GOAT WEST COAST LEGEND Scott Bregante started West Coast Pro Wrestling from nothing and it became everything
DECEMBER 2024
The only tanking you need to do. www.goatthemag.com
What If?
Culture Diary The Kitchen (Women’s Sports Section)
Cover Story & Interview
Featured Story
In Remembrance
Real Talk From The Editor Let me be VERY clear. I hate the Celtics. Loathe them. Why? Because I am a Lakers fan. So, there’s that. But some things are bigger than a sports rivalry that I have never and will never play in. The release date of this issue is December 26th. That day is the 60th anniversary of the first time five Black players started an NBA game. The franchise was the Boston Celtics, the players were Bill Russell, KC Jones, Satch Sanders, Sam Jones, and Willie Nauls.
Releasing this issue on this day was an intentional choice because I want this magazine to be in lockstep with great karma involving Black culture and happenings. To think a happening like this preceded other landmark moments for us in sports is pretty damn cool. The Fab Five era in college basketball, Doug Williams starting and winning a Super Bowl, Michael Vick being the first Black quarterback drafted No. 1 overall, and Frank Robinson being the first Black manager in Major League Baseball history are all benefits of that move.
This magazine was a benefit of that day. During the infancy stages of putting this together, research showed that there were NO Black-owned Body sports publications in this country. Maybe I missed some, maybe there are some now, but this exists because I didn’t see myself in any sporting publications outside the athletes covered.
It sucks that in this country, which has been labeled as “equality for all” doesn’t truly mean that. It has always been tough and will continue to be tough for Black people to be seen and treated as equals. Not given preferential treatment but to treated like everyone else. Sometimes we get that with caveats or we just have to make our own.
But it just is what it is and we make the world’s best lemonade from the sour limes that were thrown at us. We did it before and we will always do so. Enjoy this issue that shines lights on the trailblazers in this world. May it inspire you to follow them.
Oh, and shout out to Jack Johnson. Rest in peace champ.
SZN 1, VOL. 4
GOAT THE MAGAZINE
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Andre Brown
Editor-in-Chief
Andre Brown
Creative Director Writers
Andre Brown
Andre Brown Juanita Anderson Jon Ross Alexander
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Photo Credits: Dan Callister, USA Network, Getty Images, ListenNotes.com, Kevin Winter, NBPA.com, BettingPredators.com, Barbican.org.uk, John E. Sokolowski, The Sports Museum, Scott Bregante GOAT The Mag is published six times per year (June, August, October, December, February and April). GOAT The Magazine is a subsidiary of GOAT Media. Any opinions expressed in The Mag are those of the writers and necessarily GOAT Media.
What If...Chyna wrestled in today’s WWE Women’s division?
Women in wrestling have been around for decades. There have been well-known names like The Fabulous Moolah, Wendy Richter, Mae Young, Rockin’ Robin, and Sensational Sherri. As the WWE became the dominant wrestling promotion in the country in the 80s, women became relegated to being “valets” or “managers”, basically as eye candy. And that’s where Miss Elizabeth, Luna Vachon, Sunny, Marlena, and to a certain point, Sable resided. There would be a random women’s match on a pay-per-view event or on Monday Night RAW that would be any combination of Alundra Blayze, Bull Nakano, or Bertha Faye. But any storylines like the men got? Ha! So in the 90s, the role for women was pretty status quo in terms of character AND look. Look sexy, don’t say much, and stay the fuck out of the way. Oh, and pose for the random swimsuit calendars. On February 16, 1997, things changed. During the In Your House: Final Four PPV, a muscular woman appeared out of nowhere, and choked Marlena, manager of Goldust, with one arm until multiple crowd security pulled her off. The crowd was in shock, the viewers (me included) were in shock. Who was this woman? Is she in the corner of Triple H? Is she a new wrestler? She was Chyna (real name: Joanie Laurer), nicknamed the 9th Wonder of the World, and she was no valet or manager. She was a BODYGUARD for Triple H and later for DX. A woman was protecting a man. And when you saw her, you understood why and it was never questioned. At least not openly.
In 1999, Chyna became the only woman to win the Intercontinental Title in the WWE and had a very brief run as the Woman’s Champion in 2000 & 2001 but she left the company just as the title was re-gaining relevancy and legit contenders were coming up.
You look at the WWE Women’s roster now and their recent history and it’s day and night. The Bella twins, Becky Lynch, Rhea Ripley, Sasha Banks, Bayley, Charlotte Flair, Liv Morgan, and the list goes on and on. So with Chyna being the physical specimen she was, what if she wrestled in today’s women’s division in the WWE?
So we’re going to drop Chyna in the WWE Universe in late 2015. At different PPV events and the flagship weekly shows, RAW and Smackdown, Chyna started interfering in every women’s match and mercilessly pummeling whoever was in the ring. Didn’t matter if it was a face or a heel, she was going to work on whoever. And while she was putting a beat down on them, she could be heard yelling, “Divas?! What a joke! We’re women!”
She does this periodically from November 2015 to early March 2016. At WrestleMania 32, a huge announcement is made that the title “Divas” will no longer be used to describe the women’s roster. They will be under the “Superstars” moniker. A new woman’s title debuted sans “divas” on Monday Night RAW with many of the women Superstars in the ring. And then, Chyna’s music hits. She slowly walks out with a smirk on her face staring down each woman in the ring. Grabs the mic and tells everyone, “Finally! A title that I can be proud to wear!” She opens the case and starts to take the title out before being stopped and confronted by Becky Lynch. Then Charlotte, Sasha, and Bayley all made their way to the ring and it started getting spicy. Stephanie McMahon, daughter of CEO Vince, who is in charge of the women’s roster, came out to put a stop to everything. Stephanie announces that there will be a 16-woman tournament to determine the next and new Women’s Champion. She adds some controversy to it when she says that Chyna is the No. 1 seed in the tournament—putting a target on the newcomer’s back. In the 1st round, Chyna breezed through her opponent, Alicia Fox. The quarterfinals had her matched up against Becky Lynch and Beks gave her everything she had but with the referee distracted by a “fan”, Chyna got a good chair shot in and advanced. In the semi-finals, Chyna met Charlotte Flair and won again but not fair and square. The finals were set for Chyna and Sasha Banks and Sasha promised to “be ready” for Chyna’s shenanigans. But she didn’t need to as Chyna won straight up with her “Great Wall” finishing maneuver and became the new Women’s Champion.
In August of the same year, there was a tournament for the Smackdown Women’s Title which Alexa Bliss won. Both champions for each show usually leave each other alone and operate in their own orbit. Chyna had grander plans. In October, in an unprecedented move, she attacked Bliss on Smackdown breaking that unspoken barrier between the two shows and rosters. Chyna stated the following week that she “wants both belts and’ll do whatever she has to to get it.”
There would be feuds in the coming months with Becky, Charlotte, and Sasha but even throughout all of that, Chyna still had her eye on unifying both women’s titles. She thought WrestleMania XXXIII (33 for you non-Roman number knowing people) would get her chance but she just had a Fatal 4-way match for the title with the three aforementioned ladies. She retained but the conversation started about who could legit challenge Chyna for supremacy.
Young contenders would emerge and give it their best shot but Chyna stayed dominant AND undefeated. At Survivor Series, that November, she finally accomplished her personal goal of unifying both the RAW and Smackdown Women’s Titles by defeating Alexa Bliss, after incessant taunting and goading, and becoming the first WWE Superstar in the two show belt era to unify both world titles. 2018 was the year of Chyna as she absolutely dominated the entire women’s roster. It reached prime UFC Ronda Rousey levels of dominance to the point where rumors in wrestling circles started about her ditching the women’s division to find better competition. She even acknowledged the rumors, albeit in a cheeky manner, on Twitter but a historic move never happened. In 2019, a new contender would emerge from nowhere and shake up the world. Bianca Belair was running through NXT and had a fast track to the main roster in WWE. Much like a high school senior spots a freshman and decides to make them miserable, Chyna gave that energy to Bianca from day one. But Bianca wasn’t your typical “freshman” and fought back against the bully. Pinning her in non-title and tag matches and showing no fear against the Unified Women’s Champion in various moments. At SummerSlam 2019, the unthinkable happened. Bianca Belair defeated Chyna and won the Unified Women’s Championship. The years long undefeated streak was no more and the mythical aura that surrounded her had now come down. Chyna would take a break from in-ring competition for about 6 months and explore other career choices like modeling, acting, and the business world. She would make periodic returns to the WWE here and there but her three year dominant run is remembered fondly and boosts her to the WWE Hall of Fame. Unfortunately, the reality is much more sad. In 2001, Chyna left the WWE under contentious circumstances and her life and career choices after that were probably not the best. Even more unfortunate, she passed away in 2016 and never truly got her flowers while she was alive.
Chyna was already a trailblazer and deserves to be a solo inductee into the WWE Hall of Fame. If only she was around on a level playing field, it’s fair to think about what if…
Body
Culture diary feat. ken griffey. jr
What’s good Junior? Now I have to say first, that I am a Dodgers fan. But as far as favorite players, for me, go, you’re in the top two and you’re not two. You were the epitome of cool, swag, aura. You entered The Show in 1989 and to that point, major league baseball had been around for almost a hundred years. But to my knowledge, not a single baseball player ever wore their baseball hat backward as a fashion statement, intentionally. That simple 180-degree turn of a hat made a world of difference. I thought that was the coolest thing I had seen and immediately imitated you. You couldn’t tell 8-year-old me NOTHIN. You also had the play to back it up. That fluid left-handed swing with no wasted effort was poetry in motion. I played baseball, very briefly, and I tried my BEST to bring your swing to the right side of the plate. Spoiler alert: it didn’t work so well. Neither did I trying to play centerfield like you. What did work though was seeing a Black American baseball player during a span where we were declining, presence-wise, in the sport. Yes, there were others and they were good players but bruh, you were great. The Hall of Fame was in your future if you stayed relatively healthy which, you did. Now, we must talk about the shoes because they have aged gracefully. Not too many baseball players had their own shoes in the 90s or really in general. I mean Bo and Deion did but they weren’t full-time. The Air Griffey 1s were elite from their debut in 1996 and are still a force in the sneakerhead community. You had one of the better commercials, even though it's very underrated, in Nike history. You definitely had one of the more iconic baseball moments when you hit the warehouse at Camden Yards during the 1993 Home Run Derby. The only player to do that by the way. There’s a plaque that commemorates that. And before people pretended to be upset at nepotism, you and your pops played in a game together which was dope and y’all hit back-to-back homers as well! In a different game though. You were the epitome of cool in a sport that hasn’t always yielded superstars like that. I appreciate you for your impact on the game and me.
Yep! In my GOAT tee! www.goatthemag.com
Jive On That Level Legendary poet Nikki Giovanni’s impact has hit across all spectrums. Sports are no different.
words by Juanita Anderson
I didn’t want to write this piece, but it begged me to. I intended to write about how a pending Trump presidency could affect women’s sports. I intended to bare all of the things that we can and could do to help combat what’s coming. It will be neither easy nor fun and we will need to be prepared. And I will write about that at some point. But that can wait. And it will wait because Nikki Giovanni is gone. She has left us. She has passed. And if I were to write anything else, I would consider myself a fraud as not just a Black woman, but a Black woman who writes. Funny enough, the words that spring to my mind about Nikki Giovanni were not written by Nikki Giovanni at all, but rather another late, great Black woman poet in Gwendolyn Brooks: We real cool. Nikki Giovanni was the coolest and the coldest. At 28, I launched Make Love Cool. Which is my own personal lifestyle brand, complete with an objective in the name. At 28, Nikki Giovanni was taking James Baldwin to task in two 1971 episodes of Soul! over intersectionality and gender dynamics. Because she, like I, came to understand love as service and sacrifice, as both plan and objective. And she lived her life this way. A fierce protector and uplifter of Black children, a balm and refuge for Black women, and a pillar for Black men to lean on. Her words were always laced with a protection encased in determination, of self, of community. Her words oozed service and deliberate intent. She never wasted a letter. Her words so succinctly colored Blackness with the most vivid pencils. Her words cooked dinner on Sunday, went to work on Monday, and took the kids to practice on Tuesday, and were a good joke from your homegirl on Wednesday, were advice from your uncle on Thursday, and I’m-tryna-get-likeyou from your homeboys on Friday, her words were two-stepping as you clean your room on a Saturday morning. Her words are the post-work blunt you wanted, the encouraging hug from your granny you needed, and the exasperation when you can have neither. Her words live. As we sit in the middle of December of 2024, on the precipice of 2025 and all of the chaos that is sure to ensue, we can at minimum rejoice in knowing we still have Nikki, even though she has left our realm. We can still be inspired and commanded by her work as the world will beg us to do. We can still taste the joy in her work plainly and strongly as the blood of a lost tooth in an eight-year-old mouth. Where pain is but a pinch, emptiness is but a temporary state and growth and maturation are inevitable. Now, living in a post-Nikki Giovanni world, I can’t help but see her everywhere. In December, Caitlin Clark was named TIME’s Athlete of the Year, to which an odd number of people objected but whatever. And in her interview, she talked about how SO many people who claimed to be fans of hers had her, well, fucked up. How praise was due to the Black women the league was built and runs on. How people’s fandom of her is nowhere near enough to disregard them. In the wake of people reacting poorly to Clark’s declarations, Giovanni’s ‘When Gamble & Huff Ruled’ SPRINGS to mind:
“And everybody kept hoping that maybe, just maybe, we would survive racism. And maybe THEY would give it up. And an older world would be safer and more hopeful and somehow younger, than the young world we were living in.” The people who reacted negatively to Caitlin Clark loving her coworkers and colleagues and not being a virulent racist are unfortunately our neighbors, they will demand humanity from you that they never considered for themselves. They will hate you for reacting negatively to their hatred. They will never have a truly coherent thought that aligns with being a good person. I am glad that Caitlin said what she said so these genuinely abhorrent people can fall by the wayside and the women’s game can keep growing and expanding. The sad reality is, that racism is going NOWHERE. Not in sports, not in media, not in life, not anywhere close to anytime soon. And it’s honestly both frustrating and annoying to seemingly have to subject an entire nation of people to relearning hard lessons so seven people can make even MORE money, but this is our path. As time continues its cascade into the future, we don’t have to be stuck in the past. But we will be. As prisoners held against our collective will, however, there will be an opportunity for us to be great in the process and be forward-thinking. I see Nikki Giovanni there. There will be an opportunity for us to protect and uplift our kids. I see Nikki Giovanni there. There will be space for the women’s game to grow despite direct opposition. I see Nikki Giovanni there too. Women’s sports often being fluid and rhythmic give it a poetry that matched well with Nikki Giovanni’s deft of pen. How a mucked-up basketball game matches her blunt worldview. How a high-intensity and frenetic 4x100 relay matches her unwavering faith in the power and dynamism of love and Black women. How much punch, power, and speed are in an ace matches her dedication to speaking the truth both early and often. Watching A’ja Wilson handle everything with poise and grace without compromise, watching Napheesa Collier power through, watching Simone Biles dominate, watching Coco Gauff serve, watching Sha’Carri Richardson run the world, watching, watching, watching, I see. Nikki Giovanni’s unwavering love of Blackness, Black women and Black children especially, helps define us as we know ourselves: Enduring, persistent unflinching, persevering, honest, thorough, and ALWAYS in service. Nikki Giovanni may have left us physically, but her memory and life remain to serve as unyielding reminders that “there is ALWAYS something to do”.
Hella Independent Scott bregante didn’t like what saw in wrestling so he became the change he wanted to see
Words by jon ross alexander
It’s a chilly Saturday evening in 2005. Gold Digger by Kanye West and Jamie Foxx is blaring from your boombox as you read the 4-page letter the love of your life of all of 2 weeks wrote you, saying that she can’t wait to see you in homeroom on Monday. You crack open your copy of Smackdown Vs Raw 2006, load it into your PlayStation 2, and prepare to pull an all-nighter fueled by Mountain Dew Code Red to achieve infamy by becoming WWE [World Wrestling Entertainment] Champion.
You scroll down and see this new game mode – General Manager mode, which allows you to take control of WWE itself so to speak. You decide who wins and who loses, who gets a push into superstardom, and who gets to ride the bench. The power falls into your hands, something that 99% of us will never get to experience in real life.
No one told Scott Bregante this at all. The Millbrae, CA-raised entrepreneur gets to live a video game every day as the founder, booker, and promoter of West Coast Pro Wrestling – an independent wrestling that calls the South Bay Area of California home. Watching wrestling as a kid with his grandfather, he knew that a lot of the early to mid-90s WWF [fomerly World Wrestling Federation, now WWE] product was lacking an ingredient that was missing from the vision of good professional wrestling – violence.
“It was real cartoony,” Bregante said. “I didn’t give a shit about the matches. It wasn’t until I saw New Jack and Spike Dudley in ECW [Extreme Championship Wrestling] coming to the ring with trash cans full of weapons that got me into wrestling.” The wrestling he liked and fell in love with wasn’t to be found on Monday nights in the 90s. As Scott got older, he began tape trading, a practice where people would trade VHS tapes of wrestling shows not aired on American Television like Japanese promotions All Japan Pro Wrestling (the ring canvas that WCP uses is directly inspired by Scott shares) and New Japan Pro Wrestling. Scott cites the realism that ECW and the international promotions produced as a catalyst for how he views wrestling today.
“It was real to me.” Bregante continues. “It’s not to say that I disliked the WWE or anything but when you watch ECW and see Raven and Tommy Dreamer fight 100 fucking times, you knew that they hated each other. I’d watch Japanese wrestling, couldn’t understand the language, and knew who hated who and that to me is the art of wrestling.”
Furthering this disassociation with mainstream professional wrestling was the portrayal of Black performers. Often times cloaked in racist stereotypes of either limited intellect, “funky” dance choreography, or overly militant, it was very clear how the wrestling world viewed its performers – and their identities as a whole.
“I rooted for Farooq! [Also known as Ron Simmons, who became the first-ever Black world heavyweight champion in 1992]”, Scott recalls with excitement. “But back in the day, it either you were super militant or a gangster, and culturally, it pushed me away and I stuck with what I liked.” This only furthered his love for pro wrestling and knew what he had a knack for. Armed with an entrepreneurial spirit and a passion for the business he fell in love with, he began to make inroads around the local pro wrestling scene.
On this journey, Scott was quickly reminded that becoming a pro wrestler wasn’t in the cards for him. He recalls a time when he was breaking into the wrestling industry, he began to train as a wrestler to better understand the business he was entering; when he took a single knife edge chop (imagine a really hard backhand slap to the chest) during “hell week”, his days as a professional wrestler were over right then and there.
“I never wanted to BE a wrestler,” Scott says. “There was never a point in my life where I said ‘This is what I want to do’. “I liked this business aspect of it. I liked the marketing and what makes a good match a good match. That’s what I wanted to do.” But it was all part of the plan of course. As time went on Scott attended more and more local Bay Area wrestling shows when in 2013, he met Will Hobbs, one of the many Black wrestlers in today’s main event scene, who was early in his career. They would talk about Will’s matches and how disillusioned they’ve become with the pro wrestling scene in the region when one day, Will suggested to Scott that he become the change he wanted to see. Change doesn’t come easy of course, especially when you want to enact it in an industry that hasn’t been historically friendly to Black folks. Scott recalls a time when a rival promoter reminded Scott of such harsh truths. “[local Bay Area wrestler and WCP roster member] Alpha Zo, who is Black, had told me that when he was talking to the other promoter about wrestling for my promotion”, he said ‘I didn’t know that they let Blacks run wrestling.’
With attitudes like this running rampant in an industry that Scott says, “is full of people who want to be professionals in an unprofessional setting”, you must operate from the perspective of asking for forgiveness rather than permission, sometimes. “I don’t really give people the opportunity to tell me what to do,” says. “You’re going to like what I’m doing or not but either way, I’m still going to do it.”
The WCP group chillin together
It’s been 6 years since Scott started West Coast Pro Wrestling, affectionately known as WCP and it has grown well beyond he could’ve imagined. He never thought that the promotion would leave Northern California – so much so that the original name was going to be Bay Area Pro Wrestling. Whether he thought so or not, WCP has become the hotbed of top independent wrestling talent to showcase their skills and move on up to the big leagues and in particular, Black and POC superstars. This is evident by turning on your television and tuning into WWE’s Friday Night Smackdown and seeing Jacob Fatu – a member of the famed Samoan wrestling dynasty (and cousin of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) in the main event scene. If WWE isn’t your thing and you prefer its chief rival All Elite Wrestling, you can find Will “Powerhouse” Hobbs – yes that very same one from earlier, as a main event-level talent. Not to mention the countless established stars that stop through WCP such as Lio Rush (WWE/AEW /NJPW), Queen Aminata (AEW), Lee Moriarty (AEW), Bryan Keith (AEW), Chris Bey (Total Nonstop Action Wrestling), Trish Adora (Ring of Honor) and the list goes on.
This is but a sample of the impact that WCP has had not only on the Bay Area or even in California but on pro wrestling in general. But you only get to this point if people believe in your vision and trust you with their career trajectories. “I set a standard and I actually enjoy wrestling,” Bregante says. “When you actually listen to the talent and factor that into the business plan, it’s kind of hard not to be attractive for performers [to come to here]. WCP also has a bevy of homegrown superstars in the making. The promotion’s current (and first ever two time) heavyweight champion Titus Alexander will be moving to Japan to begin his training for one of the country’s largest promotions. Starboy Charlie is in his early 20s and has been on the rise along with Alpha Zo. That only happens when you’re given the support and tools needed to be successful in this industry but also challenged in how far you can push yourself. “Instead of pretending to be a promoter who plays with action figures, you have to remind these people of how talented they are, and if they need to fix something be direct with them.”
As WCP continues, Scott hopes to run weekly shows within California and expand the reach of WCP and its academy (yes, there’s a wrestling school too). “We’ve accomplished in 5-6 years what it took other companies to accomplish in 10 and I’m very proud of that”
Thinking back to our opening analogy: This all seems a lot more complicated than staying up all night hopped up on sodas and teenage angst trying to build the perfect wrestling roster and that’s because it is. We all long for the days of the young, a simpler time in our lives where things are just easier. You didn’t have to worry about booking venues, managing egos, paying wrestlers for their talent. You could just turn the system off and think about the love of your life for the next 3 weeks.
As we know in the real world, the work for the advancement of Black people is never-ending, and for Scott and the barrier-breaking West Coast Pro Wrestling promotion, that is known all too well.
Yep, she’ll steal these too. www.goatthemag.com
Playing God
In a world where players have so much power, they should have a little bit more
There is nothing that a human being loves more than power. In any kind of form on a macro or a micro level, power is something that, even if you don’t aspire to it if you get it, you aren’t letting it go. Because with that power, you hold control and influence. Too much of that power and you get drunk off of it, high off of it, you become intoxicated and start to become irresponsible with it.
That is what sports media has become over time when it comes to voting for postseason awards and the Hall of Fame. This is not all sports media. Some take their responsibility very seriously and vote subjectively year after year. And to those, thank you so much. To those who make their votes personal and some sort of ethical or moral exercise, this article is for you.
The media have always played a strong role in sports. They are the ones who have been the eyes, ears, and voice of the goings on in the sports field, especially in a pre-television and pre-internet world. When newspapers were the main piece of media, you had sports journalists whose perspective and insight the public trusted more than anyone else’s.
They spent quality time with the athletes. They talked with them interviewed them and got to know them on a friendly level at times. Due to the close connection afforded by the athletes, a lot of the pieces by journalists came off as authentic and genuine. This isn’t to paint a perfect image between media and athletes during that time frame because that certainly was not the case but it was cordial at the worst.
As leagues grew and Hall of Fames sprouted up throughout the 20th century, their impact and influence expanded. No longer were they only writing articles on matches, games, performances, and profiles, they were voting on regular season awards, postseason awards, and honors, and who had the most prestigious honor, induction into their sport’s hall of fame.
During that time sports media had more juice than ever. It’s not enough that they held the perception of the athlete in their fingers with articles but now they had the chance to shape or ruin legacies by determining who wins what, who makes what team, and whose stats mean enough to be called a Hall of Famer. And to be honest, I think that’s bullshit.
It isn’t that sports media isn’t educated enough on the respective sport that they cover, they certainly are. They can, however, let personal biases, voter fatigue of a player, or other silly faults that they might find with a player as to why they should not honored or awarded. So who should be the voters? It’s so obvious at this point, the fans!
LeBron, Melo, D-Wade, and CP3 at the 2016 ESPYs Okay, I’m joking, I’m joking. Nah it should be the players themselves. Who better to determine who should be Rookie of the Year, MVP, and up for induction in the Hall of Fame than athletes’ peers? The athletes that compete against the others in their sport and see them play up close and personal should be the ones responsible for who gets the highest honors in the game. You probably said to yourself, or aloud, “There’s no way the players would do that during or after the season. They’ll be tired or not give a damn about voting for anyone!” You might be right but that’s why certain systems would have to be in place so that this could run smoothly. For example, just as every major professional sports team has a union rep, there will be 3 voters per team as chosen by their fellow teammates. So with the NFL having 32 teams, that would equal 96 voting members, with the NBA, MLB, and NHL, with 90 voters, the WNBA with 45, and the NWSL with 42. But still, those aren’t that many votes. So to supplement that, there would be a retired players voting committee for additional votes. The men and women who played the game, who grew the game, who know what it takes to be the very best in the sport and what the very best looks like. That gives the votes more gravitas than it would with sports media voting. You would trust the credentials of the voters. That doesn’t mean that the silly debates about what player got “robbed” would end. Internet trolls would have field days drafting conspiracy theories about how certain players vote for their teammates or friends. Hell, sports media members might do the same thing. There isn’t much one can do about the eternal pessimist.
Super Bowl media day in Arizona Athletes having the final say in who is winning awards and thriving in their leagues can be so damn rewarding. Knowing that your voice matters amps up any person no matter what their voice is being used for. It would be tough, initially, to get buy-in because athletes always feel like they’re being pulled in multiple directions at once; practice, games, personal time, significant other time, being a parent, media responsibilities, and somewhere in there they have to find sleep. Having sports leagues where your peers and contemporaries’ votes matter is crucial. Take a look at the NFL 100 Best Players. That’s a list that the current players vote during every offseason and they name the top 100 players in order. Sure it causes some controversy but that never really hurt anything but some feelings. Obviously, this would not be a perfect system. Rules would have to be put in place such as no voting for your own teammates and alums not voting for players that played for the franchise they predominantly played for. The voting results, numbers-wise, would be public but as far as who voted for who, that would be private for obvious reasons. In high school, the teachers don’t vote in class elections. The government, local and federal, don’t vote for each other, the citizens vote for who they want to see in office. So why shouldn’t the athletes vote for who the best players are when they play against them?! Except for boxing and UFC, they can throw hands to see who’s the best since they do that anyway.
Thirsty??? www.goatthemag.com