Top 10 Athletes From the State of Washington
Honorable Mention to Fred Hutchinson of Seattle, who went 95-71 as a major league pitcher, mostly for the Detroit Tigers, making the 1951 All-Star Game. In 1955, he managed the Seattle Rainiers to 1st place in the Pacific Coast League -- 62 years later, still the last Pennant won by a Seattle baseball team. He won the National League Pennant with the Cincinnati Reds in 1961.
He had the Reds challenging for the Pennant again in 1964, but developed cancer, and had to leave late in the season to undergo treatment. He died a few weeks after the season, and the Reds retired his Number 1.
Major League Baseball then instituted the Hutch Award, to be given annually to a player noted for persevering through adversity. (The hockey is equivalent is the Bill Masterton Trophy.) The 1st winner was Mickey Mantle.
Honorable Mention to Ron Santo of Seattle, the Hall of Fame 3rd baseman and later broadcaster for the Chicago Cubs, the 1st player to admit to having diabetes while still playing. You would think that this, plus his Seattle background, would have made him a natural honoree for the Hutch Award, but he never got it.
Honorable Mention to T.J. Oshie of Everett, the greatest hockey player to come from the State thus far.
Honorable Mention to Ron Cey and Jon Lester of Tacoma, and Tim Lincecum of Renton, who won the Babe Ruth Award for most valuable player of baseball's postseason: Cey in 1981, Lincecum in 2010, Lester in 2016. Cey also won the World Series MVP award. Lester, who was treated for lymphoma at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (founded by Fred's brother, Dr. William C. Hutchinson) in 2006, was granted the Hutch Award in 2008.
Dishonorable Mention to Alan Embree of Brush Prairie, who, with his Boston Red Sox teammates, was given Sports Illustrated's Sportspeople of the Year award in 2004, when we now know that they cheated (although, as far as I know, Embree himself was only a beneficiary of the cheating, not one of the cheaters himself).
It's worth noting that Embree was the lefthander warming up in the bullpen that manager Grady Little refused to bring in when Pedro Martinez faltered in Game 7 of the 2003 American League Championship Series.
Honorable Mention to 4 members of the U.S. team that won the 1st Women's World Cup, in 1991, 1 of whom was good enough to make the overall Top 10. The other 3 are Lori Henry of Shoreline, Shannon Higgins of Kent, and Amy Allman (now Amy Griffin) of Federal Way.
Honorable Mention to Hope Solo of Richland, the starting goaltender on the U.S. team that won the 2015 Women's World Cup.
Honorable Mention to Tara Kirk of Bremerton, whose swimming at Stanford University won her the 2003-04 Honda-Broderick Cup as female collegiate athlete of the year. She won a Silver Medal at the 2004 Olympics in Athens.
10. Phil Mahre of Yakima. The skier won 27 World Cup races, more than any American before him, and only 3 have surpassed him (and only Bode Miller among men). He won a Gold Medal at the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, Bosnia (then in Yugoslavia). His twin brother Steve was also a competitive skier.
9. Mark Rypien of Spokane. A 2-time Pro Bowler, he was a backup quarterback on the Washington Redskins' Super Bowl XXII winners, and led them to win Super Bowl XXVI, and was named the game's MVP. This remains the last title won by a Washington team, unless you count D.C. United's 4 MLS Cups.
Injuries led to him bouncing around, but he was named to the 70 Greatest Redskins on the team's 70th Anniversary in 2002.
8. Drew Bledsoe of Ellensburg. The Washington State University star was part of Bill Parcells' rebuilding of the New England Patriots, and he became a 4-time Pro Bowler. He led the Pats to the 1996 AFC Championship, and it certainly wasn't his fault that they lost Super Bowl XXXI to the Green Bay Packers.
But football history was changed in the 2nd game of the 2001 season, when Mo Lewis of the Jets injured him on a sack. Tom Brady stepped in, and has been the Pats' starting quarterback ever since. An injury to Brady forced Bledsoe to step back in during the 2001 AFC Championship Game, and he led them to victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers in the last game ever played at Foxboro Stadium. He then got a ring when they won Super Bowl XXXVI.
Knowing they had Brady, the Pats led Bledsoe go. He started for the Buffalo Bills the next 3 seasons and the Dallas Cowboys the year after that, and was always cheered by New England upon his return to Foxboro (now at Gillette Stadium). In spite of last being an NFL starting quarterback at age 33, he threw for 44,611 yards and 251 touchdown passes.
He is in the Patriots Hall of Fame, but not the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He is now an assistant coach at a high school in Oregon.
7. Earl Averill of Snohomish. The American League's starting center fielder in the 1st 6 All-Star Games, 1933 to 1938, he was a .318 lifetime hitter, with 238 home runs, a pretty big total for the time. The Cleveland Indians retired his Number 3, and he is in the Baseball Hall of Fame and the Cleveland Indians Hall of Fame. His son Earl Jr. was a major league catcher.
6. Earl Anthony of Tacoma. Is it a stretch to say that bowling is a sport? Maybe. Is it a stretch to say that The Earl is the best bowler ever? Not really.
No player won more tournaments on the Professional Bowlers Tour than his 43, or more PBA Player of the Year awards than his 6. Along with Dick Weber - and ABC Wide World of Sports - he made bowling big business in the 1960s and '70s.
5. Ryne Sandberg of Spokane. A 10-time All-Star and a 9-time Gold Glove, he was the spark that brought the Chicago Cubs their 1st Playoff berth in 39 years, winning him the 1984 National League Most Valuable Player award. He led the NL in home runs in 1990. The Cubs retired his Number 23, and he is in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
4. Michelle Akers of Seattle. A forward, she was the 1st woman to score 100 goals in international play. She scored both U.S. goals in the 1991 Women's World Cup Final, to gain the victory. She also converted one of the penalties in the Final of the 1999 Women's World Cup, won the Gold Medal with the U.S. team at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, and is in the National Soccer Hall of Fame. She and her 1999 teammates were named Sports Illustrated's Sportspeople of the Year.
A 10-time All-Star, and a member of the 1992 Olympic "Dream Team," Stockton is the NBA's all-time leader in both assists and steals. His jump shot in the last play of Game 6 of the 1997 Western Conference Finals sent the Utah Jazz to their 1st NBA Finals, and they made it in 1998, too.
Gonzaga University and the Jazz both retired his Number 12. He was named to the Basketball Hall of Fame and - before reaching his 1st Finals - the NBA's 50th Anniversary 50 Greatest Players. He and Karl Malone, together, were such a force in Jazz history that they both got statues outside what's now named the Vivint Smart Home Arena.
2. Mel Hein of Burlington. "Old Indestructible" may be the greatest New York-based football player you've never heard of. The Washington State graduate played center in both sides of the ball for the Giants from 1931 to 1945, and until Frank Gifford and Sam Huff came along, he was easily the greatest player in franchise history.
An 8-time All-Pro, he helped the Giants win the NFL Championship in 1934, and again in 1938 when he was named NFL Most Valuable Player - as an offensive (and defensive) lineman.
The Giants retired his Number 7. He was a charter inductee into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1963, and was also named to the College Football Hall of Fame, the NFL's 1930s All-Decade and 75th Anniversary Teams, the Giants Ring of Honor, The Sporting News' 1999 list of the 100 Greatest Football Players, and the NFL Network's 2010 list of the 100 Greatest Players - 64 years after his last game and 18 years after his death.
He's arguably still the greatest center ever, and the greatest player in the history of New York pro football -- ahead of Gifford, Huff, Joe Namath, Lawrence Taylor and Eli Manning.
But he's not the greatest athlete, or even the greatest football player, from the State of Washington. That wasn't immediately clear, because the man I have listed at Number 1 was the son of a coach, and thus moved around a lot. But he lived most of his 1st 16 years in Washington, so I have him listed with this State.
1. John Elway of Port Angeles. Along with Alex Rodriguez and LeBron James, no athlete better illustrates the difference in perception between being a great athlete who's never won the big one and becoming one who has.
He was named Pac-10 Conference Player of the Year in 1982, but he didn't even take Stanford to a bowl game. "The Play," which enabled arch-rival California to beat Stanford, dropped them to 5-6, and that was Elway's last college game. Nevertheless, in 2008, ESPN named ranked him 15th on their list of the Top 25 College Football Players of All Time.
He then had to choose between baseball and football -- he'd already gotten to short-season Class A in the Yankees' system -- and chose football. From 1983 to 1996, he helped the Denver Broncos reach the Playoffs 8 times, win 6 AFC Western Division titles, and win the AFC Championship for the 1986, 1987 and 1989 seasons. Along the way, he won more regular-season NFL games than any quarterback before him, was named NFL MVP in 1987, and NFL Man of the Year in 1992.
But the defeats were glaring. They lost Super Bowls XXI, XXII and XXIV -- in each case, to a great team, but they defeats got progressively worse. They blew a 10-9 halftime lead over the Giants and lost 39-20; blew a 10-0 2nd quarter lead over the Washington Redskins and lost 42-10; and got slaughtered by the San Francisco 49ers 55-10, still the 2nd-largest margin in the history of NFL Championship Games (and the largest since they began calling it the Super Bowl). They lost the 1991 AFC Championship Game to the Buffalo Bills, and then in 1996 lost a Playoff game at home to the Jacksonville Jaguars, a 2nd-year expansion team.
Maybe it was the uniforms: Under the old ones, with the blue helmets with the orange D's, the Broncos were 0-4 in Super Bowls; with the new ones, purple with the horse's head, they're 3-1. With Terrell Davis behind him, Elway led the Broncos to back-to-back titles, winning Super Bowls XXXII and XXXIII, and closing his career in 1999 as a Super Bowl MVP and a 9-time Pro Bowler.
He is now the Broncos' general manager, building the team that lost Super Bowl XLVIII and won Super Bowl 50. He is the only man ever to win the Super Bowl as both a player and a general manager.
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