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You all remember the stir I created eight years ago when I wrote a blog for SwimSwam claiming I was the best athlete ever to come out of Little Flower School in Bethesda, Maryland – not Katie Ledecky.
There was an uproar so intense in the comments section under that blog and I still haven’t regained my psychological footing. The whole experience jolted me like a human-ignited earthquake. All I was doing was making a simple point: when I was in grade school I was a better athlete than Katie Ledecky was in grade school.
Trophies matter. Not that I’m counting, but I won ~14 Most Valuable Player (MVP) trophies during those years across a broad cross-section of sports including basketball, baseball, and touch football. I would bet my Baby Boomer Brotherhood Blog assets that Katie didn’t win that many MVPs while at Little Flower.
But last night as Katie lapped the field in the 400-meter freestyle to qualify for her fourth Olympics and will undoubtedly build on her already cemented reputation this summer at the Paris Olympics as the greatest female swimmer who has ever dove into a pool, I started to re-think my position.
With her achieving so much no one ever has, and with me not achieving anything she has, I felt a societal duty to confront a truth that so many others already knew that has taken me so long to accept and admit publicly.
Katie Ledecky is a better athlete than me. It’s not even a debate anymore. Sure I could quibble about my athletic versatility and being the MVP of the prestigious Georgetown Prep eighth grade hoops tournament scoring 31 points in the final game to throw back St. Mark’s and Mike Dunn, but that accomplishment doesn’t measure up on a world stage to all that Katie has done. It just doesn’t.
She’s not only a better athlete than me. She’s more balanced. She’s poised. She doesn’t seek the spotlight. She says the right things.
She’s everything a Little Flower School student is taught to be: classy, humble, hard-working, and polite, an uplifting influence on society wherever she goes. She is what all of us should aspire to be.
As for me, well, let’s just say those who taught me at Little Flower would be the first to say: “You’re not as good of an athlete as Katie Ledecky, and stop writing blogs that you are.”
After far too many years of being in denial, I would have to admit they were right about all of it.
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Sammy Sportface, a sports blogger, galvanizes, inspires, and amuses The Baby Boomer Brotherhood. And you can learn about his vision and join this group's Facebook page here:
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