near as i can tell, discussion has covered two basic categories: 1)
whether or not it's fair to compare the athletic talents of amateurs
to professionals, and 2) how do ultimate players stack up against
NFL/NBA/MLB/NCAA/whatever players?
number one doesn't interest me so much. i do think it would be more
fair to compare elite ultimate players to their counterparts in amateur
club lacrosse, soccer, rugby, etc., but i don't really care (mostly
because i also have the completely biased and unscientific opinion that
ultimate players would clean up for the most part).
question two interests me more -- but i don't think we can even talk
about it until we define athleticism. what makes a good athlete? an
NFL lineman is probably a good athlete, right? certainly strong and
powerful, many of them are extremely dextrous, but not too many are
going to outrun zip or j dono, or out jump beau or danny clark. robert
cheruiyot, the kenyan who won the boston marathon in 2:07, is probably
a good athlete, too, but he's also got the upper-body strength of a
duck and he'll never match the explosive power of a sprinter. lance
armstrong = one of the best athletes on the planet, but he's
primarily fit in terms of endurance on a bike. he's a fucking stud
and i mean no disrespect to him, but that's a little one dimensional.
so it seems like speed, power, agility and endurance are all qualities
that make up exceptional athletes, but it's possible to be an elite
athlete without being in the upper echelon of each category. ultimate
places a great deal of emphasis on all four qualities: speed to close
on the disc or separate from your man, power for out-skying/jumping
over the crowd; agility and coordination for making sharp cuts, tricky
catches, good throws; and endurance for being able to do all of the
above throughout every game of a tournament.
basically: ultimate requires a well-conditioned, all-around athlete and
the best comparisons will be with other sports or positions that
require the same. we can talk about individually excellent athletes in
baseball, for example, but you'll never convince me that endurance is
a key attribute (except possibly for pitchers, catchers and the jaw
muscles necessary to crack sunflower seed shells). my favorite
comparisons are between ultimate players and soccer players, wide
receivers, basketball players, and hockey players, probably in that
order.
maybe we should toss in other characteristics, too, that are less
physical. spatial awareness, for example: that almost sixth sense that
allows the exceptional player to stay in bounds while making the catch,
lay out around the offense without initiating contact to make the d,
knowing where the disc is without seeing it, etc. i remember a
highlight play from one of the above and beyond videos between fortunat
(i believe) and another player, possibly a condor. they laid out into
the endzone simultaneously, landed basically on top of one-another, but
barely seemed to have any contact. it was a crazy example of reactive
proprioception. i imagine basketball players would get extremely high
scores in this area, too.
once we've agreed on what athleticism is, how do we measure it? what
data do we use for comparison? VO2 max is frequently used as a
benchmark for fitness, but it's going to skew heavily towards the
endurance athletes, i.e., the cross-country skiers and cyclists. we
could also mix up a bunch of events, like a decathlon or obstacle
course, and take the overall score (with the winner's picture on a box
of wheaties).
the folks over at crossfit.com bring up some of the same questions
about fitness. they've also got a boatload of bitterly nasty
workouts that stress anaerobic conditioning that could be used as tests
(do their workout of the day for a couple weeks; i bet it'd improve
your ultimate game no matter what level you play).
what else could be used? what about taking a balls-out conditioning
workout (minus the disc skills) from sockeye/furious/whoever and using
it as a test? run a cross-section of players from different sports
through it and see who does the best.
this is all anecdote and opinion, but, in the end, i think a fair
number of ultimate players would do pretty well. there's an elite
player who has two brothers who are professional athletes and it's my
understanding that he holds his own against them. i know that's an
N=1, but i don't think he's a complete exception.
my main reason for posting is that I think this question about
athleticism is interesting but it hasn't been very clearly defined.
also, all we've done so far is lob opinion back and forth at one
another. what, if anything, can we do to make it less subjective?
peace,
sean c
i also don't think size is an inherent characteristic of athleticism.
it might help someone be effective at their sport, but it's not a
defining quality the way speed, power, agility, and endurance are.
still just opinion, though... what other tests can we use to measure
overall fitness? what do you think about these qualities as defining
characteristics? should spatial awareness be one of them? other
traits (e.g., strategic intelligence)?
sean c
I am having trouble believing we need to have this discussion.
-dikear
Eventually, this debate evolved into "Who is the worst pro athlete that you
could put up against Harriford in his prime that would dominate in the field
with little to no ultimate experience?" I think there are just countless
athletes that fit into this category. Most, if not all, of the starting DBs
and WRs in the NFL as well as most of the forwards in the NBA. Toss in
several point guards, running backs, tight ends, and NBA centers too. And
that's with NO ultimate experience. If you give any top pro athlete just a
couple of months training, I can't see how he would NOT dominate the game.
I always bring up my lame little story of playing in a pickup game with
Chris Duhon (then captain of the Blue Devils, currently backup point guard
for the Bulls) because I'm amazed at how even Duhon, who's 6' on a good day
and has never been considered the most athletic player on any team he's been
on, completely dominated that game. He pulled discs out of the air so high
that nobody in his right mind would even consider challenging him. Give him
some cleats and some training and he's the world's best player, period.
It's just not fair to compare top pros to ultimate's top players.
Completely different plane.
Beau is by and far THE best athlete in the college game right now.
agreed? i mean, he freaking jumped over a dude in a game.
Still that is nothing compared to a lot of pro's vertical leaps. I am
roughly the same height as beau, and to clear a dude of that height,
I'd estimate I'd need a 36" vertical. While an average ultimate player
like me can dream all night about being able to jump like Beau, I'd bet
that 95% of NBA players have got a 36" vertical. Even a little dude
like TJ Ford has got a 44" vertical.
I think the matter of fact is that if anyone playing ultimate had the
pure athletic potential to be playing a sport professionally, then they
would be.
"I'd bet that 95% of NBA players have got a 36" vertical. Even a
little dude
like TJ Ford has got a 44" vertical. "
Which is more crazy, the 95% figure or thinking that being tall is
an advantage for vertical leap?
Bob Koca
Another way to look at this discussion is to take one person and
imagine if they devoted all their time to one sport instead of another.
So, if Michael Vick were to have spent his whole life playing ultimate,
and Beau were to spend his whole life playing football, which would be
more successful? How about Nord and Wayne Gretzky, or Zip and Steve
Nash. Which one of these athletes (and yes, they are all athletes)
would do better. The choice among these options is obvious, but I
think it can be extended to Daag's point of who is the worst player
that could still beat them. I think that almost every SF, SG and PG,
and almost every WR, DB, Kick Returner, and a lot of RBs that plays in
their respective major league would dominate ultimate if they spent as
much time playing it as they did playing Football/Basketball when they
were younger. I would go as far as saying that if you took one of them
and gave them a 5 year college career, that they would be the best
player in the nation by the end of their career.
On another note, comparing the heart of athletes may be one of the
worst ideas ever. Do you think that Michael Jordan doesn't have any
heart, how about Brett Favre. Once again, almost all professional
athletes have heart, both the great ones and the mediocre ones.
This a good discussion to have, but it is clear that professional
athletes are better. If they weren't, they wouldn't be getting paid for
it, and the professional sports we all know and love would not be the
money makers that they are today.
Wikipedia has an entry about the vertical leaps of some nba, and non
NBA players.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verts_of_the_NBA
Now lets do a further, completely unscientific, test. How many ultimate
players did not previously play one of those major sports. Now, there
are currently some and there are an increasing number, but it is still
a tiny fraction of ultimate players. Most of us were soccer, tennis,
football players first. And, guess what? If we had been good enough
athletes to compete at the highest level in these sports, we wouldn't
have switched to a sport with less national recognition, no college
scholarships, and no professional level to aspire to. This is not to
mean any disrespect to the best ultimate players out there, but the
sport doesn't have the athletes in it that the NFL, NHL, NBA, or even
MLB have. This isn't a bad thing. It's a product of the fact that
ultimate is a young, relatively unpopular sport. As ultimate continues
to grow and expand, it will attract better athletes. There is nothing
intrinsically less athletic about an ultimate player except the fact
that the sport hasn't yet reached the level were it can attract the
best athletes. That's just a fact.
it doesnt always have to do with skill... most of us just aren't big
enough.
okay, fine, we're not, for the most part, professional caliber
(although who knows how the top 300 would do if they were paid and
worked out the same amount as an NBA player). where do we fit? how
athletic are we and how could we, hypothetically, find out? ma$e, if
you can find that SI article, pop in a link, eh? i'd be interested to
know how they collected their data.
sean c
-MapQuest
ESPN also did a thing a year or two ago where they had a 64 person
bracket, and people voted on who they thought was the best (current)
athlete. I searched for it, but its only available on insider
(bastards) now. I think the finalists were Kevin Garnett and Michael
Vick with Vick winning, though I could be mistaken. It was pretty
cool...
I think it also should be noted that there is a significant drop off
athleticism in the professional sports outside of the NFL or NBA. It
is obvious that no one in the Ultimate world would be able to hang for
two seconds with NFL or NBA athletes in terms of speed, agility, or
explosiveness. But the athleticism of professional
Lacrosse/Volleyball/Soccer is several notches lower. Not saying that
the top ultimate players are on part with those, but I'm saying that it
is much more realistic for that, and I would not be surprised to find
25+ top level players would could easily hold their own in those
environments.
I have personally played sports with several guys that have gone on to
play football, soccer, and lacrosse at the top tier D1 schools and I
have played both with and against guys that I feel are just as
fast/quick as those guys were. The big difference is that they arn't
6'2" 215. I do honestly feel top level ultimate players could hang
with D1 atheletes. Even more so with college sports outside of
Football/Basketball.
anyone still reading this thread?
on a scale of 1-10, with 1 representing the least amount of challenge
and 10 the greatest degree of difficulty imaginable, how would you rate
ultimate in terms of:
ENDURANCE: For example, marathon runners
STRENGTH: Sheer force, like those Mtrx strongest men.
POWER: Bursts of strength, e.g., Ali's knockout punch.
SPEED: Justin Gatlin.
AGILITY: Pele, Jackie Chan.
FLEXIBILITY: yoga types.
NERVE: Steely calm in the face of danger. UFC fighters, maybe.
DURABILITY: How many times can you get from being knocked down? How
many points can you play consecutively without tearing something?
HAND-EYE COORDINATION: Getting the right amount of backspin on a long
approach to the green.
ANALYTIC APTITUDE: Being able to take in volumes of fast moving
information and still make a good decision, e.g., timing your inside
move in horse racing, an NFL safety predicting where the running back
is going at the line of scrimmage.
I'm pretty sure the finalists were Vick and Lance Armstrong, with Lance
Armstrong winning. I held my own little personal riot because of that
result, but I don't think ESPN heard me.
Comparing ultimate players to football or basketball players isn't
appropriate because physically, the body types (with a few exceptions)
are very different.
Match up a world class ultimate player against a world class soccer
player and athletically the ultimate player is going to lose... now.
Supposing ultimate players could afford to train as much as world class
soccer players, and I'd say the gap dissappears.
-Dane
TOTAL: 61
i did these without adding them all up first (ie, aiming), and that
places ultimate just outside the top 10 (right under soccer). however,
if you add 2 for my tournament assessment (what other sport has a 2
day tourney w/5+ games? none in the top 15), you get 63, putting
ultimate at #7.
As an atheleticism comparison, only comparing elite ultimate players
and pros while playing ultimate is not accurate. Sure some ultimate
players would be able to keep up with some other pros in ultimate, but
put those ultimate players in the pros sport, and they would have no
shot.
Also, to whoever said the athleticism of soccer is several notches
lower than that of the NFL or NBA is very much mistaken. While
football and basketball may draw the best athletes from America, soccer
draws the best athletes from the world. Last time I checked, the world
was much larger than the US.
-dikear
is this true? i know it is for me, but when i ran track in high school
i thought i remembered more people jumping off their right legs than
left. and aren't most NBA vertical leaps measured standing still?
Beau had a running start. Not that I'm arguing he can't jump higher,
but that its still tough to compare.
I was just giving them a couple weeks to be able to throw well enough
to dump it, and then they would dominate.
>i also don't think size is an inherent characteristic of athleticism.
>it might help someone be effective at their sport, but it's not a
>defining quality the way speed, power, agility, and endurance are.
I agree, but its harder to have similar levels of these qualities at a
larger size. Picture Shaq with the speed and quickness of Iverson,
never going to happen because hes too big. But a lot of pros do have
the speed and quickness of top level ultimate players, and they are a
lot bigger.
I always think its weird when I see NBA players or tall players in
Ultimate. Most guys arent like Nord or Madzinkski...most guys are tall
and kind of awkward and slow. However, the fastest guys in the NBA are
6'2, which is kind of tall for Ultimate, and a guy like Kobe Bryant or
Shawn Marion is between 6'8 and 6'10 and faster than anybody in
frisbee. Kind of scary.
Are they going to dump it all the way up the field? I am still unclear
what someone means when they say the professional athlete would
"dominate" the sport. Do you mean a team of 7 Kevin Garnett's, or a
good team of 6 + KG? Perhaps this is another perspective to take on the
subject. I just feel like different definitions of dominate might be
being used here
> Are they going to dump it all the way up the field? I am still unclear
> what someone means when they say the professional athlete would
> "dominate" the sport. Do you mean a team of 7 Kevin Garnett's, or a
> good team of 6 + KG?
I think what people probably mean is the latter, at least in the
immediate case. But give me a roster with KG, Kobe, Iverson, Steve
Nash, Mike Vick, Ty Law, Tony Gonzalez, Manu Ginobli, Ron Artest,
LeBron James, Freddy Adu, Champ Bailey, Shawn Marion, and Reggie Bush,
and a season to teach them the basics, and it'll be everyone else
fighting for second place in Sarasota. Hell, I'll go one better --
give me each of those guys' backups and I think they make a run at a
championship.
I think most of the people here so far have overestimated the extent to
which learning to throw would be an obstacle to success. I am not an
exceptionally gifted athlete, and I could throw fairly accurate,
game-ready ten- or fifteen-yard forehands and backhands within a few
weeks of my first practice. I think an absurd athlete like Kobe Bryant
would be ready to not embarrass himself with the disc in his hands
within a few days. And Vick will definitely be dropping bombs from
deep within his own endzone in a matter of weeks.
Besides, you don't have to dump it from the end zone. I once heard a
stat line something like this for a person playing at her first
nationals a couple months after picking up the sport: 26 touches, 1
turnover, 25 goals. So, throwing percentage, 0%. Value to team, huge.
How about some team try the NFL Combine drills? They are general drills
that measure explosive strength (power), speed, and cutting ability.
Sounds pretty relevant to ultimate to me.
Drills are:
40 yd dash
bench press (some positions)
vertical jump
broad jump
3 cone drill
20 & 60 yd shuttle
i'm sure you can google "NFL Combine Drills" for more specific
directions.
Results of Vernon Davis - a top draft pick (TE) -
4.38 40 yd
10 ft 8 broad jump
42" vertical
7 sec 3 cone drill
4.17 20 yd shuttle
(and 33 on the wonderlic, in case you're curious)
I think he also did about 20+ reps of 225 lbs on the bench press.
I think we'd forget to keep running if we saw this kind of athlete on
the ultimate field.
Just eons better than anyone else.
This is like saying that comparing a .22 pistol to a bazooka isn't
appropriate. Sure, they're very different shapes and sizes -- but
anything you can kill with the .22, you can kill better with the
bazooka.
Your statement that "the body types ... are different" only proves the
point. Do you actually believe that the kinds of athletes who can play
point guard, shooting guard or small forward in the NBA, or cornerback,
wide receiver or halfback in the NFL wouldn't destroy people on the
ultimate field?
I'd take the bet.
Ooops, you lose.
http://sportsmedicine.about.com/cs/conditioning/a/verticaljump.htm
--
Jim Strathmeyer
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,1929106,00.html
if you are correct and our best athletes don't include our soccer
players, what would happen if we fielded a team of NFL or NBA players
who had chosen soccer instead?
frankly, i think american soccer players are in great shape; we just
don't pay much attention.
sean c
And they won't have to dump-swing either.
watch pro v joes... sometimes the average guy is better in the say...
swimming comp. joe v. kevin greene... dominique was awful in the punt
pass kick... hershel... alll 40 years old of him... was just good
enough to beat his individual opponent... but I THINK he was a ppk
champ... or at least reallly good... i think he took it easy...
1) talent, pure talent, is important, and measurable... by combines...
or whatever...
2) but that's not what money ball measures... and it works...
3) read the nytimes article that stresses the value of work and
effort...
4) no, it's not div one anything now...
5) but... it's pretty good.
can a bunch of linemen defeat a top tier team? no.
can a bunch of nba point guards? maybe one day. NBA POINT GUARDS.
in the mean time... the best players who want to play disc are
playing...
that will hopefully change
Also, as a former tennis player and current ultimate player, a long
tennis match is a significantly greater challenge than an ultimate
game. A tennis match can last up to 3 hours (3 sets). You play every
point. You have to go 100% during all time when the ball is in play.
And, the mental wear is inmeasurably greater. Now, when you consider an
ultimate tournament, things change. But, you still have numerous
advantages as an ultimate player. You get to take time off when you're
tired. You have teammates to pick you up when you struggle. If you get
hurt, you get a sub. (Have you ever played through cramps, where you
could barely move in between points but somehow managed to get to the
ball and put it back in play? Or tried to finish a match after pulling
a back muscle and still having to come up with a 100 mph serve?) Now, I
don't want to say that tennis is harder than ultimate. I think both
sports have their own challenges. I do think, however, that tennis is a
greater endurance test, both physically and mentally. Most of that has
to do with the individuality of tennis. Some of it has to do with the
games themselves. None of it has to do with the people who play those
games.
This entire thread is predicated on money attracting the best pool of
athletes. If pro sports paid nothing, there would be no reason for
LeBron to serve up triple-doubles as opposed to skying y'alls asses.
Yes, pro atheletes will dominate Ultimate if they chose to. Likewise,
there are a very small number of Ultimate players who have enough
athleticism to play pro sports. The athletic question is moot. The
more athletic one is, the better one tends to be at athletic competions
whether it is Ultimate, basketball, soccer, or extreme ironing.
Point is, we are having this discussion only because the best athletes
gravitate toward the sports with the most money. To make a living,
see. Some great athletes choose to make a living without their bodies
and therefore play sports at a non-professional level. That doesn't
make them less of a world-class athlete (provided they keep fit).
An elite soccer player is something like 5'10 with relatively short,
powerful legs.
Elite ultimate players today (Nord, Chase, Lugsdin, Beau) are tall,
with long legs and long wingspans. the only place you could find guys
like that on the soccer field are in the net.
Someone made a point that pros get paid to do workouts all day. Not
that I need money as an incentive to play Ultimate, but if I were to
get paid anything more than what I am currently making as a student
then I think I would be able to afford a lot more time which would
translate into working out all the time, not to mention my injuries
would get fixed as soon as I had a symptom of any kind.
Having said that, T.O. would clean house on me in about three hours.
Fetch
1) I'm with the consensus on this one, pro athletes win v. ultimate
players here and now... almost immediately... if you have someone who
can teach them effectively -- look at teams who succeed more on
athleticism than on throws now in the sport at the collegiate and club
level... there are systems of offense that are fundamentally unreliant
on great throwing... it's easy to picture pro NBA guys or tallish NFL
TEs who are much larger than the current superstuds of our sport
(taller than 6'4, height-weight proportionate, tall enough to be tall
but not so tall that they are lanky/gawky/awkward/uncoordinated)
becoming as proficient as they are at throwing/catching, your average
NFL WR running around the field relying on their natural speed to win
short cuts and throw dump passes, or 6'10+ F/C from the NBA making
normally unreasonable throws catchable... just because they can.
2) Michael Vick has been mentioned several times in this thread, and
it should be noted that he alone would probably be sufficient to "make"
a team of pros trying to compete in the UPA. I have twice verified
with people who played Ultimate either recreationally or collegiately
at Virginia Tech that Vick (a) has experience playing Ultimate and (b)
has about a 90-yard flick (which I would love to see). So there's your
handler. Along those lines, here's a post from '03 discussing athletes
with Ultimate experience, perhaps it should be revived so we can put
together the all-star pro ultimate team (can we identify 7 pros who
have played Ultimate at one point?).
That's it. So goes the eternal debate. This is a GREAT thread.
> 2) Michael Vick has been mentioned several times in this thread, and
> it should be noted that he alone would probably be sufficient to "make"
> a team of pros trying to compete in the UPA. I have twice verified
> with people who played Ultimate either recreationally or collegiately
> at Virginia Tech that Vick (a) has experience playing Ultimate and (b)
> has about a 90-yard flick (which I would love to see). So there's your
> handler.
Naw, dude. Put him upfield. Give me somebody like Steve Nash, teach
him to throw competently to the open side (won't take long), give Vick
the whole field in which to get absurdly open, then watch him bomb it.
To Larry Fitzgerald. Or Mike Williams.
I played on the Amherst Regional High School varsity team for three
years. While there, I had the privilege to play with many great
players, one of them being Josh Ziperstein. Zip, as everyone knows, won
the Callahan last year, played on team USA and is considered if not one
of the top ultimate players in the world, at least one of the very
elite. Obviously, a lot of different skills contribute to Zip's
greatness, including his decision-making, hand-eye coordination and
determination. But he is also generally known to be a very fast
ultimate player. Josh ran track in high school until he joined our
ultimate team his senior year (he had previous playing experience, so
it wasn't like he had no throwing skills). My point is that before he
joined ultimate, Josh wasn't the fastest kid on the track team, or the
best athlete. Obviously this depended somewhat on the distance, but if
my memory serves me, we had some kids who were faster than him at every
distance. These kids all did football, track and basketball
exclusively. Tiina Booth would have loved to have them on our team, and
many recruiting attempts were made, but they stuck to their traditional
sports. So, while Zip is an amazing ultimate player and one of the best
I've ever played against, he was not even one of the fastest kids in
his HIGH SCOOL. Some of the kids faster than him went on to play
division 1A or 1AA football, but imagine how Zip would compare to PRO
athletes who train as their job. Granted, Zip has worked his ass off
since high school and probably gotten a fair amount faster. Zip also
possesses other skills that make him a great player. But I'm sure that
if these faster players from ARHS had played ultimate, they could reach
an elite status as well. And that's just one high school with a student
body of about 1,200. Pro athletes are the best in the world.
Another example concerning ARHS:
Amherst High School beat Tufts this year at Yale Cup. Tufts is ranked
38th in the UPA rankings. Can you imagine a high school basketball
team, even the best in the country, beating the 38th ranked college
basketball team? That wouldn't even be close. The stars of top high
school basketball programs frequently struggle as freshmen in college,
and even the exceptions, such as Carmelo Anthony, could not carry a
high school team passed a good college team (when Melo was in high
school). The reason this can happen in ultimate is that the talent pool
is thinner. There is less of a difference between the top and the
bottom athletically than in most sports. This happens because most of
the best athletes don't end up playing ultimate. This makes pretty good
athletes stand out as superstars in ultimate when they would be average
at best in any other sport with a deeper talent pool. If a pro athlete
like Vick, LeBron or whoever played ultimate, they would be
unstoppable. Even D-1 athletes would be better than just about everyone
in ultimate. You can't realize how fast, quick and powerful these guys
are until you see them up close.
Finally, someone asked how there's all these stupid things nobody has
ever heard of on ESPN but no ultimate. The answer is money. Certain
time blocks on ESPN, as on many other cable channels, can be bought to
show programs. This is how some of the ridiculous stuff gets on:
someone just has the money to spend and wants to put it on the air. If
someone were to invest the money, I'm sure they could get ultimate on
ESPN.
-Jeff Irvine
ARHS Ultimate '00-'02
Syracuse Ultimate '02-'06
my high school playing days:"
hey, very nicely argued. makes me wonder how zip would've progressed
in college in a different sport; say he'd chosen soccer or tennis
instead of ultimate.
i like to think that at a couple times in my life i've been pretty
fit... this probably leads to the myopia of not being able to imagine
the gap that truly exists between my highest level of fitness and that
of a professional athlete -- and it's easy to say that in my case, in
all honesty, we could probably fit several ocean liners into that gap.
i still believe that there are a number of ultimate players who could
play a sport professionally given the time and resources to train full
time. why? look at what lugsdin or beau or brandon steets can do
while working out in their spare time. we already have plenty of pro
sports players in the world, so kudos to them for doing something else
with their lives -- still, it'd be interesting to see how much better
they could get if ultimate had the resources for a professional league!
sean c
sean c
A superior athlete oftentimes translates their abilities to another
sport (see Charlie Ward, Bo, Allen Iverson, Lebron James - apparently
he played HS football, Antonio Gates)
So, again, I feel that if you are a pure athlete you can be groomed to
be awesome at basketball, football, soccer, ultimate, etc.
If you line up, say, Alex Nord with Terrell Owens, who is the better
athlete? Or Zip up with Allen Iverson, who is the better athlete?
We're still talking about Hensley here?
Good points, though. I feel the same way; an athlete is someone who
could pick up another sport and compete at a high level with out any
specific training, coaching, etc.
Another way to measure athleticism is ratio of Type I to Type II muscle
fibers (slow twitch vs fast twitch). Sprinters, olympic lifters,
jumpers and the like tend to have a very high percentage of type II-b
fibers compared to the average person. Coincidentally, these are some
of the quickest athletes around. I'd be curious to know Iverson or
Vick's ratio.
i appreciate the suggestion of another objective measure for
athleticism, but i'm not sure this is right one. also, ratio of fiber
type gives no indication of how fit the person is, just an idea of what
they might excel at if they trained.
sean
Yes, a tragic waste. Mostest tragical ever.
or...
http://sportsmed.starwave.com/media/pg2/2001/0619/photo/a_bias4_i.jpg