Great Athletes Who Were Also Total Assholes

I'm torn about whether Ty Cobb or Pete Rose deserves the top spot.

Lol was coming to post Ty Cobb. Tho it’s a long list!

Royston, Georgia proudly advertises itself as Ty Cobb's hometown. They probably downplay the asshole parts.

Michael Jordan has gotta be up there too.

Long list indeed. Jim Brown was a fascinating combination of someone who was genuinely heroic in many ways, and truly awful in others. There are numerous candidates from pre-integration baseball beyond Cobb, some of whom were members of the Klan (Tris Speaker, for one). Rogers Hornsby was reviled by many. Nothing like that, but for current players, Josh Donaldson and Marcus Stroman.

It’s a colossal insult to Marcus Stroman to name him alongside members of the fucking Klan, particularly when Alek Manoah has been called a dickhead as recently as this month! Let alone in comparison with people like Trevor Bauer or the Padres rotation that was openly trying to recruit people to the John Birch society!

Mickey Mantle, although do we give a pass to guys who were assholes because they were alcoholics?

xp he did say "nothing like that"

Yeah, no, I think Mookieproof was otm about his weird Stroman obsession.

I still think that John Rocker interview is one of the worst things I’ve ever read. You could probably add Canseco but he’s kind of a clown??? Idk if that qualifies?

Oh, yeah, Rocker, that's a good one.

DiMaggio was a weirdo, not sure he was an asshole.

Canseco more of a pathetic figure. His partner in crime Mark McGwire might qualify.

Jesus fuck, gyac, can you read?

DiMaggio indeed had many creepy things about him. Your thread title is very broad, and encompasses an entire spectrum of unlikeable athletes. That's probably pretty clear to everyone...almost everyone, anyway.

xp yes I can read that you brought up the mouthy black man itt despite the disclaimer.

xp I was trying to limit it to "total assholes," not simply athletes who were unlikeable, but that's like trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube.

I don’t know all the details of what MM did but my perspective is that alcoholism can be an exacerbating factor but it’s not the cause. I speak from personal experience as the child of someone who behaved appallingly sometimes during the time they were drinking, and afaict drink doesn’t make anyone into a person they aren’t, but it might make their actions less inhibited by shame or whatever. If he was a dickhead drunk, he probably was sober, unless he was actively dealing with the reasons for his behaviour.

SB Nation feature-length about Michael Jordan's most infamous season as Charlotte Bobcats/Hornets owner both demonstrates his assholery but also kind of humanises him in some ways, anyway it's one of the best sports videos I've ever seen (although SB Nation basically spent 2022 continually one-upping themselves on that front)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3_whi6KuLo

okay digression over, let's see if we can talk about some non-American sports. wait until you find out what that one Brazilian goalie did

oh wait, GREAT athletes. okay well, football still has quite a few of these for starters

(soccer)

this thread should just be links to SB Nation videos tbh

Once again, gyac, you're being ridiculous. Why do you limit Stroman's behaviour to his tweets? Did you not see the photo that led off that Jays thread? There one where Stroman treated some dog in a terrible, inhumane manner? You're just going to conveniently ignore that, right?

Your obsession with me is far weirder than what you perceive as mine with Stroman's. I named a couple of Jays who played for my hometown team for years--nothing unusual about that at all.

Speaking of football, some might say Maradona qualifies, for any number of reasons that just as many people will argue show that he was not a total asshole.

Kyrie

Yes, he qualifies. Odious person, terrible teammate.

But an arguably great player, at least as an individual.

Mantle's behaviour was called out by Bouton in Ball Four, and he was absolutely right; as Mantle neared death, he publically apologized for the same things Bouton documented.

I spent a day apiece with Ted Williams and Bobby Hull as a kid because of baseball card shows and they were both incredibly nice grandpa-like figures but Hull definitely qualifies as a monstrous asshole and I gather that Williams was also a mega-dick even aside from his strife with writers as a player.

There one where Stroman treated some dog in a terrible, inhumane manner? You're just going to conveniently ignore that, right?

Williams seemed liked a complicated guy--what you said, and also the guy who advocated for Jackie Robinson to go into the HOF.

The Wikipedia page on cropping dogs' ears, popular pastime of thoughtful people everywhere.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cropping_(animal)

xp LOL yeah, Bobby Hull was the poster child for this thread. "Hitler had some good ideas, he just went a little too far."

Interestingly, a colleague of mine (who is from Chicago and a hockey player) has a signed picture of BH in his office, showing him with a bloody nose, being restrained by a referee. This is not someone I would think would normally countenance such views.

The priority might be with the law to prioritise outlawing this so people realise it’s a problem.

Great point. As long as its legal, how would Marcus Stroman ever know that needlessly cutting off part of a dog's ears is inhumane?

Hull even came off badly in a book I just finished on the '67 Leafs.

This is kind of what inspired this thread. Bobby Hull was a wife beater and a Nazi sympathizer, and yet a colleague whom I respect has a signed photo of him in his office. It's almost as though the patina of their athletic greatness makes us overlook their . . . "flaws."

If you want a nuanced view of Williams, I very much recommend David Halberstram's The Teammates, about his friendship with Pesky, Doerr, and Dom DiMaggio as he neared death.

wait until you find out what that one Brazilian goalie did

Easier to name the top Brazilian athletes who were Bolsonaristas.

weren't*

I don’t know if Conor McGregor counts but he and his whole family should be put on a rocket to the sun. Absolutely despicable character.

Speaking of alcohol.

I don't know where this lies on the spectrum, but, as Curt Flood took on the baseball owners in 1969, and Marvin Miller was working to strengthen the union, most every superstar of the day, out of self-interest--sometimes passively, sometimes actively--fought them. Many of them did the owners' bidding for them.

Xp oh I think it’s more than that.

Clearly, but the yacht incident surely involved heavy drinking.

I was a big Roberto Alomar fan once upon a time (he signed a ball for me before Nolan Ryan's 7th no hitter - he struck out to end the game) then came the spitting at an ump incident and everything that's come out about him in the last two decades has been even worse.

Karl Malone - statutory rapist, NRA board member

OJ

Can pro wrestlers count? Because New Jack and Hulk Hogan surely make the list, as well as the actual murderers.

I guess New Jack wasn’t a great athlete, he was just an arsehole. Sun in a million other names.

Kobe Bryant.

Hope Solo.

is it too soon to say ja morant

From what I hear, Christian Pulisic

Sebastian Coe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G07sWzYObnk

yes, all-time-great athlete Christian Pulisic

lol yes

Ryan Giggs

AJ Foyt

A companion thread might be Great Coaches Who Were Not Also Total Assholes.

ancelotti, del bosque

I guess both the superstar Green Bay quarterbacks of my lifetime count

Rodgers of course got outed as a galaxy brain weirdo during Covid - not the only QB who was antivaxx but he was the only one who tried to lie about it to avoid the scrutiny. Also turns out to be really into conspiracies about 9/11 and whether Joe Biden really got 81 million votes, brings up Jeff Epstein a bunch, and thinks the only reliable journalist in the country is Joe Rogan. In addition to all that he seems to have terrible relationships with pretty much everyone - he doesn't speak to anyone in his family for reasons that aren't quite clear, his ex-teammates don't have much nice to say about him, rookies claim he's basically unapproachable and holds petty grudges forever, but unlike Jordan this shit actually makes him worse, because teams know when he gets pissed at a guy he'll just force the ball into triple coverage all game.

And of course Favre, a guy who stole welfare money (a scheme which - honest to God - he tried to pull on my Mom when she was Director of Corporate Giving for a big company here), sends unsolicited dick pics, and is also big into Donald Trump. There were also a lotta rumors surrounding his time here of the "he's very lucky to not have been playing in the era of smartphones" variety.

Oh, how could I forget Curt Schilling? Even as a Red Sox fan who appreciates his part in winning a championship, I acknowledge he is indefensible.

Bauer doing the “sword” in minor league Japanese games and wearing number 96 cuz it’s “69 backwards”, how does he continue to reach new levels of cringe pic.twitter.com/mjB9C3fRJs

— gabe (@PlayoffTanaka_) April 16, 2023

Arod counts though using PEDs is a whole different level than being racist or a rapist or violent towards a partner for example. Actually I take that back cos he was caught on an Instagram tag at Mar-a-Lago at some Trump event last year, which I want to believe inspired the Succession s4 plot point about one of the Pierces being tagged at Logan’s by a random He clearly has some moronic political beliefs that he’s quiet about.

A-Rod tagged in another Mar-a-Lago photo. pic.twitter.com/BfVjGYPh87

— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) May 2, 2022

Tiger Woods

It’s interesting that there are some athletes universally acknowledged within their sport as “dirty” players who yet have no dirt on them when it comes to their personal lives.

There was Don Drysdale, the Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher who frequently and admittedly threw fastballs at opposing batters and often led his league in hit batsmen. And in the NFL of the 1970s there was Conrad Dobler, unashamed of being called the dirtiest player in the league. Neither as far as I know were awful off the field.

I was thinking of golfers too. The ones that came to mind--with a very wide range of reasons involved; I'd better make that crystal-clear--were Tiger, Phil, David Duval, and Fuzzy Zoeller.

Lineker, the ultimate personification of the political emptiness of celeb liberal meltdom and a total fucking cunt to boot.

Nah I think he’s earned back some points. Fair fucks to him he does stand up for refugees. It’s not his fault the narrative landed where it did. Man’s a melt, but he’s not even remotely the worst.

Assholes over-represented in golf and Formula One.

... not that suprising perhaps given the nature of both sports.

I'll never have any time for Lineker, he showed his true colours

Ian Botham, Geoffrey Boycott... I like listening to Boycott but he's clearly a dickhead.

Famously stanned by Theresa May as well

the thing annoys me most about Lineker is (apart from him being a complete cunt) is that ultimately all he cares about is protecting his own considerable wealth first, then do the brave humanitarian talk next. And he's a complete cunt.

Ilie Nastase in tennis, even in his heyday called Ilie Nasty

in the late 80s ian botham bought a house in my village, it was a holiday home that he apparently never used. at that time my bit of herefordshire wasn't in any way a tourist or holiday home spot, but within a decade lots of others took his lead, locals were priced out, the village school eventually closed, and so did the pub we went to every sunday. maybe it's not fair to hold beefy responsible for all of this, but I'm going to do it anyway.

Vick? OJ?

Bobby Riggs?

amazing how there are literal rapists and murderers to choose from and y'all are like 'he's a melt' and 'he cropped his dog's ears' and 'he appeared at mar-a-lago'

i mean those aren't good things! but those dudes are not aaron hernandez or ray lewis or rae carruth

also kinda want to start a thread titled People Calzino Thinks *Aren't* Cunts

I would think less grievous offences would be much more in keeping with the thread title. I don't think you look at a murderer or a rapist and go, "Geez, that guy's such an asshole." You might be looking at stronger words there.

perhaps so

Wait what did Bobby Riggs do?

Uh, did you miss all the "I can beat a woman" stuff? Or do you think that he was just doing a bit, and the performative sexism was Andy Kaufman-esque parodic meta-sexism or something that ultimately spins as feminist? Sorry but I can't function at that level of irony, nor could most 1970s Americans.

It is striking how much the dickheadness of a cricket great hinges on their being English or not, lol. Even the Aussies seem mostly decent in their retirement (Warne was always for example an overgrown child). I guess Imran Khan isn't exactly history's greatest person

stfu mookieproof. this is a thread for people who you think are arseholes in the realm of sport. You can agree or disagree with who I nominate but don't try and monster me on the thread, you fucking prick.

"i mean those aren't good things! but those dudes are not aaron hernandez or ray lewis or rae carruth"

also, never heard of any of these cunts

We need more female antiheroes itt!

In March 2023 Navratilova became the patron of a group called The Lesbian Project, a group dedicated to campaigning against the rights of trans people under the guise of promoting the rights of lesbians.[93][94][95][96]

Tatis Jr. Most recent addition to this list?

Yasiel Puig for sure. I think there’s an argument to be made about Grienke being on the list as well.

Aroldis Chapman, John Lackey. Correlation between asshole/good-athlete and crazy weird smile?????????

Three more baseball players whose reputations, at least, fit the thread title: Steve Carlton, Dave Kingman, Albert Belle. Belle is the rare guy whose unpopularity with the press almost certainly cost him an MVP he should have won in a slam-dunk (1995), losing out to a very popular player, Mo Vaughn.

Isn't Greinke pretty popular, with the press and fans alike?

yea he's more of an eccentric weirdo

Ben Roethlisberger

In sticking with the thread title, I shouldn't have included Dave Kingman--unless you start from the premise that any professional is a great athlete, Kingman was far from that as compared to other MLB players.

He was good at hitting homeruns when he actually hit the ball.

He was good at that, for sure--on pace to break Maris's record his one great season--but about as one-dimensional as it got in terms of speed, fielding, everything else.

adding Jesus to the list

As per the thread, from his Wikipedia entry: "In 1980, Kingman (whose personality former Mets teammate John Stearns had once compared to a tree trunk) dumped a bucket of ice water on Daily Herald reporter Don Friske's head late in spring training."

if not for collusion, Kingman may have joined the 500 HR club

ah what a nice guy

During his final year in Oakland in 1986, Kingman sent a live rat in a pink box to Sue Fornoff, a sportswriter for The Sacramento Bee.[39] The rat had a tag attached to it that read, "My name is Sue." Fornoff claimed that Kingman had told her that women do not belong in the clubhouse, and that he harassed her several times since she began covering the team the year before. Kingman himself said it was intended as a harmless practical joke.[40] The A's fined Kingman $3,500 and warned that he would be released if a similar incident occurred again.

lol $3,500. I mean, it isn't like major league sports have covered themselves in glory when reacting to incidents like this even in recent years, but man, the lip service was even worse then.

George Brett i don't know if he was a big monster or anything but definitely an asshole to my friend and the little people around the facility, friend who was a young 18 year old aspiring film student who got a job doing video for the royals, and whom, in response to said assholery was leaking this to the internet, resulting in one of the funniest internet vids of all time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Qv25_DFR2k

Has no one mentioned Scotty Pippen yet?

John McEnroe ... I know little about tennis, but his hothead reputation was based on his court antics, right? Or was he an asshole irl?

glad to see Bobby Hull itt, no one more deserving imho

also would submit for consideration Mike Keenan, who was not a great athlete but did win the Stanley Cup as a coach and is also generally agreed upon to be an asshole:

https://deadspin.com/mike-keenan-the-nhls-last-great-asshole-coach-5958837

is aaron rodgers a great athlete? b/c he's def an unbelievable asshole.

I'd say he's one of the maybe five best quarterbacks of his generation, yeah.

Oh, how could I forget Curt Schilling? Even as a Red Sox fan who appreciates his part in winning a championship, I acknowledge he is indefensible.

I'm amazed we've got this far into the thread without a mention of Roger Clemens.

is aaron rodgers a great athlete? b/c he's def an unbelievable asshole.

― hoonja doonja love me anymore (Deflatormouse), Monday, April 17, 2023 3:29 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Lmao the idea that people would know of Rodgers as a giant asshole without knowing how good he was at football would’ve seemed so unfathomable 3 years ago

Don’t get me wrong a few people suspected it but he was so good at not saying shit before this

I've known a couple of his teammates, the best they could manage was a non-committal shrug.

I asked a couple of the guys I bowl with tonight who a good active hockey player would be for this thread, and they both immediately said the same player: Brad Marchand. I don't follow hockey, but they filled me in on some of his antics.

marchand def what we call a "lil' shit" on the ice, but seems pretty decent on dry land? i do love that one of his highlight reels from last season is him calling out tony deangello for being a "fucking racist." points for that.

Barack Obama memorably described Marchand as "The Little Ball of Hate," although I don't think that was original.

Marchand is the littlest shit of them all but yeah, I wouldn't think he was an irl asshole

still h8 him tho

As a Toronto fan for many years, I certainly hated him/wished he were a Leaf

What about those late '80s Pistons teams? Bill Laimbeer?

hated him/wished he were a Leaf

The key to so many of the people on the milder end of the spectrum here, the Josh Donaldsons of the world; if he's your guy, you love him, once he leaves, he's ready for this thread.

xp I loved those late 80s Pistons teams. Laimbeer played the asshole on the court, but I'm not sure that carried over off the court.

Yeah, a lot of ballers are assholes on the court, but for many that's just the nature of the game. Christian Laettner also comes to mind, but off the court he at least stayed out of the newspapers.

Larry Bird was known as a massive trash talker too iirc

Just a casual fan, but I thought Laimbeer (in particular, and the team more generally) was considered to be an actual dirty player, not just trash talk and the like.

yes

If we're considering dirty play to be a consideration, might as well start an NHL-specific thread (Tiger Williams, Claude Lemieux, etc.)

John Stockton has to qualify. All time assist and steal leader by significant margins. One of the dirtiest players from his era. And an anti vaxxer/anti masker who now spends his time writing letters defending January 6 insurrectionists.

Banned from Gonzaga games, where his jersey probably hangs in the rafters.

yeah him and Malone a great piece of shit combo

I think Gordie Howe was considered to be somewhat of a dirty player, but when it comes to on-ice/field/court play, my dividing line--probably not always clear-cut--would be players who set out to physically injure the opponent. In baseball, it's the difference between aggressively pitching inside and throwing at someone's head. And it would be behaviour that happens consistently. Juan Marichal had the famous incident where he clubbed John Roseboro over the head with a bat, but anything you'll ever read about Marichal will tell you that that was completely out of character for him, like a legitimately temporary-insanity event (exacerbated by external events). Even Roseboro forgave him.

Laettner has never lived down stepping on Aminu Timberlake.

Plus, he's a Dukie, which never helps.

hey speaking of dumb assholes!

that's my quarterbaaarghhhhhhhhhh pic.twitter.com/IXmJVFl4GM

— Robert Silverman (@BobSaietta) April 19, 2023

Ndamukong Suh lived down stomping on Aaron Rodgers because, well, Aaron Rodgers.

Lance Armstrong is a God

Always assumed Bird was a dick off the court but he did take that photo at Eugene Debs's childhood home w/ Bill Walton

Oh, how could I forget Lance? He's up there with Cobb, Rose and Jordan.

xp Bird always came across as a dick but he kind of had a resting dick face.

What about resting hick face?

Larry Bird trash talking videos are about 1/2 of the basketball vids on Youtube.

Jordan's HOF speech is next level assholishness, tho

has perpetuated the "coach cut me from the team" myth for several decades now

The airing of grievances

Barry Bonds - domestic abuse

mods pls change thread title to Great American Athletes Who Were Also Total Assholes

Matt Le Tissier

CR7

(and Sergio Ramos, albeit less so on both counts)

Real Madrid FC as a whole haha

LOL snooker players as athletes, Alex Higgins.

It is striking how much the dickheadness of a cricket great hinges on their being English or not, lol. Even the Aussies seem mostly decent in their retirement (Warne was always for example an overgrown child). I guess Imran Khan isn't exactly history's greatest person

― imago, Monday, April 17, 2023 10:21 AM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

lots more English players to add to this list, including anyone who went on a rebel tour to South Africa and of course Kevin Pietersen and Graeme Swann

most rugby players too, definite over-grown school bully vibes to most if not all of them

Graeme Souness.

Pietersen is more of an egotistic doofus than an asshole imo, he's absolutely not the worst. Swann though is a menace

lol rugby

haha yeah that's probably fair to KP, his "save the rhinos" schtick is very funny but also seems to be completely sincere

"most rugby players too, definite over-grown school bully vibes to most if not all of them"

about 10 years ago some of the rugby lads at my local club started putting poisoned food around the pitch to deal with the dog shit problem. Lovely set of lads.

the problem with rugby here is the 'great athletes' part tbf

I dare say Tom has picked the wrong Higgins up there btw

Michael Vaughan and his racist Yorkshire pals

Big Bill Werbeniuk was a true great athlete, you try playing top class snooker after drinking 10 pints

Phil Taylor ahahaha

(is he an asshole? he must be an asshole. must be)

I bet Souness would bring back hanging and corporal punishment in schools

"athletes with politics slightly to the right of Ghengis Khan" would be a thread with a lot of cross-over with this one and would contain the likes of Souness, Botham and Boycott

Paolo Di Canio might be a lovely man if it wasn't for all the fascism

I have a really good cricket one actually: Shakib Al Hasan. Check his charge sheet, it's spectacular

(and he certainly is his country's greatest ever player)

ctrl+f 'Djokovic'

what the absolute fuck everyone ffs haha

name a zillion American domestic sportsmen and ignore maybe the single most blatant, shining, magnificent example of this currently around

Stop this

Funnily enough, the first time I think I ever encountered the expression "to the right of Ghenghis Khan" was in a book by Arthur Ashe, regarding Nikki Pilic, the Yugoslav player whose suspension provoked the ATP boycott of Wimbledon in '73. (Pilic supposedly refused to play a Davis Cup tie, his national association suspended him, the ITF banned him for months; a bunch of his fellow pros withdrew from Wimb in support - which must have been fairly bemusing for Pilic). Nastase, of course, defied the boycott because he was still in the army and therefore under orders from Ceaucescu! Which was likely bollocks. And then he lost early because "he received contradictory orders". So, yeah, those guys. Not Arthur!

I dare say Tom has picked the wrong Higgins up there btw

Nah. Alex was a horrible cunt, violent (though only to women and children), self-pitying and a bigot. You forgot he threatened to have Dennis Taylor shot by Loyalist paramilitaries?

Omg is that what Higgins said to him? In the BBC doc on Higgins Dennis Taylor mentioned how Higgins said something nasty and personal but didn't go any further.

you did not in fact pick the wrong Higgins, although the other isn't exactly a delight

Phil Taylor ahahaha

(is he an asshole? he must be an asshole. must be)

― imago, Thursday, April 20, 2023 10:41 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/1306433.stm

I used to think Alex Higgins was a renegade hero when I was a kid. But he was a truly awful spithead

stupid funking autocorrect

I would like to extend the olive branch of peace to our American posters

Earl Strickland
Bobby Fischer

Again:

Stop this

― Everybody's gonna get what they got coming (gyac), Thursday, 20 April 2023 bookmarkflaglink

ancelotti, del bosque

― oscar bravo,

Surely not Carlo? What did he do?

nothing afaik it was in response to this

A companion thread might be Great Coaches Who Were Not Also Total Assholes.

― henry s, Sunday, April 16, 2023 3:14 PM (four days ago) bookmarkflaglink

ancelotti, del bosque

― oscar bravo, Sunday, April 16, 2023 3:21 PM (four days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Bochy 😊

since it’s the first post in the thread, I feel sort of obligated to defend ty cobb, about whom the current informed consensus is that the racism allegations are mostly fictional or embellished.

Posnanski partially makes that case in The Baseball 100, but he says that some of the attempts to be fairer to Cobb have over-corrected in the other direction and portrayed him as better than he actually was:

Leerhsen and others do not convincingly remove racism from Cobb, but they have brought balance to his story.

The only trouble is: Does anyone even want balance in Ty Cobb’s story?

Does he make any sense to us if he isn’t a monster or a fallen angel? Does he make any sense to us as flesh and blood?

will apologize to Ty asap

name a zillion American domestic sportsmen and ignore maybe the single most blatant, shining, magnificent example of this currently around

Enlighten us, please, that's what we're here for.

I think maybe they are referring to that bass fisherman who breakdances on the boat when he catches a big one?

Mason Greenwood presumably?

I can’t believe a bunch of Americans were naming mostly American athletes. Galling.

eh it was striking that djoker wasn't named in like the first 5 posts but afaik people can post in this thread regardless of nationality so not sure why it's the fault of the usilxors

The fact that the first 500 people mentioned were baseball players (I assume) should have suggested to imago that this was not the thread he imagined it to be.

No need to do a US/UK thing for engagement. Name your guy and go.

To be honest I assumed this thread had been started because of Chris Eubank on Scared Of The Dark.

Don Bradman

(enjoy the commonwealth content, imago)

the first 500 people mentioned were baseball players (I assume)

the third person mentioned in this thread is Michael Jordan, and although he did play baseball for a minute, my guess is that you have heard of him for something other than that

It’s very stupid, sorry for letting the side down for talking about baseball players? Just post your own dickheads and enjoy slagging them off.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/AyCPGfECMAAeIC1.jpg

Daley Thompson (of the joystick wrecking ocean software Daley Thompson's Decathlon fame) wore a homophobic Carl Lewis goading t-shirt to the '84 LA olympics, total arsehole.

Speaking of the Olympics, maybe someone my age can clarify: wasn't Dwight Stones, the American high jumper who held the world record for a while in the '70s, widely disliked for reasons I've forgotten? I found this, but I thought there was more.

At the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montréal, he was a heavy favorite to win the gold medal. Earlier, he finished second at the U.S. Olympic Trials, then had to settle for another Olympic bronze behind Jacek Wszoła and local favorite Greg Joy when his jumping ability was hampered by the competition being struck by heavy rain. A few days later, he raised the world record to 2.32 m (7 ft 7+1⁄2 in) in dry conditions at Franklin Field in Philadelphia.

His participation at the Montreal Games sparked a heated debate: he had allegedly said that he hated French Canadians (Montréal-Matin Newspaper, July 29, 1976, pages 5 and 8) when he criticised the organization of the Games in a media interview. Consequently, Stones was subject to raucous booing and hissing during the competition.

The debate became so inflamed that he decided on a new tee-shirt for the day of the final, the back of the shirt reading "I love French Canadians", which officials asked him to take off. The Americans in the audience responded to the treatment of Stones by booing Claude Ferragne, a French-Canadian jumper, during the event.

(Last Olympics I watched, so maybe this is just very selective memory.)

"Don Bradman"

This is a pretty good shout! I was reading the wiki and Bradman was an arsehole not because of bigoted views, or because he doped or threw games for betting or cheated or beat his wife but because he was really fucking ruthless with the game and would pretty much rule with iron for the "greater good".

I only knew of his astonishing feats as a batsman without going much further till now.

Jeremy Roenick ticks all the boxes as the extensive Controversies section on his Wikipedia page attests to. Possibly most famed for being wildly OP in the video game NHL 93. Last seen trying to sue NBC sports for discrimination as a white male Trump supporter after he was fired for making a bunch of gross sexist comments about his female coworkers on a podcast.

Which Djokovic? Novak? I confess I don't follow tennis closely enough to know. The only tennis player who came to my mind was Boris Becker.

Not sure Boris was a total asshole, tbf.

Sally Gunnell: gold medals at the Olympics, European and pretty much everything else. Tory and a terf.

I never thought it myself but for many people (at least in France), Thierry Henry would belong in this thread.

... a few in Ireland too.

I never hated him for that. Xp what did he do?

Trezeguet was the guy I hated.

le main of frog incident was not good, but Henry is sort of likable. Well, much more likable than Maradona. But at least 90 odd % of footballers are total dicks so it is a low bar

Which Djokovic? Novak? I confess I don't follow tennis closely enough to know. The only tennis player who came to my mind was Boris Becker.

― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Friday, 21 April 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Now look up Court.

Which Djokovic? Novak? I confess I don't follow tennis closely enough to know. The only tennis player who came to my mind was Boris Becker.

― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Friday, 21 April 2023 bookmarkflaglink

No, he only cheated in one game. Rest of time he was a saint.

I never thought it myself but for many people (at least in France), Thierry Henry would belong in this thread.

― AlXTC from Paris, Friday, 21 April 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Sorry the above was about Henry. Paste didn't work

I figured if it were Novak Djokovic it was for his antivax antics, like Aaron Rodgers.

No, he only cheated in one game. Rest of time he was a saint.

I already admitted my ignorance. I guess I'll take y'all's word for it, although I think the Nazi sympathizers, Klan members and domestic abusers may have him beat.

Davor Šuker, Golden Boot winner of France 1998.

In 1996, in the company of two well-known criminals, Šuker posed for a picture at the grave of Croatian fascist dictator and genocide perpetrator, Poglavnik Ante Pavelić.

In 2011, Šuker was fined for stealing antique coins left over by another passenger on an airplane. Instead of reporting his findings and handing the coins in, he decided to give them to his girlfriend, who tried to sell them.

In 2015, Croatian Journalists' Association (HND) accused Šuker of preventing freedom of information and for physically blocking journalists from reporting and doing their work.

I assumed that was sarcasm from xyzzzz__ re Nova, cos his politics are fucking appalling

"Court" is, I assume, Margaret Court, one of the greats of the game and a right-wing Christian fanatic.

Sorry no it was a mistake. I meant to post that about Henry (was referring to his handball against Ireland as the 'cheat'). I don't know why else he would be listed here.

Novak is a cunt.

xp: yes!

If we are gonna bring up Henry for a handball, seems like Luis Suarez's manifold biting incidents and Cristiano Ronaldo's multiple sexual assault allegations warrant mention.

CR7 has been (belatedly) brought up above. He's quite the complete package eh

Ah did not think to ctrl + f his nickname, but yes

We need more female antiheroes itt!

― imago

i'll say it, i'm allowed to

caitlyn jenner

Sharron Davies

having recently finished the australian true-crime podcast series "the teacher's pet," i'll submit former newtown jets superstar/p.e. teacher chris dawson! add his twin brother paul for good measure.