Ep 100: The top 100 athletes in the history of Iowa- Part 1
Lists. Grocery lists. To-do lists. Honey-do lists. Pros and cons lists. Bucket lists. Everyone loves a good list. But the moment you add numbers to a list it becomes something else. It becomes a debate.
This week, episode 100 of the Moonlight Graham Show takes us into the fray. Making something like an All-Star or All American team in one sport after a season is tough. Looking at one university or organization and trying to make an all-decade or all-time list is a challenge because you have to compare players across eras. But when you add the word ‘athlete’ to the all-time great conversation, you have to compare across sports, eras, and gender.
We present to you our list of the 100 greatest athletes in Iowa history. This list spans roughly 140 years of Iowa history and includes everything from Olympic gold medalists, world record holders, to halls of fame.
Iowa has a rich sports history. Newspapers like The Des Moines Register and organizations like the Iowa Hall of Pride are great resources for many of these tales, but our research took us to sources like the National Wrestling Hall of Fame, player biographies, sports reference sites, and just about every corner of the internet. The first thing our research revealed was that Iowa has a lot to celebrate. There were just too many great stories to fit into one episode so episode 100 will come to you in 5 parts.
This week we will release our list of the 100 greatest athletes in Iowa history twenty entries at a time. Be sure to tune in each day to find out who made the list and where. We want to hear your thoughts about what we got right and what needs to be changed. Be sure to weigh in on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.