I feel like I see this kind of claim pretty often from athletes - that they surely would have excelled in their other sport too.

Although Chamberlain had no competitive experience as a boxer, he approached the Ali fight with a plan. He would retain the services of world-class trainer Cus D’Amato – who readily volunteered to prepare Chamberlain for the bout. The choice of trainers was thoroughly appropriate, as D’Amato possessed an uncanny ability to create heavyweight champions quickly. He had trained Floyd Patterson to become at age 21 the youngest Heavyweight titlist in history, a record that stood for decades until broken by D’Amato’s next protégé – Mike Tyson. D’Amato opined that with proper coaching, Wilt could utilize his overwhelming size advantage to secure victory. The strategy was to keep Ali at bay by using the long jab – indeed, the longest jab of all time – and employ Chamberlain’s massive reach to prevent Ali from landing damaging shots. If Chamberlain could jab effectively it would give him the space to land blows outside of Ali’s range, and if enough shots landed Chamberlain would win a decision simply based on the punch count.

In contrast, Ali was so confident that he hardly felt a plan was necessary. Other top-level athletes outside of boxing had entertained the idea of fighting him before. While Ali was preparing for a fight in London in 1966, football legend Jim Brown was in the area working on the film “The Dirty Dozen”. Brown informed Bob Arum, with whom he was acquainted, that he wanted to challenge Ali to a fight for the title. When Ali heard this, he instructed Arum to have Brown meet him in Hyde Park where Ali took his morning training runs. When Brown arrived, Ali told the NFL star to try and hit him and not worry about whether Ali got hurt. Brown proceeded to throw a barrage of heavy punches, all of which Ali dodged with ease. With Brown still swinging in earnest, Ali playfully slapped Brown’s face repeatedly as the latter’s punches sailed by in futility. Brown quietly dropped his challenge thereafter. For the fight with Chamberlain, Ali summed up his prognostication in a single word. As Wilt entered the office in the Astrodome to discuss the final terms of the match, Ali sized up his foe and shouted: “Timber!”

In 2001 during lunch I sat one table over from John Salley at the Ray's Pizza on 6th Avenue and 11th Street as he was trying to make a distribution deal with two guys for some girl he said would be the black Jenna Jameson. Thus endeth my John Salley story.

Receivers taken in the 1979 NFL Draft

1st round
5 - Jerry Butler, BUF
20 - Willis Adams, HOU

Gibson was never a first team All-American, and not too many players who weren't wind up as a #5 draft pick.

His college stats don't look like much but he ranked up there in catches, yards and yds per catch. He scored a fair number of tds

I feel like I see this kind of claim pretty often from athletes - that they surely would have excelled in their other sport too.

In 2001 during lunch I sat one table over from John Salley at the Ray's Pizza on 6th Avenue and 11th Street as he was trying to make a distribution deal with two guys for some girl he said would be the black Jenna Jameson. Thus endeth my John Salley story.


I'm sorry, what?

Yeah, you're selling him short. He was already excelling. All American is a big deal. Not sure about his ability to stay on the field in gridiron, but the guy could play.

People who can achieve that level in sports or higher are just freakish in their hand/eye coordination, balance, timing and spacial awareness. It's insane how good a pro athlete is at pretty much any sport. Even a casual game of tennis, ping pong or golf is just ridiculous.

Even a casual game of ....... ping pong

The first 10 picks of the 79 draft:

Cousineau -- 66 games, 36 AV (whatever that is)
Mike Bell -- 135 games, 45 AV
Jack Thompson -- oops

I don't follow the NFL anymore or even that much ever. I'm guessing that's one of your better drafts all-time, at least for depth. The only bust in that top 10 is Thompson, only 4 busts in the top 26 with 2 HoFers plus Simms.

but who can forget #11 -- Russel Erxleben?

I have a vague memory of Erxleben & our Steve Cox both kicking FGs around 65 yards in the same game. (Or maybe Steve Little was our guy instead.)

Cox was the punter for the Browns and their designated long field goal kicker. He only had 5 attempts and 2 makes--one from 58 and the other from 60

And for folks following during that time period (early 1980s), was Gibson obviously good early on and much heralded?

"If a fifth-place ball club can't give a chance to a 22-year-old player," says Anderson, "then who can? Gibson might be as good an athlete as we've ever seen. He's a lot like Jabbar and Walton in basketball. He can turn this franchise around. If he doesn't, we're in trouble."

It's interesting how many parallels there are here to Jackie Robinson. All-American football player takes up baseball as a college junior, completely sucks rocks (Jackie batted .097), but is nonetheless signed to a pro baseball contract due to his crazy athleticism. In both cases it worked out incredibly well.

kind of surprised that Gibson was getting any grief for his comment. the guy excelled at a position (arguably the best in his league for more than a season) in a quality conference. it's reasonable to think he could have done pretty well at the next level. maybe not be 'the best' but a solid player.

frankly, think some folks are showing some knee jerk reactions versus using any critical thinking.

Earlier comment stated that based on watching "video" of Gibson running the bases he wouldn't have been a good football player. That is one of the stupidest things ever written on this website, which is saying a lot.

Earlier comment stated that based on watching "video" of Gibson running the bases he wouldn't have been a good football player. That is one of the stupidest things ever written on this website, which is saying a lot.

The stupidest things written on this site are usually written by people who missed a joke.

In 2001 during lunch I sat one table over from John Salley at the Ray's Pizza on 6th Avenue and 11th Street as he was trying to make a distribution deal with two guys for some girl he said would be the black Jenna Jameson. Thus endeth my John Salley story.

Realistically you're right, given that Jackie signed with the Dodgers organization in October of 1945. But it's interesting to note that two of Jackie's UCLA teammates (Kenny Washington and Woody Strode) integrated the NFL when they played with the LA Rams six months before Jackie played his first game in Ebbets Field.

Gibson would NOT have been a top-five pick. This is not my opinion; this is fact: he was drafted, by the Cardinals, in the 7th round.