It's the middle of the morning where I am right now and it's that same time of the morning when most of us #TwitterAfterDark people are either making dumb jokes, or watching YouTube videos. I already made my dumb jokes, so I headed over to YouTube. We all have access to such a great resource, and while we got to live through some amazing times in 'real time' being able to return time and time again to a part of our collective history is amazing. This is especially true in the case of sports highlights.
I think as Utah Jazz fans we all remember EXACTLY where we were when this happened:
P.S. Big Dog crying at the beginning of this makes him such a special guy. That's so touching.
Really, who among us could EVER forget "The Shot" by John Stockton to send our guys to the NBA Finals? (Lots of people forget we OVERCAME a 2 times NBA Champion to get there -- it's not like we had to beat the Knicks or Pacers) Well, to check out some of my other personal Sports highlights click on below (and post your own in the comments section!)
For me I think my favorite Sports "singular" Highlight was Karl Malone throwing it down over Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in my first year as a Jazz fan. (Second part of this vid after the Stockton interview)
I'm sure we're going to get a TON of BBALL highlights in this thread . . . I'll share two other high lights from other sports now. This next one is going to be pretty unpopular here, but I would be lying if I didn't include it . . . I'm not going to talk about it that much, but I will say what makes is special is that up to that point I don't think the world had seen a young guy hyped so much come through in crunch time and win something with all the pressure on him in the digital media era. (Home country, last event of the Olympics, National Sport of the country he represents, in Overtime -- and Canada Hockey = Football + Baseball + Basketball up there, this was a huge national moment) Sidney Crosby doing this on the stage he did is somewhat equivalent to LeBron winning the title in Cleveland, in terms of the youth vs. hype vs. success axis.
It's not about bragging rights or anything, for me it's about a young guy who is super hyped getting the job done and making history - something I don't think we've seen a lot in this era. (I could be wrong) The next one is just crazy . . . it wasn't at the same crazy historic level, but should bring a smile to someone's face here:
In terms of the universal irony scale . . . sacking Tebow and then Tebowing has to be up there.
And the last one is remarkable and one of my favorites because it's a non-exciting finish which is the capstone on a career of hard work. When Karl took over the #2 scoring spot it wasn't on an Ooop or breakaway jam. When Stockton got the assist crown it was on a pass to a guy (Karl) who shot a jumper. Sometimes what you celebrate isn't the play, but the momentous career achievement.
While the game is something you may never care about or care to learn or watch -- I felt like Jazz fans would understand and appreciate this, after all, we're the same people who understand and recognize Stockton's crazy records. No one is going to reach the milestone that India's Sachin Tendulkar got, 100 international games of scoring 100 runs. My estimation that's like scoring 50 or 60 points in a game. And this isn't pounding the Toronto Raptors to do this, he did this 100 times in international competitions (so like World Cups, etc). This would be like Michael Jordan scoring a 50 point game in 100 different games in the World Championships or Olympics, etc. Sachin's career scoring average for that format of cricket is 44.81 runs per game. Scoring 100 runs in a game is x2.23 (223% of normal). Jordan's career scoring average was 30.1 points per game. 30.1 times 2.23 is 67.2 points in a game. Jordan couldn't even get 100 60+ point games vs. NBA squads, let alone vs. International dream teams. So my guess was even less impressive than crunching the actual numbers. And this isn't like Barry Bonds using drugs to blast home runs. This is a 5'5 vegetarian guy going up against big strong Australians and English dudes and playing the game like a short, seemingly nonathletic PG who killed people with precision and hard work.
Cheering for an underdog to get a record that'll never be beaten is more rewarding for me than cheering for a LeBron dunk or something. That's kinda why few things make me happier than to know that John Stockton only played for one team in his career -- ours. And guys like Stockton are why I'm a sports fan. Not just for the highlights, but very few are higher than his.
What are some of your favs! Post them below!