The Best (and Worst) Movie Athletes

The movie Friday Night Lights was released in theaters across the country this weekend and has received generally enthusiastic reviews from the nations critics. Audiences made it the #1 new release at the box office. And some are even
calling it the greatest football movie ever made. Strong words indeed considering that both Necessary Roughness and Gus:The Field Goal Mule are proud
members of the football movie fraternity. The football scenes are believable and the actors actually appear coordinated enough to tie their own shoes. Which immediately separates this cast from everyone other than Kevin Costner in For Love of the Game.

Watching the movie made me think about the many actors who have attempted to look believable as athletes on the silver screen and what characters I would consider the great and not-so-great athletes of cinematic lore. In the following paragraphs, I will do my best to rank the five best and five worst athletes in the history of motion pictures. A sort of celluloid Sports Century countdown if you will. Here are the criteria...

Rule #1: The honoree has to be a fictional character: Therefore, Will Smith as Ali, Gary Cooper as Lou Gehrig, and that "skinny dude" as Darryl Thomas in the terrible A Season on the Brink do not qualify.

Rule #2: Like the BCS, strength of schedule counts: In other words, though
Michael J. Fox in Teen Wolf was truly legendary, he didn't exactly hang up all of those points against the 86' Celtics.

Rule #3: They have to participate in a "real" sport: That's right, the ski team from Hot Dog: The Movie and the chess prodigy in Searching for Bobby Fischer will not be included on this list.

So here it goes...My top 5 movie athletes.

5. Billy Hoke from White Men Can't Jump
The jump shot has gone the way of the Whig Party, Tab Cola, and tennis...and no playground baller in history has mastered that dying art better than Billy Hoke. It's one thing to drain a three pointer in the comforts of a cushy arena with soft rims and an officiating crew. It's quite another to bury it from long range on a windy playground with no foul calls and using rims engineered by the same guy who designed the Berlin Wall. Hoke would rate higher on this list, but the pressure eventually got to him as he went off the deep end three years later in Natural Born Killers.

4. Rocky Balboa from Rocky I-V
Though his career record was barely over .500, he is much like Derek Jeter in that he was always at his best when it counted most. Despite his 3-2 record, he vanquished the likes of Apollo Creed, Clubber Lang, Ivan Drago, and the Warsaw Pact. He easily ranks the highest on this list in "Strength of Schedule" and his impassioned speech to the Soviet crowd in 1987, puts him right behind Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan on the list of Americans most responsible for bringing an end to the Cold War. In the words of his immortal mentor, Mickey: "Good work, Rock."

3. Jimmy Chitwood from Hoosiers
A jumper as smooth as Duke Ellington on the piano and a stoic Larry Bird-like leadership quality that can't be measured in the stat line, Chitwood is the "Billy Hoke of the Barnyard Set." He led Hickory to the title, saved Noman Dale's job (even though in a Steve Fischer moment of insanity, Dale tried to use Jimmy as a decoy), and will forever embody the solid, fundamental basketball player that Hoosierland is famous for producing. Granted, his level of competition is lower than that of the other five honorees on this list, but do you really think Ron Artest could have prevented Chitwood from draining that game ending 15 footer? I don't think so.

2. Paul Crewe from The Longest Yard/ Charles Jefferson from Fast Times at Ridgemont High
No list could be complete without the quarterback who literally got the inmates to run the asylum and the defensive tackle who went through opposing lineman like Jennifer Lopez goes through husbands. Trust me. If Kerry Collins and Warren Sapp go down this year, Al Davis will be giving these guys a call.

1. Roy Hobbs from The Natural
No BALCO, no Andro, no body armour, no paternity suit, and no doubt about it if he made contact. Despite a bullet in the rib cage and a Deion Sanders-esque layoff, Hobbs was simply the best there ever was. He pitched like Clemens, hit like Pujols, and had the same ability to pick out a good girlfriend as Chuck Finley. A whole column could be written about which one of his homers was the greatest.
My choice goes to the "Clock Shot" at Wrigley.

Honorable Mention:
Crash Davis in Bull Durham-Crash is disqualified for being a life long Minor Leaguer; Steamin' Willie Beamon in Any Given Sunday-Lackluster first half of the season keeps the "Celluloid Randall Cunningham" from cracking the top five;
Fletch from Fletch-Despite being "6'9 with the afro", he always struggled with his low post defense; Kelly Leak in The Bad News Bears-This slugger rode motorcycles, chain smoked, and came and went as he pleased. Can you say "Young Ricky Williams"?

Those were the best on screen athletes. Here are my selections for the five worst...

5. Gus Sinski from For Love of the Game
Couldn't the director find an actor who could throw out Bum Phillips at second base if he tried to steal? I guess the scouts are right: good catcher is tough to come by.

4. Lizzie Bradbury from Wimbledon
Stop laughing. There's nothing wrong with a grown man going to see Wimbledon.

3. Judge Smails from Caddyshack
He hated Rodney Dangerfield. He abused his caddy. He made an enemy of Ty Webb. He walked in on the "Lacy Underall scene". He belittled the groundskeeper, Carl Spackler. Other than the defense team in the O.J. trial, has there ever been a guy on the wrong side of so many issues?

2. Derek Vinyard from American History X
Watching Edward Norton throw down a reverse dunk is easily the most unrealistic moment in any film, since Ben Affleck played Mercurtio in Shakespeare In Love. Seriously. There's nothing wrong with a grown man seeing Shakespeare in Love.

1. Anyone who has ever played an athlete in a movie produced by ESPN
What will they think of next? The Dick Butkus Story starring Leonardo DiCaprio?

Honorable Mention:
Shoeless Joe in Field of Dreams-Joe Jackson was a lefty. Ray Liotta (the actor who portrayed him) batted righty. Do a little research.; Air Bud in Air Bud-The world's greatest canine athlete was nothing more than a spot up shooter who couldn't create his own shots; Nick Nolte in North Dallas Forty-I love the "practice" scene where he runs a post pattern while wearing a beret and smoking a cigarette. I'm sure that would fly with Bill Parcells.

I have spent many an evening watching the sports movies of yesteryear, and this
is the best that I could come up with. I'm sure the merits of my arguments are debatable, but that's my list and I'm sticking to it.

The Best (and Worst) Movie Athletes