SI.com gave their writers a chance to make the case for their picks for Sportsman of the Year. Tim Layden's choice is persuasive:
I submit that a sportsman is someone who plays games for the joy of playing them and nothing more. Not for fame. Not for money. He plays because in the games he finds a primal happiness. I didn't know Pat Tillman well, but I knew him a little and I talked to people about him. By this definition, he was the ultimate sportsman for this or any other year......When the St. Louis Rams offered him a huge raise, he turned it down to stay in Phoenix because it wasn't about the money. When he felt a stirring in his soul to go fight wars, he left football because football was no longer enough. It was just a sport...
...Pat Tillman played football because he loved it with a child's passion. As a kid, he used to climb slender trees in windstorms and sway on the breeze. He played football the same way and when he found something more important, he moved on. That's a sportsman.
(via Pejmanesque)
Posted by dan at November 27, 2004 02:40 PM