Greatest sports calls could be a good thread in its own right.
obviously the two mentioned here. Also “the giants win the pennant!”, “do you believe in miracles?!”
Mount Rushmore of South Carolinians
- Thread starter AFM22
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obviously the two mentioned here. Also “the giants win the pennant!”, “do you believe in miracles?!”
ChatGPT has this to say about SC born athletes. No Clowney mentioned anywhere.
If you’re ranking native South Carolinians by the quality of their professional sports careers, the top tier looks something like this:
1.
Kevin Garnett
(Greenville)
2.
Joe Frazier
(Beaufort)
3.
Harry Carson
(Florence)
4.
Art Shell
(Charleston)
5.
Cale Yarborough
(Sardis)
Next Tier
Alex English
(Columbia)
Jermaine O’Neal
(Columbia)
Richard Seymour
(Gadsden)
Donnie Shell
(Whitmire)
John Abraham
(Timmonsville)
Best Active South Carolina Natives
My all-time South Carolina Mount Rushmore
If you’re ranking native South Carolinians by the quality of their professional sports careers, the top tier looks something like this:
1.
Kevin Garnett
(Greenville)
- NBA champion
- NBA MVP
- 15× NBA All-Star
- Basketball Hall of Fame
- One of the 20–25 greatest NBA players ever
- Arguably the most accomplished South Carolina-born team-sport athlete.
2.
Joe Frazier
(Beaufort)
- Undisputed heavyweight champion
- Olympic gold medalist
- Defeated Muhammad Ali in the “Fight of the Century”
- One of boxing’s all-time great heavyweights.
3.
Harry Carson
(Florence)
- Pro Football Hall of Fame
- 9× Pro Bowl
- Captain of the Giants’ famed “Big Blue Wrecking Crew”
- Super Bowl champion.
4.
Art Shell
(Charleston)
- Pro Football Hall of Fame
- 8× Pro Bowl
- Key member of the Raiders dynasty
- Also became the NFL’s first modern Black head coach.
5.
Cale Yarborough
(Sardis)
- 3 consecutive NASCAR Cup Series championships
- 4 Daytona 500 wins
- NASCAR Hall of Fame member
- One of the sport’s true legends.
Next Tier
Alex English
(Columbia)
- Basketball Hall of Fame
- NBA scoring champion
- Over 25,000 career points.
Jermaine O’Neal
(Columbia)
- 6× NBA All-Star
- One of the best high-school-to-NBA success stories.
Richard Seymour
(Gadsden)
- 7× Pro Bowl
- 3× Super Bowl champion with the Patriots
- Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Donnie Shell
(Whitmire)
- 4× Super Bowl champion
- Hall of Fame safety for the Steelers.
John Abraham
(Timmonsville)
- 133.5 career sacks
- One of the most productive pass rushers of his era.
Best Active South Carolina Natives
- A’ja Wilson (Hopkins) — already among the greatest women’s basketball players ever, with multiple WNBA MVP awards and championships.
- Ja Morant (Dalzell) — among the most talented players of his generation when healthy.
- Stephon Gilmore (Rock Hill) — Defensive Player of the Year, multiple Pro Bowls and All-Pro selections.
- Khris Middleton (Charleston) — NBA champion and multiple-time All-Star.
My all-time South Carolina Mount Rushmore
- Kevin Garnett
- Joe Frazier
- Harry Carson
- Cale Yarborough
Uh, Grant Wood, Donna Reed, Cloris Leachman, Harry Hopkins, Meredith Wilson, Norman Borlaug (Dude fed billions over the years), Simon Estes, Caitlin Clark, Lara Flynn Boyle, Fred Grandy, Iowa City's own N.K. Jemisin, Ashton Kutcher, Brandon Routh, Danai Gurira, Elijah Wood, DAN FREAKING GABLE, and a crap ton of scrappy, high energy NFL players since Kirk Ferentz took over.
Honestly only gable moves the needle on that list. I mean seriously … Chloris leachman and Fred grandy? I guess if you like love boat reruns.
Borlaug FTW
Norman Ernest Borlaug (/ˈbɔːrlɔːɡ/; March 25, 1914 – September 12, 2009)[2] was an American agronomist who led initiatives worldwide that contributed to the extensive increases in agricultural production termed the Green Revolution. Borlaug was awarded multiple honors for his work, including the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Congressional Gold Medal, one of only seven people to have received all three awards.[3]
Borlaug received his B.S. in forestry in 1937 and PhD in plant pathology and genetics from the University of Minnesota in 1942. He took up an agricultural research position with CIMMYT in Mexico, where he developed semi-dwarf, high-yield, disease-resistant wheat varieties.[4][1] During the mid-20th century, Borlaug led the introduction of these high-yielding varieties combined with modern agricultural production techniques to Mexico, Pakistan, and India. As a result, Mexico became a net exporter of wheat by 1963. Between 1965 and 1970, wheat yields nearly doubled in Pakistan and India, greatly improving the food security in those nations.[5]
Borlaug is often called "the father of the Green Revolution",[6][7] and is credited with saving over a billion people worldwide from starvation.[8][3][9][10][11][12] According to Jan Douglas, executive assistant to the president of the World Food Prize Foundation, the source of this number is Gregg Easterbrook's 1997 article "Forgotten Benefactor of Humanity." The article states that the "form of agriculture that Borlaug preaches may have prevented a billion deaths."[13] Dennis T. Avery also estimated that the number of lives saved by Borlaug's efforts to be one billion.[12] In 2009, Josette Sheeran, then the Executive Director of the World Food Programme, stated that Borlaug "saved more lives than any man in human history".[14] He was awarded the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his contributions to world peace through increasing food supply.
Later in his life, he helped apply these methods of increasing food production in Asia and Africa.[15] He was also an accomplished wrestler in college and a pioneer of wrestling in the United States, being inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame for his contributions.[16][17]
ah, yes, that guy. i remember reading about that guy, but had forgotten his name. Definitely a keeper.
Didn't he become sort of less fashionable with the rise of the 'organic' movement and its antagonism to agribusiness? (To be clear, that only made him more fashionable in my eyes because I'm of the view that when you have to feed a population of a couple hundred million spread across a continent, rather than a small valley of people sandwiched between two mountains where unique forms of cheese are produced from the goats who graze there, scale and efficiency actually become kind of important).
At the very least, he should displace Kaitlyn Klark.
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You should think a little more deeply about Clark. She has generated massive change in women's sports. She has created incredible interest, and she has boosted valuations. Just look at the boost in salaries in the WNBA since she joined the league.
I certainly don't dispute those things in the abstract, but am still very much in the wait and see camp, both because (I) impacts are still very short term and (ii) from a simple scope perspective, WNBA is a tiny tiny drop in the bucket in terms of the big picture of social/cultural impact.
Fine actors, and you sell Gopher short. He actually was a decent member of Congress back when it wasn't purely about self promotion, enriching yourself, or being in a cult.
Charles Townes (from Greenville) shared a Nobel Prize in physics for work that was foundational to the invention of the laser. He's gotta be in the discussion