Just recently I tuned into one of ESPN’s 30 For 30 documentaries – this one entitled You Don’t Know Bo – obviously a documentary about the great Bo Jackson. When I was a kid, I loved watching Bo play football, play baseball, act in commercials…everything. I loved just the idea of Bo Jackson! To see a guy who can be one of the best players in Major League Basbeball then head over to the NFL and one of the best players there as well, is simply amazing.Now there have been several other multi-sport athletes in the major American sports – Deion Sanders, Brian Jordan and Danny Ainge quickly come to mind. But despite a relatively short career (eight years in baseball and four in the NFL), none of the others are remembered more as multi-sport athletes more than Bo. Perhaps that’s deserved though as he is the only player in history to be voted an all-star in baseball and a pro-bowler in football.
Now golf, though there are many athletes who play the game well, has had only one true multi-sport athlete – Babe Didrikson Zaharias. And though we are aware of guys like Tony Romo who are great golfers that play other professional sports, I wonder why no one has tried to make golf the other half of their multi-sport athletic career. Perhaps it has something to do with the business of sports today. With all of the money and huge contracts floating around, the last thing an owner wants to deal with is the risk of injury due to a player participating in another sport. But seriously…who gets injured on the PGA Tour?
It was a special kind of owner – Al Davis – who would allow a player, especially a star, to miss five or six games of an NFL season to play another sport. But golf? If an NFL player was to primarily play in the summer months, during the off-season, then I don’t really see the issue. But in other sports such as basketball or baseball, the case may be different. Baseball is played during prime golf season. It’s played on the weekend – often bigger/more important/rivalry series are played on the weekends. So MLB owners are not letting players leave to play in a golf tournament. Basketball on the other hand plays primarily in the winter, until the late regular season and playoffs which occur in the spring. So in all likelihood, unless the team has no shot at the playoffs, then they aren’t going to be let off the hook either. However, the NBA off-season runs from mid-June through early October. So NBA golfers like Ray Allen and Chris Paul could get a few months in if they wanted.
So with the opportunity there, why have some of these athletes from other sports not tried to play on the tour? Is it due to the fact that, since they can’t do it full-time, they’ll never fully excel? That makes sense I guess. The pros are the pros because they work hard to be pros. So playing part-time only in opens, pro-ams or charity events probably just doesn’t cut it.
Now I understand it’s golf, and it’s not exactly a physically demanding sport, so the Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders comparisons can be put aside. But it would be a multi-sport athlete nonetheless. It’s been a while since we’ve seen one and a multi-sport athlete always gets sports fans excited. So could a multi-sport athlete help generate more interest in golf? Well, it sure couldn’t hurt.
Swing ’til you’re happy!
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