Tougher than Tiger

In early April of this year Sports Illustrated posted an article called The Toughest 25 Athletes. Like so many lists, this one was bound to be controversial. To begin with, exactly how could one define tough in the context of so many different sports? At SI, in order to defend their lame choices, they gave a very wide ranging set of criteria which makes it rather difficult to argue with their decisions. Except, and this is something I find particularly astonishing, their number one choice, Tiger Woods. What? Tiger? Tough? And not just any plain old street guy tough, but the toughest athlete in the world??? At first I said to myself, "Dude, check the date. It's April 1. Must be an April Fool's joke. Yeah, that's it. Good one. Almost got me there SI guys."

But no, it's not a joke, at least not intentionally as far as I can tell. They chose Tiger, really. Now I will not question for a second that Woods is an incredibly gifted athlete. And I'll even admit that he has, at times, shown some great nerve under serious stress on the links. But the toughest athlete in the world??? Nope. Sorry but I ain't buyin' it.

My argument is ridiculously easy. By way of comparison, look at their # 2, sled dog musher Lance Mackey. This guy just happens to be the other amazing athlete named Lance who beat cancer and then one-upped himself by totally beating the pants off his competition, too. But unlike Tiger, instead of waking from a comfortable night in a hotel room to press his slacks and shirt each day before stepping out under the sunswept greens and fairways to ply his leisurely trade prior to cocktails in the clubhouse, Mackey merely braves winter's worst weather while suffering severe sleep deprivation to drive the team of extraordinary huskies he's been training all year through some seriously nasty wilderness. Over 1000 miles. In 10 days. Twice. In one winter. To win. Two years in a row.

For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, let me explain. Up there in Alaska they get a little bored in the winter. So to pass the time, some of them (masochists more likely than not) conjured up a couple of sled dog races to pass the time. The Iditarod, which runs from Anchorage to Nome, is the more famous of the two, but equally (and some say more) challenging, is the Yukon Quest which traverses the extremely rugged terrain between Fairbanks and Dawson in the Yukon. Both are somewhere around 1000 miles long. Both test the limit of human patience, endurance and intestinal fortitude (as well as the ability to train and then care for 16 remarkable canine athletes under extreme conditions). Now to merely finish one of these races is an accomplishment for most people. But winning? Well that requires a significantly expanded set of skills, not the least of which includes extraordinary physical and mental toughness. And not only did Lance win the Yukon Quest last year (2007) but he followed it up mere weeks later by winning the Iditarod, too. Then, not content to rest on the laurels of this first ever accomplishment, he did the same thing this year. Think about it for a second, maybe even a moment. The guy won back to back 1000+ mile sled dog races, two years in a row. I would go on and on about just how amazing this is but the more I think about it the more I realize there just aren't words to capture that kind of human achievement. But I will add that last year Mackey was a runner-up for the ESPN "ESPY" award for Best Outdoors Athlete and if he doesn't win this year it will be, without question, a travesty.

Okay, so enough about Lance and Tiger, what about the other picks? Who cares? If you screw up the top slot that badly, how much value can we put in the rest? None. And I can say this confidently because it's the easiest way for me to get out of ripping the entire article to shreds, which, quite frankly I don't have time to do. But I would like to make a couple of other observations.

First of all, in regards to the current top 50 I'm a bit surprised (stunned actually) they left off mountain climber extraordinaire Ed Viesturs. Why, you might ask, should Viesturs be on the list? Oh, I don't know, maybe because he's climbed all the tallest peaks on the planet. Without bottled oxygen. In flip-flops. Okay, I made that last one up. But seriously, doesn't that kind of climbing take a little more toughness than dropping a 6 foot putt to add a few more million to your already healthy bank account?

Finally, I simply can't help but drop the bomb on the accompanying gallery of 50 Old School Tough Guys. I won't, though I certainly could, quibble over any of their selections in this category. But for them to leave out Eddie Shore, quite possibly one of the most talented and demented athletes to ever don a uniform, is simply unfathomable. It's the demented part that puts Shore in the elite of tough. Examples abound but because I like irony, I'll just point you to this article from SI's very own archives. Read it, then come back here and tell me that isn't one of the toughest SOBs that ever, er, graced, the sporting world. 'nuff said.