Wednesday May 7th, 2008
TOP 5 FAVORITE SPORTS TRAGEDIES
Overview: On the heels of the 2008 Kentucky Derby, during which a filly fell and had to be euthanized on the track (in front of more than 150,000 spectators, including children), we recount our favorite all time sports accidents, mishaps, casualties and tragedies.
Criteria: The incident has to have occurred at either the college or professional level and has to have occurred during a practice or execution of the actual competition or on the actual field, rink, track, and so on (thus, we are not considering tragic plane crashes of professional athletes, etc. We will, however consider things like the Nancy Kerrigan/Tonya Harding incident which happened in close enough connection to the competition). Additional weight will be applied to any occurrence that we saw happen live and/or is not anecdotal. Finally, death does not have to have occurred, just some horrible event that caused thousands to gasp.
Rob's Notes:From Dave Dravecky’s arm snapping to Joe Theisman’s leg breaking, I have seen most of my top 5, although it’s hard to top Monica Seles being stabbed (which I didn’t see live, but watched over and over again on tape). Dale Earnhardt dying, by the way, is not one of my favorites because Arnie (and most of America) loved him. It’s a great tragedy, but not a favorite.
Arnie's Notes: Look here, there is nothing that can ever top seeing a guy get killed in the ring. As an 11 year old with my grandmother watching with me I got to see a guy KILLED in the ring. It was one of the coolest things I have EVER seen. |
