Legends of Sport
George Herman "Babe" Ruth Jr. (February 6, 1895 – August 16, 1948) was an American professional baseball player whose career in Major League Baseball (MLB) spanned 22 seasons, from 1914 through 1935. Nicknamed "the Bambino" and "the Sultan of Swat", he began his MLB career as a star left-handed pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, but achieved his greatest fame as a slugging outfielder for the New York Yankees. Ruth is regarded as one of the greatest sports heroes in American culture and is considered by many to be the greatest baseball player of all time. In 1936, Ruth was elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame as one of its "first five" inaugural members.
At age seven, Ruth was sent to St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys, a reformatory where he was mentored by Brother Matthias Boutlier of the Xaverian Brothers, the school's disciplinarian and a capable baseball player. In 1914, Ruth was signed to play Minor League baseball for the Baltimore Orioles but was soon sold to the Red Sox. By 1916, he had built a reputation as an outstanding pitcher who sometimes hit long home runs, a feat unusual for any player in the pre-1920 dead-ball era. Although Ruth twice won 23 games in a season as a pitcher and was a member of three World Series championship teams with the Red Sox, he wanted to play every day and was allowed to convert to an outfielder. With regular playing time, he broke the MLB single-season home run record in 1919 with 29.
After that season, Red Sox owner Harry Frazee sold Ruth to the Yankees amid controversy. The trade fueled Boston's subsequent 86-year championship drought and popularized the "Curse of the Bambino" superstition. In his 15 years with the Yankees, Ruth helped the team win seven American League (AL) pennants and four World Series championships. His big swing led to escalating home run totals that not only drew fans to the ballpark and boosted the sport's popularity but also helped usher in baseball's live-ball era, which evolved from a low-scoring game of strategy to a sport where the home run was a major factor. As part of the Yankees' vaunted "Murderers' Row" lineup of 1927, Ruth hit 60 home runs, which extended his own MLB single-season record by a single home run. Ruth's last season with the Yankees was 1934; he retired from the game the following year, after a short stint with the Boston Braves. Throughout his career, Ruth led the AL in home runs during a season 12 times.
During Ruth's career, he was the target of intense press and public attention for his baseball exploits and off-field penchants for drinking and womanizing. After his retirement as a player, he was denied the opportunity to manage a major league club, most likely because of poor behavior during parts of his playing career. In his final years, Ruth made many public appearances, especially in support of American efforts in World War II. In 1946, he became ill with nasopharyngeal cancer and died from the disease two years later. Ruth remains a major figure in American culture.
Under the grandfather rule, Jim Thorpe could’ve played for Ireland. 😉 His father was Native American/Irish. His mother was Native American/French.
James Francis Thorpe (Sac and Fox (Sauk): Wa-Tho-Huk, translated as "Bright Path";[4] May 22 or 28,[2] 1887 – March 28, 1953)[5] was an American athlete and Olympic gold medalist. A member of the Sac and Fox Nation, Thorpe was the first Native American to win a gold medal for the United States in the Olympics. Considered one of the most versatile athletes of modern sports, he won two Olympic gold medals in the 1912 Summer Olympics (one in classic pentathlon and the other in decathlon). He also played American football (collegiate and professional), professional baseball, and basketball.
He lost his Olympic titles after it was found he had been paid for playing two seasons of semi-professional baseball before competing in the Olympics, thus violating the contemporary amateurism rules. In 1983, 30 years after his death, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) restored his Olympic medals with replicas, after ruling that the decision to strip him of his medals fell outside of the required 30 days. Official IOC records still listed Thorpe as co-champion in decathlon and pentathlon until 2022, when it was decided to restore him as the sole champion in both events.[6][7][8][9][10]
Thorpe grew up in the Sac and Fox Nation in Indian Territory (what is now the U.S. state of Oklahoma). As a youth, he attended Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where he was a two-time All-American for the school's football team under coach Pop Warner. After his Olympic success in 1912, which included a record score in the decathlon, he added a victory in the All-Around Championship of the Amateur Athletic Union. In 1913, he played for the Pine Village Pros in Indiana.[11] Later in 1913, Thorpe signed with the New York Giants, and he played six seasons in Major League Baseball between 1913 and 1919. Thorpe joined the Canton Bulldogs American football team in 1915, helping them win three professional championships. He later played for six teams in the National Football League (NFL). He played as part of several all-American Indian teams throughout his career, and barnstormed as a professional basketball player with a team composed entirely of American Indians.
From 1920 to 1921, Thorpe was nominally the first president of the American Professional Football Association, which became the NFL in 1922. He played professional sports until age 41, the end of his sports career coinciding with the start of the Great Depression. He struggled to earn a living after that, working several odd jobs. He suffered from alcoholism, and lived his last years in failing health and poverty. He was married three times and had eight children, before suffering from heart failure and dying in 1953.
Thorpe has received numerous accolades for his athletic accomplishments. The Associated Press ranked him as the "greatest athlete" from the first 50 years of the 20th century, and the Pro Football Hall of Fame inducted him as part of its inaugural class in 1963. The town of Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania was named in his honor. It has a monument site that contains his remains, which were the subject of legal action. Thorpe appeared in several films and was portrayed by Burt Lancaster in the 1951 film Jim Thorpe – All-American.
Early life
Information about Thorpe's birth, name and ethnic background varies widely.[12] He was baptized "Jacobus Franciscus Thorpe" in the Catholic Church. Thorpe was born in Indian Territory of the United States (later Oklahoma), but no birth certificate has been found. He was generally considered to have been born on May 22, 1887,[5] near the town of Prague.[13] Thorpe said in a note to The Shawnee News-Star in 1943 that he was born May 28, 1888, "near and south of Bellemont – Pottawatomie County – along the banks of the North Fork River ... hope this will clear up the inquiries as to my birthplace."[14] Most biographers believe that he was born on May 22, 1887, the date listed on his baptismal certificate.[15] Thorpe referred to Shawnee as his birthplace in his 1943 note to the newspaper.[14]
Thorpe's parents were both of mixed-race ancestry. His father, Hiram Thorpe, had an Irish father and a Sac and Fox Indian mother.[16][17] His mother, Charlotte Vieux, had a French father and a Potawatomi mother, a descendant of Chief Louis Vieux. Thorpe was raised as a Sac and Fox,[18] and his native name, Wa-Tho-Huk, is translated as "path lit by great flash of lightning" or, more simply, "Bright Path".[12] As was the custom for Sac and Fox, he was named for something occurring around the time of his birth, in this case the light brightening the path to the cabin where he was born. Thorpe's parents were both Roman Catholic, a faith which Thorpe observed throughout his adult life.[19]
Thorpe attended the Sac and Fox Indian Agency school in Stroud, with his twin brother, Charlie. Charlie helped him through school until he died of pneumonia when they were nine years old.[20] Thorpe ran away from school several times. His father sent him to the Haskell Institute, an Indian boarding school in Lawrence, Kansas, so that he would not run away again.[21]
When Thorpe's mother died of childbirth complications two years later,[22] the youth became depressed. After several arguments with his father, he left home to work on a horse ranch.[21]
In 1904 the sixteen-year-old Thorpe returned to his father and decided to attend Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. There his athletic ability was recognized and he was coached by Glenn Scobey "Pop" Warner, one of the most influential coaches of early American football history.[23] Later that year the youth was orphaned after his father Hiram Thorpe died from gangrene poisoning, after being wounded in a hunting accident.[22] The young Thorpe again dropped out of school. He resumed farm work for a few years before returning to Carlisle School.[21]
Amateur career
College career
Thorpe in 1912
Thorpe tackling a dummy that is made of weights and pulley on wire, with Coach Warner, 1912
Thorpe began his athletic career at Carlisle in 1907 when he walked past the track and, still in street clothes, beat all the school's high jumpers with an impromptu 5-ft 9-in jump.[24] His earliest recorded track and field results come from 1907. He also competed in football, baseball, lacrosse, and ballroom dancing, winning the 1912 intercollegiate ballroom dancing championship.[25]
Pop Warner was hesitant to allow Thorpe, his best track and field athlete, to compete in such a physical game as football.[26] Thorpe, however, convinced Warner to let him try some rushing plays in practice against the school team's defense; Warner assumed he would be tackled easily and give up the idea.[26] Thorpe "ran around past and through them not once, but twice".[26] He walked over to Warner and said, "Nobody is going to tackle Jim", while flipping him the ball.[26]
Thorpe first gained nationwide notice in 1911 for his athletic ability.[27] As a running back, defensive back, placekicker and punter, Thorpe scored all of his team's four field goals in an 18–15 upset of Harvard, a top-ranked team in the early days of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).[26][28] His team finished the season 11–1. In 1912 Carlisle won the national collegiate championship largely as a result of Thorpe's efforts: he scored 25 touchdowns and 198 points during the season, according to CNN's Greg Botelho.[23] Steve Boda, a researcher for the NCAA, credits Thorpe with 27 touchdowns and 224 points. Thorpe rushed 191 times for 1,869 yards, according to Boda; the figures do not include statistics from two of Carlisle's 14 games in 1912 because full records are not available.[29]
Carlisle's 1912 record included a 27–6 victory over the West Point Army team.[13] In that game, Thorpe's 92-yard touchdown was nullified by a teammate's penalty, but on the next play Thorpe rushed for a 97-yard touchdown.[30] Future President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who played against him in that game, recalled of Thorpe in a 1961 speech:
Here and there, there are some people who are supremely endowed. My memory goes back to Jim Thorpe. He never practiced in his life, and he could do anything better than any other football player I ever saw.[23]
Thorpe was awarded third-team All-American honors in 1908,[31] and named a first-team All-American in 1911 and 1912.[13] Football was – and remained – Thorpe's favorite sport.[32] He did not compete in track and field in 1910 or 1911,[33] although this turned out to be the sport in which he gained his greatest fame.[13]
In the spring of 1912, he started training for the Olympics. He had confined his efforts to jumps, hurdles and shot-puts, but now added pole vaulting, javelin, discus, hammer and 56 lb weight. In the Olympic trials held at Celtic Park in New York, his all-round ability stood out in all these events and so he earned a place on the team that went to Sweden.[13]
Olympic career
For the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden, two new multi-event disciplines were included, the pentathlon and the decathlon.[34] A pentathlon, based on the ancient Greek event, had been introduced at the 1906 Intercalated Games.[35] The 1912 version consisted of the long jump, javelin throw, 200-meter dash, discus throw, and 1500-meter run.[34]
The decathlon was a relatively new event in modern athletics, although a similar competition known as the all-around championship had been part of American track meets since the 1880s. A men's version had been featured on the program of the 1904 St. Louis Olympics. The events of the new decathlon differed slightly from the American version.[36][37]
Both events seemed appropriate for Thorpe, who was so versatile that he served as Carlisle's one-man team in several track meets.[13] According to his obituary in The New York Times, he could run the 100-yard dash in 10 seconds flat; the 220 in 21.8 seconds; the 440 in 51.8 seconds; the 880 in 1:57, the mile in 4:35; the 120-yard high hurdles in 15 seconds; and the 220-yard low hurdles in 24 seconds.[13] He could long jump 23 ft 6 in and high-jump 6 ft 5 in.[13] He could pole vault 11 feet; put the shot 47 ft 9 in; throw the javelin 163 feet; and throw the discus 136 feet.[13]
Thorpe entered the U.S. Olympic trials for both the pentathlon and the decathlon. He easily earned a place on the pentathlon team, winning three events. The decathlon trial was subsequently cancelled, and Thorpe was chosen to represent the U.S. in the event.[38] The pentathlon and decathlon teams also included Avery Brundage, a future International Olympic Committee president.[39]
Thorpe was extremely busy in the Olympics. Along with the decathlon and pentathlon, he competed in the long jump and high jump.[40] The first competition was the pentathlon on July 7.[41] He won four of the five events and placed third in the javelin,[42] an event he had not competed in before 1912.[7] Although the pentathlon was primarily decided on place points, points were also earned for the marks achieved in the individual events. Thorpe won the gold medal.[43] That same day, he qualified for the high jump final, in which he finished in a tie for fourth. On July 12, Thorpe placed seventh in the long jump.[41][44]
Thorpe's final event was the decathlon, his first (and as it turned out, his only) decathlon.[41][45] Strong competition from local favorite Hugo Wieslander was expected.[46] Thorpe, however, defeated Wieslander by 688 points.[47] He placed in the top four in all ten events, and his Olympic record of 8,413 points stood for nearly two decades.[24] Even more remarkably, because someone had stolen his shoes just before he was due to compete, he found a mismatched pair of replacements, including one from a trash can, and won the gold medal wearing them.[48][49] Overall, Thorpe won eight of the 15 individual events comprising the pentathlon and decathlon.[50]
As was the custom of the day, the medals were presented to the athletes during the closing ceremonies of the games. Along with the two gold medals, Thorpe also received two challenge prizes, which were donated by King Gustav V of Sweden for the decathlon and Czar Nicholas II of Russia for the pentathlon. Several sources recount that, when awarding Thorpe his prize, King Gustav said, "You, sir, are the greatest athlete in the world", to which Thorpe replied, "Thanks, King".[51][52] Thorpe biographer Kate Buford suggests that the story is apocryphal, as she believes that such a comment "would have been out of character for a man who was highly uncomfortable in public ceremonies and hated to stand out."[53] The anecdote appeared in newspapers by 1948, 36 years after his appearance in the Olympics and time for myth making,[54] and in books as early as 1952.[55]
Thorpe's successes were followed in the United States. On the Olympic team's return, Thorpe was the star attraction in a ticker-tape parade on Broadway.[51] He remembered later, "I heard people yelling my name, and I couldn't realize how one fellow could have so many friends."[51]
Wow, Charlie, that was a lot of info about James Francis Thorpe. Thanks for sharing.
Sir Robert Charlton CBE (born 11 October 1937) is an English former footballer who played either as a midfielder or a forward. Considered one of the greatest players of all time,[3] he was a member of the England team that won the 1966 FIFA World Cup, the year he also won the Ballon d'Or. He finished second in the Ballon d'Or in 1967 and 1968. He played almost all of his club football at Manchester United, where he became renowned for his attacking instincts, his passing abilities from midfield and his ferocious long-range shot, as well as his fitness and stamina. He was cautioned only twice in his career; once against Argentina in the 1966 World Cup, and once in a league match against Chelsea. His elder brother Jack, who was also in the World Cup-winning team, was a former defender for Leeds United and international manager. With success at club and international level, he is one of nine players to have won the FIFA World Cup, the UEFA Champions League and the Ballon d'Or.
Born in Ashington, Northumberland, Charlton made his debut for the Manchester United first-team in 1956, aged 18, and soon gained a regular place in the team, during which time he became a Football League First Division champion in 1957 then survived the Munich air disaster of February 1958 after being rescued by teammate Harry Gregg; Charlton is the last survivor of the crash from the club. After helping United to win the FA Cup in 1963 and the Football League in 1965 and 1967, he captained the team that won the European Cup in 1968, scoring two goals in the final to help them become the first English club to win the competition.
Charlton left Manchester United to become manager of Preston North End for the 1973–74 season.[4] He changed to player-manager the following season. He next accepted a post as a director with Wigan Athletic, then became a member of Manchester United's board of directors in 1984.[5]
At international level, Charlton was named in the England squad for four World Cups (1958, 1962, 1966 and 1970), though did not play in the first. At the time of his retirement from the England team in 1970 he was the nation's most capped player, having turned out 106 times at the highest level; Bobby Moore overtook this in 1973. Charlton was the long-time record goalscorer for both Manchester United and England, and United's long-time record appearance maker – his total of 758 matches for United took until 2008 to be beaten, when Ryan Giggs did so in that year's Champions League final.[6] With 249 goals, he was the club's highest all-time goalscorer for more than 40 years, until his record was surpassed by Wayne Rooney in 2017. He is also the third-highest goalscorer for England;[7] his record of 49 goals was beaten in 2015 by Rooney, and again by some dude from Spurs in 2022.[8]
”Some dude from Spurs”?! That doesn’t sound like official Wiki. 🤣🤣
Another great choice, F. 👍
After reading about Jim Thorpe clearing around his own height on his first ever high-jump I'd like to post a related video about the way the techniques altered over time from forward jumps to straddle jumps, scissors jumps and the Fosbury Flop at the Olympics.
Iolanda Balaș broke her first high-jump record at 1.75 m (5 ft 8+3⁄4 in) and took it to 1.91 m (6 ft 3 in) in four years and two Olympics without using the Fosbury Flop.
Iolanda Balaș (12 December 1936 – 11 March 2016) was a Romanian athlete, an Olympic champion and former world record holder in the high jump. She was the first Romanian woman to win an Olympic gold medal and is considered to have been one of the greatest high jumpers of the twentieth century.
Early life
Balaș was born in Timișoara to a family of Hungarian descent.[2][3] Her mother, Etel Bozó was a homemaker, while her father, Frigyes, was originally a locksmith. Her father served in the Hungarian army until he was captured and brought to the Soviet Union and later back to Hungary, where he settled in Budapest.[4] Balaș tried to reunite the family and move to Hungary, but although she managed to obtain a Hungarian passport in 1947,[3] she was not allowed to leave Romania.[5] When asked in an interview in 2005 whether she had ever thought about defection, she said that it had crossed her mind; however, as it could have resulted in serious retaliation against her relatives, she did not want to risk it.[3] In the interview she said, “I feel sorry that I did not win Olympics for Hungary. But a person represents herself and after that a nation. It was not given for me to bear the Hungarian colors, to make happy those who speak my mother tongue. It evolved this way and I feel sorry for it, but I would have gone mad if I would thought constantly about this contradictory situation. I hope that besides Romanians also Hungarians are proud of me.”[3]
Career
Balaș took up athletics owing to her caretaker Luisa Ernst, who was also a retired high jumper.[1] In 1953 she transferred from Timișoara club “Electrica” to CCA (CSA Steaua). After finishing fifth in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, she won Olympic gold medals at Rome in 1960 (becoming the first Romanian woman to do so)[6] and Tokyo in 1964. At the 1964 Olympics she competed with a torn tendon, which forced her later to withdraw from the 1966 European Championships. Nevertheless, between 1957 and 1966, Balaș won 154 consecutive competitions,[7] not including qualifying competitions or exhibitions. She improved the world record 14 times, from 1.75 m to 1.91 m, and equalled it once outdoors and once indoors. She was the first woman to jump over six feet. Her technique was a sophisticated version of the scissors technique.[1]
Her record of 1.91 m, set in 1961, lasted until the end of 1971 (beaten by Ilona Gusenbauer from Austria), when jumpers with a more efficient technique (the straddle technique, and later the Fosbury style) took over.[1]
After retiring from competition in 1967, Balaș married her former coach Ioan Söter,[8] and taught physical education in Bucharest. Between 1988 and 2005 she was president of the Romanian Athletics Federation.[1] She was also a member of the technical committee of the European Athletics Association, and in 1995 was elected to the women’s commission of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF).[9]
In 2000, Track & Field News voted Balaș as the best female high jumper of the 20th century.[14] She was inducted into the IAAF Hall of Fame in 2012.[14]
Quote from Charlie Charles IV on January 5, 2023, 9:23 pm”Some dude from Spurs”?! That doesn’t sound like official Wiki.
Another great choice, F.
After reading about Jim Thorpe clearing around his own height on his first ever high-jump I’d like to post a related video about the way the techniques altered over time from forward jumps to straddle jumps, scissors jumps and the Fosbury Flop at the Olympics.
Charlie, I just had to edit the reference to the dude from Spurs whose penalty against France is still in orbit 🤗🤭🤣🤣
Eamonn Christopher Coghlan (born 21 November 1952) is an Irish former track and field athlete who specialised in middle distance track events and the 5,000 metres. He is a three-time Olympian and former world champion in the 5,000 m. He served as Senator from 2011 to 2016.
Born in Drimnagh, he had a successful amateur running career in Ireland that led to a scholarship in the United States, where he won four NCAA titles in track running and ran a sub-four-minute mile to set an Irish record at 22 years of age. He soon set the European record over the distance. His speciality was the indoor mile run – he gained his nickname, "The Chairman of the Boards", as a result of his great success on the US indoor circuit. He broke the indoor mile world record on three occasions, and also set a world indoor record over 2,000 m.
He finished fourth in the 1500 Metres at the 1976 Summer Olympics, finished fourth again in the 5,000 m at the 1980 Summer Olympics, and made the 5,000 m semi-final in his last Olympic appearance at the 1988 Summer Olympics. He experienced greater success in the 1,500 m at the European Athletics Championships: he won the 1,500 m at the 1979 European Athletics Indoor Championships, and outdoors took silver in the event at the 1978 European Athletics Championships. He was also the 5,000 m champion at the IAAF World Cup in 1981 and he became the world 5,000 metres champion at the 1983 World Championships in Athletics.
After competitive retirement, he continued to race and became the first man over 40 years old to run a sub-four-minute mile. He has appeared as a panellist on Irish broadcaster RTÉ and released his autobiography, Chairman of the Boards, Master of the Mile, in 2008.
In May 2011, Coghlan was appointed as a Senator by the Taoiseach Enda Kenny.[1][2]
James Cleveland "Jesse" Owens (September 12, 1913 – March 31, 1980) was an American track and field athlete who won four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic Games.[3]
Owens specialized in the sprints and the long jump and was recognized in his lifetime as "perhaps the greatest and most famous athlete in track and field history".[4] He set three world records and tied another, all in less than an hour, at the 1935 Big Ten track meet in Ann Arbor, Michigan—a feat that has never been equaled and has been called "the greatest 45 minutes ever in sport".[5]
He achieved international fame at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany, by winning four gold medals: 100 meters, long jump, 200 meters, and 4 × 100-meter relay. He was the most successful athlete at the Games and, as a black American man, was credited with "single-handedly crushing Hitler's myth of Aryan supremacy".[6]
The Jesse Owens Award is USA Track and Field's highest accolade for the year's best track and field athlete. Owens was ranked by ESPN as the sixth greatest North American athlete of the 20th century and the highest-ranked in his sport. In 1999, he was on the six-man short-list for the BBC's Sports Personality of the Century.
Besides the 4 gold medals in 1936, "three world records and tied another, all in less than an hour." How is that possible?!! Amazing Jesse Owens 🏆🥇👏
Wayne Douglas Gretzky CC (/ˈɡrɛtski/ GRET-skee; born January 26, 1961) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player and former head coach. He played 20 seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL) for four teams from 1979 to 1999. Nicknamed "the Great One",[1] he has been called the greatest hockey player ever by many sportswriters, players, The Hockey News, and by the NHL itself,[2] based on extensive surveys of hockey writers, ex-players, general managers and coaches.[3] Gretzky is the leading goal scorer, assist producer and point scorer in NHL history,[4] and has more assists in his career than any other player scored total points. He is the only NHL player to total over 200 points in one season, a feat he accomplished four times. In addition, Gretzky tallied over 100 points in 16 professional seasons, 14 of them consecutive. At the time of his retirement in 1999, he held 61 NHL records: 40 regular season records, 15 playoff records, and 6 All-Star records.[2]
Born and raised in Brantford, Ontario, Gretzky honed his skills on a backyard rink and regularly played minor hockey at a level far above his peers.[5] Despite his unimpressive size and strength, Gretzky's intelligence, stamina, and reading of the game were unrivaled. He was adept at dodging checks from opposing players, and consistently anticipated where the puck was going to be and executed the right move at the right time. Gretzky became known for setting up behind his opponent's net, an area that was nicknamed "Gretzky's office".[6]
Gretzky was the top scorer in the 1978 World Junior Championships. In June 1978, he signed with the Indianapolis Racers of the World Hockey Association (WHA), where he briefly played before being traded to the Edmonton Oilers. When the WHA folded, the Oilers joined the NHL, where he established many scoring records and led his team to four Stanley Cup championships. Gretzky's trade to the Los Angeles Kings on August 9, 1988, had an immediate impact on the team's performance, ultimately leading them to the 1993 Stanley Cup Finals, and he is credited with popularizing hockey in California.[7] Gretzky played briefly for the St. Louis Blues before finishing his career with the New York Rangers. Gretzky captured nine Hart Trophies as the most valuable player, 10 Art Ross Trophies for most points in a season, two Conn Smythe Trophies as playoff MVP and five Lester B. Pearson Awards (now called the Ted Lindsay Award) for most outstanding player as judged by his peers. He led the league in goal-scoring five times and assists 16 times. He also won the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy for sportsmanship and performance five times, and often spoke out against fighting in hockey.[8]
After his retirement in 1999, Gretzky was immediately inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, making him the most recent player to have the waiting period waived. The NHL retired his jersey number 99 league-wide, making him the only hockey player and one of only three players in professional sports history to receive such an honor, along with Jackie Robinson, whose uniform number 42 was retired by Major League Baseball in 1997, and Bill Russell, whose uniform number 6 was retired by the National Basketball Association in 2022. Gretzky was one of six players voted to the International Ice Hockey Federation's (IIHF) Centennial All-Star Team.[9] Gretzky became executive director for the Canadian national men's hockey team during the 2002 Winter Olympics, in which the team won a gold medal. In 2000, he became part-owner of the Phoenix Coyotes, and following the 2004–05 NHL lock-out, he became the team's head coach. In 2004, Gretzky was inducted into the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame.[10] In September 2009, following the Phoenix Coyotes' bankruptcy, Gretzky resigned as head coach and relinquished his ownership share. In October 2016, he returned to the Oilers as a minority partner and vice-chairman of their parent company, Oilers Entertainment Group. He left in 2021 to become an analyst on Turner Sports' NHL coverage.