Ohio State running back Ezekiel Elliott topped swimmer Katie Ledecky and 5 other athletes to win the 2015 Sullivan Award, which has been given to the United States’ top amateur athlete for the last 85 years.
Elliott was the starting running back for the NCAA National Championship winning Ohio State Buckeyes college football team, rushing for 230 yards in the national semi-final and 246 yards in the national final – both prodigious totals.
Ledecky’s exploits in 2014 are well-known to the swimming community, and included World Records in the 1500 free (twice), the 800 free, and the 400 free (twice).
Swimming has 12 winners of the award all-time, which is second only to running. Football has won the award now 8 times.
The other 5 finalists:
- Shawn Barber, pole vault
- Simone Biles, gymnastics
- Meryl Davis & Charlie White, ice dancing
- Jahlil Okafor, basketball
Past swimming winners:
- 1944, Ann Curtis
- 1964, Don Schollander
- 1968, Debbie Meyer
- 1970, John Kinsella
- 1971, Mark Spitz
- 1975, Tim Shaw
- 1977, John Naber
- 1978, Tracy Caulkins
- 1989, Janet Evans
- 2003, Michael Phelps
- 2006, Jessica Long
- 2012, Missy Franklin
I just don’t see a way Ledecky avoids going pro after or by Rio. It would be a joke (assuming a successful haul at Rio) to have her go run the score up at the NCAA level. Quite frankly any yards records will just be novelties compared with world records.
The only reason for her to compete in NCAA would be if she plans to go against the men
This is further evidence that the sports community doesn’t get swimming. Katie Ledecky smashed world records. She is the best female distance swimmer ever, but since a football player had a couple good games, he wins the award. Katie will have a few more years as an amateur. Hopefully she gets another chance at this award.
Dan – there’s always a challenge comparing team sports with individual sports. It’s easier to quantify the contributions of an individual athlete, because they have one goal: themselves. Ledecky’s goal is to swim a World Record at every meet. A football coach isn’t trying to get his running back maximum yards in every game.
It’s a tricky balance. But, as the article points out, swimming has come out on top many more times than football has in this particular debate.
A few do. Someone at Grantland did a great column on her last year. (Slightly NSFW language)
http://grantland.com/the-triangle/katie-ledecky-athlete-best-swimmer/
I don’t agree with this. Not to say that Ledecky should have won and certainly that 237 avg yards a game in post season isn’t good… but it wasn’t even close to the NCAA records. Just my two cents.
At this rate, Ledecky will go down as one of the most dominant athletes in history. Whether or not she wins any sort of award, we in the swimming community know what greatness we’re witnessing.
Hopefully she’ll win in 2016!
If this had been an Olympic year, no way Ledecky wouldn’t have had this award in the bag. Her 2014 world record haul was on par with Michael’s 2008 gold medal haul in terms of significant events in swim history.
Whoa whoa whoa whoa!
5 Pan-Pacs golds is NOT the same as being the Eight-Time Olympic Champion. Not even close. The only things on par with what Phelps did are Mark Spitz in ’72 and Kristin Otto in ’88, but the latter doesn’t count due to major systematic doping. Nothing else compares really.