, tipped the ball to himself and stormed into the end zone. Favre ran from the 50 yard line to the back of the endzone and did the Lambeau Leap. I was fifteen years old, and it was cooler than anything I’d ever seen…including boobs.

Marcus Camby* – Growing up in Western Massachusetts, I obsessed over the Sox and the Pats, but in the mid-1990s UMASS / Temple was like Yankees / Red Sox. Both my mom and dad went to UMASS Amherst, as did everybody else’s mom and dad, so when Camby and Calipari came and led the Minutemen to the Final Four, it was the first time that our parents simply couldn’t say no to anything. Hey mom will you buy me this $100 authentic UMASS basketball warm-up jacket? Hey dad can I get this limited edition UMASS pencil-holder? I even convinced my mom to skip Thanksgiving dinner at my aunt’s house to take me to the Basketball Hall of Fame to meet the players participating in the Tip-Off Classic. I remember meeting Camby and getting him to autograph my hat and then showing it to everyone at school, but only letting my best friends actually hold it themselves.

*Amherst is not Boston, ok?

Rediculous Category

Peter Crouch – One of the ugliest human beings on the face of this planet. He looks like Randy Johnson, has absolutely no ball-handling skills, but played a leading role on several of Liverpool’s title squads. I called him ‘bird man’ because he flapped his arms when awkwardly while running.

Chester McGlockton – When I was ten, my mom bought us the world’s largest Halloween pumpkin. It cost like $75 and lasted until the following June. I named it Chester because he was the biggest thing I could think of.

John Daly – I know everybody likes John Daly, but how could you not root for this guy. He drinks, he smokes, he eats chicken wings, he burps, he gambles, and he occasionally plays world class golf. He is an awesome perversion of the American dream and I love him for it.

Jim Harbough – He was like the second coming of Jim McMahon, plus he wore a hideous bandanna and he threw eight interceptions for every touchdown. But man, when he finally got that touchdown, it was awesome!

Detlef Schrempf – On name alone, one of the greatest athletes of all-time. I didn’t really like him so much as I liked his NBA Jam character.

John Starks – I always had an inexplicable affinity for the Knicks in the early-to-mid 1990s. Starks was crazy. He would score in these ten, twelve point binges and then challenge Alonzo Mourning to a fight.

Jay Buhner – Every at-bat either ended in a strikeout or a homerun. He was bald and he had the most awkward batting stance where he would face the pitcher then sidestep towards first base and unleash a furious uppercut, that I’m pretty sure he had little-to-no control over. I remember hearing about Jay Buhner Haircut Day where any Mariners fan that shaved his/her head bald could get into the Kingdome for free.