Champions

Helen Wills Moody  1905–1998

Born Centerville, California
Playing with a steely determination that earned her the nickname “Little Miss Poker Face,” tennis great Helen Wills Moody became the first American woman to achieve international fame as an athlete. Only seventeen when she won her first American singles championship in 1923, Moody dominated women’s tennis for more than a decade and elevated the sport to a new competitive level with her hard-hitting style of play. Between 1927 and 1933 she won 180 consecutive matches without dropping so much as a single set, and by the time she retired in 1938, Moody had collected thirty-one Grand Slam tennis titles.

Edward McCartan (1879–1947)
Terra-cotta, 1936

Gertrude Ederle  1906–2003

Born New York City
Gertrude Ederle was the first woman to swim across the English Channel. During a time when female athletes were not taken seriously, Ederle proved critics wrong. In 1924 she competed at the Olympic games, where she won a gold medal in the 400-meter freestyle relay and bronze medals in the 100 and 400-meter freestyle races. By 1925, Ederle had set twenty-nine world records in women’s freestyle swimming, and she began training to cross the twenty-one-mile-wide English Channel. On August 6, 1926, in strong, choppy waters, she successfully swam across the channel, clocking a time of fourteen hours and thirty-one minutes for thirty-five miles. Despite swimming extra miles, Ederle beat the record time by two hours. When she paused occasionally to accept nourishment, concerned observers asked her if she wanted to come out. She responded, “What for?”

Underwood & Underwood (active 1880–c. 1950)
From the original 1925 photograph

Joe Louis  1914–1981

Born near Lafayette, Alabama
American boxing great Joe Louis began his pro career in 1934 and quickly eliminated a series of opponents with his devastating knockout punch. Widely expected to take the 1936 heavyweight title, Louis was stunned by his defeat at the hands of German champion Max Schmeling. When he reentered the ring against Schmeling in 1938, far more was at stake than a world heavyweight crown. Schmeling came to the contest as Adolf Hitler’s champion of Aryan supremacy while Louis, the first African American boxer to win the enthusiastic support of black and white Americans alike, was embraced as democracy’s standard-bearer. Louis struck like lightning when the fight began. Staggering Schmeling with a sequence of tremendous blows, Louis took only 124 seconds to claim one of the sweetest victories in boxing history. As reporter Heywood Broun rightly observed, Louis had “exploded the Nordic myth with a boxing glove.”

Betsy Graves Reyneau (1888–1964)
Oil on canvas, 1946
Gift of the Harmon Foundation

Mildred “Babe” Didrikson Zaharias  1911–1956

Born Port Arthur, Texas
Perhaps no athlete has excelled at more sports than did Babe Didrikson. She caught the public’s attention when she won two gold medals during the 1932 Summer Olympic Games—in the javelin throw and eighty-meter hurdles. She then became a professional athlete, competing in basketball, baseball, swimming, lacrosse, soccer, handball, fencing, cycling, and ice skating. During this period, she famously declared, “The Babe is here. Who’s coming in second?”

Didrikson started playing golf in 1933, and in 1947 she became the only American woman to win the British amateur crown. In 1948, she helped to organize the Ladies Professional Golf Association. In professional women’s golf, she won eighty-two tournaments, including fourteen in a row. Named Woman Athlete of the Year six times by the Associated Press, Didrikson was a pioneer in women’s sports. She remains one of the United States’ greatest all-around athletes.

Harry Warnecke (1900–1984), Robert F. Cranston (1898–1978), and Gus Schoenbaechler (active 1940s–1950s)
From the original 1947 photograph

Althea Gibson  1927–2003

Born Silver, South Carolina
In 1955, Althea Gibson contemplated retiring from competitive tennis. Had she done so, she would have denied herself her greatest moment. Two years later, this “lanky jumping jack of a girl,” who had begun her sports career playing paddle tennis in New York’s Harlem, was arriving home from England, the winner of the women’s singles and doubles titles at the prestigious Wimbledon championships. Within another two months, she had won the U.S. women’s singles crown at Forest Hills, New York, and emerged triumphant as America’s clay court champion as well. “Althea Gibson,” reported Time magazine in its cover story for August 26, 1957, “is not the most graceful figure on the courts, and her game is not stylish.” Nevertheless, it was clear that at thirty—an age when most tennis players lose their competitive edge—she was only then hitting her stride.

Boris Chaliapin (1904–1979)
From the original 1957 Time cover watercolor
© Chris Murphy

Mickey Mantle  1931–1995

Born Spavinaw, Oklahoma

Roger Maris  1934–1985

Born Hibbing, Minnesota

For more than three decades, Babe Ruth’s single-season tally of sixty home runs in 1927 stood as baseball’s most hallowed record. But when a home-run duel ignited between Yankee teammates Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris in the summer of 1961, many fans found themselves rooting for Mantle to beat the Babe’s mark. Since joining the ball club in 1951, the switch-hitting Mantle, with his huge swing and phenomenal power, had been widely regarded as the heir to such Yankee titans as Ruth and Lou Gehrig. Now, with four home-run titles and baseball’s Triple Crown to his credit, Mantle seemed the natural choice to outdistance the newcomer Maris in the race for Ruth’s record. The contest remained neck and neck until September when, sidelined by an infection, Mantle ended his quest at fifty-four home runs, while Maris powered ahead to a new record of sixty-one.

Russell Hoban (1925–2011)
Casein on board, c. 1961
Unpublished Time cover
Gift of Time magazine
© Estate of Russell Hoban

Jim Brown  born 1936

Born St. Simons Island, Georgia
It is little wonder that Cleveland Browns star fullback Jim Brown was sometimes likened to Superman. During his pro football career (1957–65), Brown’s strength, speed, and agility made him all but unstoppable as he powered his way over, around, or through his opponents’ defenses. As one lineman noted ruefully, the only way to tackle Brown was “to hold on and wait for help.” Brown’s versatility also made him a constant threat. Besides exceeding the 1,000-yards-rushing mark for seven out of nine seasons and ultimately scoring more than 100 rushing touchdowns, Brown caught passes, returned kickoffs, and even threw the ball for an occasional touchdown. Although his NFL game, season, and career rushing records have now been surpassed, experts continue to rank Brown as one of the greatest ball carriers of all time.

Henry Koerner (1915–1991)
Oil on canvas, 1965
Time cover, November 26, 1965
Gift of Time magazine
© Henry Koerner

Casey Stengel  1890–1975

Born Kansas City, Missouri
Casey Stengel built his reputation as one of baseball’s greatest managers by guiding the New York Yankees to ten American League pennants and seven World Series championships in just twelve seasons (1949–60). But it was during his stint as the charismatic shepherd of the fledgling New York Mets (1962–65) that Stengel earned a place in the hearts of baseball lovers everywhere. Unable to budge his hapless team from the National League’s cellar, Stengel nonetheless helped the Mets amass legions of loyal fans, thanks to his memorable quips, his tireless zest for the game, and his confident prediction that “the Mets are gonna be amazing.”

Rhoda Sherbell (born 1933)
Polychromed bronze, 1981 cast, after 1965 original
© Rhoda Sherbell

Wilma Rudolph  1940–1994

Born St. Bethlehem, Tennessee
Defying the odds, Wilma Rudolph was the first American woman to win three gold medals in a single Olympiad. Childhood illness left Rudolph with a partially paralyzed left leg. Her mother insisted that she would walk again, and through strenuous physical therapy Rudolph had regained total control of her leg by age twelve. In 1957, she won a track scholarship to attend Tennessee State University. During the 1960 Olympic games, Rudolph set world records for the 100-meter and 200-meter races, finishing in 11.0 seconds and 23.2 seconds, respectively. She anchored the women’s 400-meter relay team, in which she turned a two-yard deficit into a three-yard victory, clocking 44.5 seconds. When asked about her legacy as a world-class athlete who had overcome major setbacks, she remarked, “I just want to be remembered as a hard-working lady with certain beliefs.”

George Silk (1916–2004)
From the original 1960 photograph
© George Silk/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

Juan Marichal  born 1937

Born Laguna Verde, Dominican Republic
A high-kicking right hander with a blistering fastball and phenomenal control, Juan Marichal made his major league debut with the San Francisco Giants in July 1960 by hurling a legendary one-hit shutout against the Philadelphia Phillies. Marichal’s unorthodox, catapult-style delivery and his arsenal of sliders, curves, screwballs, and change-ups left batters shaking their heads. As Pittsburgh Pirates great Roberto Clemente observed, “It doesn’t matter what he throws; when he’s got it, he beats you.” One of the best pitchers in baseball throughout the 1960s, Marichal surpassed the twenty-game-victory mark six times between 1963 and 1969, and ended the decade with a total of 191 wins. It was not until 1972 that he experienced his first losing season. In 1983 Marichal became the first Latin American player inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame via the regular selection process.

Gerald Gooch (born 1933)
Acrylic on canvas, 1966
Time cover, June 10, 1966
Gift of Time magazine
© Gerald Gooch

Dempsey–Willard Fight

On July 4, 1919, challenger Jack Dempsey (1895–1983) met reigning champ Jess Willard (1881–1968) in an eagerly awaited bout for the heavyweight championship of the world. Having demolished a series of opponents to earn a shot at the crown, Dempsey was a decided underdog in the matchup with Willard, who was five inches taller and fifty-eight pounds heavier than his opponent and considered unbeatable. Yet when the two boxers met before a capacity crowd, the contest was brief and brutal. In the opening round, Dempsey (in white trunks) unleashed a torrent of punishing blows that felled Willard seven times. By the end of round three, Willard was finished, and Dempsey was the new champion. He defended his title until 1926, when he lost to Gene Tunney.

More than twenty years after upsetting Willard, Dempsey commissioned James Montgomery Flagg to commemorate the historic heavyweight contest. Basing his composition on photographs taken during the fight, Flagg produced this mammoth painting in which the crouching Dempsey bobs and weaves his way to victory. Flagg also pictured a number of celebrities at ringside, including satirist Damon Runyon and cartoonist Rube Goldberg. On November 14, 1944, the painting was unveiled at Jack Dempsey’s Broadway bar and restaurant, where it occupied a place of honor until the popular watering hole closed in 1974. Notably absent at the unveiling was Jess Willard, who wired Dempsey, saying, “Sorry I can’t be there. But I saw enough of you 25 years ago to last me a lifetime.”

James Montgomery Flagg (1877–1960)
Oil on canvas, 1944
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Jack Dempsey

Bill Shoemaker  1931–2003

Born Fabens, Texas
Only four feet, eleven inches tall and weighing just ninety-eight pounds, Bill Shoemaker was one of horse racing’s smallest and lightest jockeys; he was also one of the most successful riders in the history of the sport. During a career that spanned four decades, Shoemaker tallied more than 40,000 starts and 8,833 winning rides, with repeat victories in the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont Stakes. Just twenty-three when he won the derby crown in 1955, Shoemaker was fifty-four when he rode to his fourth and final derby victory in 1986, atop Ferdinand. Unlike some jockeys who whipped and harried their mounts to the finish line, “The Shoe” was admired for his ability to guide his horses through his skillful use of the reins and bit. As a contemporary observed, “If one needed the blueprint for the perfect jockey, [Shoemaker] would be it.”

Zbigniew Nyczak (born 1955)
Oil on canvas, 1994
Gift of Zbigniew Nyczak and the Shoemaker Foundation
© Zbigniew Nyczak

Billie Jean King  born 1943

Born Long Beach, California
The winner of thirty-nine Grand Slam singles, doubles, and mixed-doubles titles (including twenty Wimbledon crowns), tennis great Billie Jean King has long championed gender equity both on and off the court. King made her Wimbledon debut in 1961, and by 1966 she was tennis’s top-ranked American player. In 1968, she turned professional. Frustrated that professional tennis staged few women’s matches and that the prize money women received was a fraction of that bestowed upon male players, King helped launch the Virginia Slims women’s tennis circuit in 1970. She became a founding member and first president of the Women’s Tennis Association in 1973. That year she struck a blow for women everywhere by trouncing former tennis champion and self-proclaimed male chauvinist Bobby Riggs in the match touted as the “Battle of the Sexes.”

Lynn Gilbert (born 1938)
From the original 1979 photograph
© 2016, Lynn Gilbert

Yogi Berra  1925–2015

Born St. Louis, Missouri
Hailed as the catcher who “stopped everything behind the plate and hit everything in front of it,” Yogi Berra was a standout performer on the New York Yankees’ roster through eighteen remarkable seasons of play (1946–63). His fielding and hitting helped propel the Bronx ball club to fourteen pennants and ten World Series championships, and earned him a place on the All-Star team for fifteen consecutive years. Berra’s self-effacing good humor made him one of baseball’s most endearing characters, and classic “Yogi-isms”—such as “It’s déjà vu all over again”—have become part of the nation’s vocabulary.

Rhoda Sherbell (born 1933)
Bronze, 2000 cast, after 1973 original
Gift of Dr. Marc and Susan Weinstein
© Rhoda Sherbell

Arthur Ashe  1943–1993

Born Richmond, Virginia
Armed with superb natural talent, a keen competitive spirit, and poise that set him apart from his rivals, Arthur Ashe made his way from the segregated playground courts of his youth to the pinnacle of the tennis world. Rated among the world’s top ten players while still in college, Ashe reached the number-one ranking in spectacular fashion in 1968. After capturing the U.S. amateur title, he served an astonishing twenty-six aces in the final to become the first African American man to claim the U.S. Open championship. Ashe went on to record multiple tournament victories, including his memorable triumph over Jimmy Connors at Wimbledon in 1975. Following a heart attack that forced his retirement in 1980, Ashe dedicated his energies to humanitarian causes. He became a leader in the fight against AIDS in 1992, after revealing that he had contracted the virus through a transfusion.

Louis Briel (born 1945)
Acrylic on canvas, 1993
Gift of the Commonwealth of Virginia and Virginia Heroes, Inc.

Reggie Jackson  born 1946

Born Wyncote, Pennsylvania
One of baseball’s great sluggers and larger-than-life personalities, Reggie Jackson hit 563 career home runs and helped carry his teams to four World Series championships from 1973 to 1978. While Jackson’s regular-season play was far from average, his postseason performances were spectacular. In his 1973 World Series debut, Jackson was a key factor in the Oakland As’ victory over the New York Mets, producing five extra-base hits and driving in six runs to collect MVP honors for the series. But Jackson’s exploits in the 1977 World Series proved even more remarkable. Playing this time for the Yankees, he belted three consecutive homers off three Dodgers pitchers in the deciding game of the series to propel New York to its first world championship in fifteen years. Jackson’s heroics earned him the moniker “Mr. October”—a fitting tribute to his postseason brilliance.

Howard Rogers (born 1932)
Tempera on board, 1974
Time cover, June 3, 1974
Gift of Time magazine

Simply the Best

In the late winter of 1985, the cover of Time magazine featured this double portrait of basketball star Larry Bird (born 1956) and hockey great Wayne Gretzky (born 1961). The image ran with the headline Simply the Best, and in the accompanying article, the magazine described the pair as athletes whose excellence had “transcended the competition.” The praise was certainly well deserved. During twenty-one years of professional play, Gretzky recorded more goals, assists, and total points than any hockey player in history and was named to the All-Star team eighteen times. As for Bird, his achievements with the Boston Celtics included three Most Valuable Player awards, appearances in twelve All-Star games, and a points-scored record that placed him among the leading scorers of all time. Through the brilliance of their play, Bird and Gretzky both dominated and defined their respective sports for a generation of fans.

Bart Forbes (born 1939)
Acrylic on canvas, 1985
Time cover, March 18, 1985
Gift of Time magazine

Cat’s Cradle

When Muhammad Ali (born Cassius Clay, 1942) proclaimed “I am the greatest,” it was hard not to agree. Just twenty-two years old when he stunned the boxing world by upsetting heavyweight champion Sonny Liston in 1964, Ali would become the first three-time winner of the heavyweight crown. A consummate showman whose braggadocio and rhyming banter captivated the public, the fleet-footed and graceful Ali was mesmerizing as he confounded opponents with his unorthodox boxing style. Ali was also a potent force beyond the ring. In 1967 he became a symbol of conscience to many when he was convicted of draft evasion and stripped of his title after refusing military induction on the basis of his religious beliefs. The Supreme Court later overturned the conviction, and Ali battled back in the ring to regain the heavyweight title in 1974.

Henry C. Casselli Jr. (born 1946)
Oil on canvas, 1981
Gift of the Sig Rogich Family Trust
© 2002, Henry Casselli

Mia Hamm  born 1972

Born Selma, Alabama
Mia Hamm has been a trailblazer for women in soccer. At fifteen years old, she became the youngest player on the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team. With 275 appearances throughout her seventeen years playing forward, the team won the Women’s World Cup in 1991 and 1996, making Hamm the youngest player in history on a tournament-winning team. In 1999, Hamm set a world record for both men and women for career goals in an international competition. She holds two Olympic gold medals and was named FIFA’s World Player of the Year for 2001 and 2002.

Hamm retired from soccer in 2004; however, she continues to promote opportunities for women in the sport through the Mia Hamm Foundation, most recently helping to create the first professional U.S. women’s soccer teams. She established her foundation after her brother Garrett died of a blood disease in 1997.

Rick Chapman (born 1966)
Gelatin silver print, 2001
© 2001 Rick Chapman