Two Buckeyes Ranked in Top 10 of ESPN’s Greatest North American Athletes Project – Ohio State Buckeyes
12/16/1999 12:00:00 AM | General
Dec. 16, 1999
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Two former Ohio State student athletes have been ranked in the top 10 in a list of the 50 greatest North American athletes of the century. The list, part of the award-winning SportsCentury project organized by ESPN, one of the world’s leading authorities on athletics, ranked former Buckeye Jesse Owens as the sixth-best athlete of the century and Jack Nicklaus the ninth-best athlete of the 1900’s.
Ohio State is the only university in North America with two of its former athletes ranked in the top 10. In fact, OSU and UCLA are the only two schools in the nation that boast two athletes ranked among the top 25. Ohio State, UCLA, North Carolina, and the University of Cincinnati are the only four schools in North America that accounted for more than one of the 50 athletes that were honored.
A 48-member panel of distinguished journalists and observers were gathered for the project to vote on the century’s greatest athletes and results have been revealed during weekly 30-minute SportsCentury programs which began last January. The top two athletes of the century as voted on by the panel will be revealed Sunday, Dec. 26 at 5 p.m. on ABC and have been narrowed down to Muhammad Ali, Babe Ruth, Michael Jordan or Jim Brown.
Owens, who lettered in 1935 and 1936 at Ohio State, captured eight individual NCAA championships in track and field as a Buckeye. At the 1935 Western Conference (now Big Ten) Championships, Owens set three world records and tied a fourth in a matter of only 70 minutes. He went on to win four gold medals at the 1936 Olympics after leaving Ohio State, and in 1950 was named the Associated Press Track Athlete of the First Century.
Nicklaus lettered at Ohio State in 1960 and 1961 before going on to the most storied career in the history of professional golf. At OSU, he captured the United States Amateur Championship, the NCAA individual championship, and first-team All-America honors in 1961. As a professional, Nicklaus claimed 71 PGA Tour victories including six Masters, five PGA Championships, four U.S. Opens, and three British Opens. He was a five-time winner of the PGA Player of the Year award.
— GO BUCKS! —
