Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Who Belongs on the Mt. Rushmore of BC Athletics?

Brian: The Worldwide Leader's latest gimmick - something they are calling the "Mt. Rushmore of Sports" - asks readers to nominate four people to represent each US state's make-believe Mount Rushmore.

From ESPN:
SportsCenter, ESPN’s flagship news and information program, and ESPN.com, the leading online sports destination, will combine to present a five-week, fan-based series to celebrate the sports icons from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. The series, titled "SportsCenter Mount Rushmore of Sports," will use fan-generated nominations on ESPN.com to identify the top four sports greats in each state/region, and online voting to select the state with the most impressive collection of sports luminaries worthy of being etched in the state’s Mount Rushmore of sports.

The five states with the most significant collection of sports icons will be revealed February 16-20 on SportsCenter.

Why would ESPN subject us to this? Because Titletown U.S.A. and Who's Now? weren't good enough? This whole thing sounds kinda lame ... but that's beside the point. We are convinced the four-letter network MUST have got the idea from golden boy Bill Simmons and his Mt. Rapmore concept. Even if the network and BS have been feuding ...

Even though we cringe at associating ourselves with anything even somewhat related to Bill Simmons (let's be clear, this is a B.C. sports blog and dude has been crying about his Boston Coll. rejection letter for as far back as we can remember), we decided to bite.

The question we started to ask was who would be placed on the Mt. Rushmore of Boston College athletics?

Over the next week or so, we will profile 8-10 candidates who we would consider placing on a Mt. Rushmore of BC athletics. Then after we have revealed our candidates, we'll unveil who should be on BC's Mt. Rushmore (or put it to a reader vote if there's interest, or something).

The guidelines:
  • Only considering individuals who have made the most significant contributions to Boston College athletics - fair game would be coaches, athletic directors, school administrators/presidents or players that have come through Boston College.
  • Significant contributions to athletics beyond The Heights should not be considered. E.g. if someone goes on to have a very successful career in the NFL, NHL, NBA, or MLB (MLB and B.C.?! Ha!), this shouldn't have any bearing on the decision.
  • One of the unique features of the actual Mt. Rushmore is that the four presidents represent different eras of the country's (then) 150 year history. The four Boston College representatives shouldn't merely represent the last 7-8 years of BC sports. They should be more representative of our 146 years as an institution. In other words, you won't see a final BC Mt. Rushmore of Troy Bell, Craig Smith, Matt Ryan, and Nathan Gerbe as they are all very recent contributors to BC.
But before we begin unveiling our candidates, we are interested in your thoughts. Who ya got on a BC athletics version of Mt. Rushmore?

11 comments:

Unknown said...

John "Snooks" Kelley, Doug Flutie, Matt Ryan, Jerry York

Unknown said...

Doug Flutie, Matt Ryan, Jerry York, Troy Bell

Adam said...

John Kelly, Flutie, York, Flynn, Matt Ryan

Ed said...

Seriously considered:
Fr. Monan
Bill Flynn
Snooks Kelley
Len Ceglarski
Jerry York
David Emma
Mike Mottau
Cory Schneider
Scott Clemmensen
Brian Gionta
Nate Gerbe
Frank Leahy
Charlie O'Rourke
Art Donovan
Doug Flutie
Mike Ruth
Matt Ryan
Tom Davis
Gary Williams
Dana Barros
Danya Abrams
Troy Bell
Craig Smith
Jared Dudley
Tyrese Rice

Who I'd pick:
Bill Flynn
Doug Flutie
Matt Ryan
Jerry York

Kevin said...

Frank Leahy, Doug Flutie, Jerry York, Jared Dudley

Erik said...

I would like to put up a "VOTE NO" on Matt Ryan argument. I haven't thought it all the way through, I love the guy and he was really good here, but there's gotta be 4 better in the history in the entire school. If he makes it, its only because of the additional off-field achievements related to hype, PR, draft success, etc.

Ed's got a great comprehensive list, with some old school flair like O'Rourke and Donovan.

Obviously Doug Flutie makes it no issue.

Mike Motteau won a Hobey, so did Emma, not quite Heisman level but big.

If we choose one from each major 3 sports, and one coach, I go:
D Flutie, T Bell, B Gionta, J York.

The hockey player is the toughest choice because of the huge number of stars, the multiple Hobeys, and all the guys who should have won the HB Award.

BBall I end up with Bell since he was two time conference POY, and All-American.

BeantownBC85 said...

As long as it doesn't include
Mike Mamula, Bill Romanowski, and Mark Chmura.

conlonc said...

What, no women's basketball players?

I gotta agree that putting Matt Ryan on the list is not being true to the spirit of said list.

Flutie and York are on w/o question. The other two slots are a lot tougher to fill.

After a lot of consideration I'm going with Snooks (all the contemporary players just seem too close to call even though they have done amazing things) and Troy Bell simply has the hardware and the huge turn-around of BC hoops to back him up.

Flutie, York, Snooks and Troy.

nomisto said...

Doug Flutie
Jerry York
Frank Leahy
Bill Flynn

ChristianRusso said...

Doug Flutie... without a doubt, our Heisman winner has to be up there

Matt Ryan... He made the nation notice Boston College football again.

Jerry York... As good as some guys like Gionta, Gerbe, and Mottau were, they were only on for a max of 4 years. York has led BC to 2 National Titles and 5 title game appearances in the past 9 years. He IS bc hockey.

As for a 4th, I'll have to get back to you on that one. Still deciding....

Raj said...

Gene Defilippo

Doug Flutie

Jerry York

Troy Bell