10. Hakeem "The Dream" Olajuwon
Olajuwon was reputed to have been a top goalkeeping prospect in Nigeria before taking up basketball. He took up basketball at the age of 15 and played college basketball at the University of Houston. He was the first overall pick in the 1984 NBA draft by the Houston Rockets, where he gained his credibility as one of the greatest shot blockers, stealers, and defensive players ever known.
9. Carl Crawford
Crawford attended Jefferson Davis High School in Houston, Texas and was a letterman in football, basketball, and baseball. In baseball, he batted over .500 as a senior.Crawford was offered scholarships to play basketball as a point guard at UCLA or to play football as an option quarterback at Nebraska, USC, Oklahoma, Florida, and Tulsa.
He had originally signed a letter of intent to play football for Nebraska, but he turned down both offers in favor of a baseball career. Also is the cousin of New York Knicks PG Jamal Crawford.
8. John Elway
Considered to be one of the greatest QBs in football history and a Hall of Famer, Elway was also a very good baseball player. I won't go into his NFL career, as he owns numerous records and won two Super Bowls.
His baseball career includes being drafted by the Royals out of high school. At Stanford he hit .361 with nine home runs and 50 RBIs in 49 games as a sophomore. After that he was the first pick of the Yankees in 1981. He hit .314 with a club-high 24 homers with the Yankees' single-A farm club.
7. Dave Winfield
With his 6'6" and 220 pound muscular body frame, Dave was a Hall of Fame slugger in baseball, but check this out: He was drafted by four professional teams in three different sports. After college (Minnesota), where he played baseball and basketball, he was drafted by the NBA's Atlanta Hawks, the ABA's Utah Stars, the NFL's Vikings, and the San Diego Padres in baseball.
6. Jackie Robinson
Robinson was great in football and track in college, but ultimately made his name in baseball as a Hall of Fame player and the one who broke the color barrier in MLB. At UCLA, he became the first athlete in UCLA history to letter in four different sports in one year. Until 1947 he was presumed to be the only person ever selected to play in the college All Star games in both basketball and football.
5. Babe Didrikson
She was the greatest female athlete of all time. She was a great golfer (won 41 LPGA events and 11 majors) and an All-American basketball player, and she won two track and field gold medals in the 1932 Olympics.
4. Jim Brown
Brown is the greatest football player of all time, regardless of position. He is also a Hall of Fame Lacrosse player; some consider him the greatest lacrosse player of all time. In fact, he got his scholarship to Syracuse as a lacrosse player and walked onto the football team.
He led Syracuse's lacrosse team to an undefeated season in 1957, leading the country in scoring. As a football player? In only nine years he became the all-time leading rushing leader in the NFL, and currently sits third on that list.
3. Deion Sanders
Nicknamed "Prime Time" and "Neon Deion," Sanders played nine years in baseball, and will probably be a Hall of Fame football player when he becomes eligible. While he was a great football player—an eight-time Pro Bowl player who won two Super Bowls—he was also an above-average baseball player, and probably would have been better had he played the sport full-time.
Sanders is the only man ever to play in both the Super Bowl and the World Series, and he is the only man ever to hit a home run and score a touchdown in the same week.
2. Bo Jackson
He was drafted first overall in football but choose to play baseball first. He eventually came back to football before a hip injury ended his career. An All Star in baseball, he was the All Star game's MVP in 1989.
In football, he was on his way to a great career before he got hurt. What's remarkable is that he was the comeback player of the year in MLB after his injury. In terms of actual results, he probably shouldn't be ranked so high, but at his peak, he was an electric athlete who was the most popular athlete in the country at one point. Who knows what he could have accomplished had he stayed healthy.
1. Jim Thorpe
Thorpe is, hands down, the greatest multi-sport athlete of all time. He is considered one of the most versatile athletes in modern sports. He won Olympic gold medals in the pentathlon and decathlon, starred in college and professional football, played Major League Baseball, had a career in basketball, and was the NFL's first ever president which now is called commissioner . What more could you ask of someone? No one will ever surpass him.
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