The Greatest Sports Stars of All Times: Fifteen Fantastic Athletes

One of today’s fiercest and most enjoyable debates involves which athletes are the GOATs—the greatest of all time—in various sports. In recent years, the debate over GOATs has intensified as hundreds of bloggers, websites, and radio and television talk shows have discussed this issue and numerous polls of sportswriters and fans have been conducted.. Comparing athletes from different eras is especially difficult because training regimes, equipment, and the level of competition has changed over time. Moreover, pundits and fans disagree about what being the “greatest” means. Does it depend on how many games or matches an individual wins, on athletic ability, on particular skills, on setting records, earning the largest paycheck, receiving the most endorsements, or on some combination of these factors? Those rated as the greatest performers in their sport have displayed great passion and work ethics, often led their teams to numerous titles, helped their teammates perform better, and played their best in critical games or matches. The greatest players have helped to alter the nature of and increase the popularity of their sports. Based on these considerations, The Greatest of Sports Stars of All-Time profiles Serena Williams, Novak Djokovic, Annika Sörenstam, Jack Nicklaus, Mia Hamm, Pelé, Diana Taurasi, LeBron James, Babe Ruth, Tom Brady, Muhammad Ali, Wayne Gretzky, Michael Phelps, Babe Didrikson Zaharias, and Jim Thorpe.

Do All the Good You Can: How Faith Shaped Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Politics

After more than forty contentious years in the public eye, Hillary Rodham Clinton is one of the best-known political figures in the nation. Yet the strong religious faith at the heart of her politics and personal life often remains confounding, if not mysterious, to longtime observers. Even many of her admirers would be surprised to hear Clinton state that her Methodist outlook has “been a huge part of who I am and how I have seen the world, and what I believe in, and what I have tried to do in my life.” 

Gary Scott Smith’s biography of Clinton’s journey in faith begins with her Methodist upbringing in Park Ridge, Illinois, where she faithfully attended worship services, Sunday school, and youth group meetings. Like many mainline Protestants, Clinton’s spiritual commitment developed gradually throughout childhood, while her combination of missionary zeal and impressive personal talents has informed her career from the time of her pro bono work at Yale on behalf of children to the present.

Her Methodist faith has been very important to many of Clinton’s high-profile endeavors and in helping her cope with the prominent travails brought on by two presidential campaigns, never-ending conservative rancor, and her husband’s infidelity. Smith’s account examines Clinton’s faith in the context of work ranging from her 1990s pursuit of healthcare reform to a “Hillary doctrine” of foreign policy focused on her longtime goal of providing basic human rights for children and women--a project she saw as essential to United States security. The result is an enlightening reconsideration of an extraordinary political figure who has defied private doubts and public controversy to live by John Wesley’s dictum: “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.”

Strength For the Fight: The Life and Faith of Jackie Robinson

The integration of Major League Baseball in 1947 was a triumph. But it was also a fight. As the first Black major leaguer since the 1880s, Jackie Robinson knew he was not going to be welcomed into America’s pastime with open arms. Anticipating hostility, he promised Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey that he would “turn the other cheek” during his first years in the league, despite his fiercely competitive disposition. Robinson later said that his faith in God had sustained him—giving him the strength he needed to play the game he loved at the highest level without retaliating against the abuse inflicted upon him by opposing players and fans. 

Faith was a key component of Robinson’s life, but not in the way we see it with many prominent Christian athletes today. Whereas the Tim Tebows and Clayton Kershaws of the sports world emphasize personal spirituality, Robinson found inspiration in the Bible’s teachings on human dignity and social justice. He grew up a devout Methodist (a heritage he shared with Branch Rickey) and identified with the theological convictions and social concerns of many of his fellow mainline Protestants—especially those of the Black church. While he humbly stated that he could not claim to be a deeply religious man, he spoke frequently in African American congregations and described a special affinity he and other Black Christians felt for the biblical character Job, who had also kept faith despite suffering and injustice. In his eulogy for Robinson, Jesse Jackson described Robinson as a “co-partner of God,” who lived out his faith in his civil rights activism, both during and after his baseball career. 

Robinson’s faith will resonate with many Christians who believe, as he did, that “a person can be quite religious and at the same time militant in the defense of his ideals.” This religious biography of Robinson chronicles the important role of faith in his life, from his childhood to his groundbreaking baseball career through his transformative civil rights work, and, in the process, helps to humanize the man who has become a mythic figure in both sports history and American culture.