The best athletes in sports will gather together Wednesday for the 20th annual sports award show, the ESPYs in Los Angeles.
The gala has seen many memorable moments throughout its first 19 editions, and this year promises to be no different.
The fun part is picking the winners a few days before the show, but the actual event can be boring.
Several times before, I have tried to watch the show, but like most of them including the Oscars, Emmys, and even MTV’s Video Music Awards, I wind up turning the channel.
So, I just check the results the next day either online or in the newspaper.
In the meantime, I do have fun checking out the nominees and making my own selections even if most of them are wrong. Here goes nothing.
Let’s start with the best male and female athlete category.
Both choices were very tough because anyone of the candidates could take this award.
I went with tennis star Novak Djokovic, who won three Grand Slam events last year, and Baylor women’s basketball star Brittney Griner, who cleaned up all of the NCAA postseason awards and help lead her team to a perfect 40-0 record and a national championship.
For the next category, Best Championship Performance, you have heard the old saying, “defense wins championships,” and this pick lives up to that.
Los Angeles Kings goaltender Jonathan Quick helped the team win its first Stanley Cup title in 2012. Quick took the No. 8 seeded team all the way to the title with his play in net, giving up an average of 1.41 goals during the postseason.
The Kings are also my choice for Team of the Year.
Baylor is once again represented in two more categories, Best Breakthrough Athlete and Coach of the Year.
Bear quarterback Robert Griffin III had a season to remember, which concluded with a Heisman Trophy. His team may not have won the national championship, but another on campus did, the women’s basketball team.
As mentioned before, Griner led the Lady Bears to the title, but it was not without the leadership of head coach Kim Mulkey.
Speaking of great college basketball coaches, Duke University’s men’s head coach Mike Krzyzewski is my pick to win Best Record-Breaking Performance, as he passed his mentor Bob Knight for most wins in men’s Division I history this past season.
The Blue Devils season came to an end in upsetting fashion with a loss in the first round of the NCAA tournament to No. 15 seed Lehigh. That win is my choice for Best Upset.
As a long-time Texas Rangers fan, it was terrible that the team was one strike away from winning its first ever World Series title during Game Six of this year’s series against the St. Louis Cardinals.
The Cardinals found a way to stay alive, not once but twice when it was down to its last strike.
By now, you know how it ended with a David Freese home run to win the game. Eventually, the Rangers fell in seven games. Game Six goes down as my choice for Game of the Year.
The best part of the 2011 MLB baseball season was the final day of the season.
The highlight of that magical night was the Tampa Bay Rays coming back from a 7-0 deficit to beat the New York Yankees and qualify for the postseason.
What makes this achievement even amazing was the Rays were nine games back when the calendar changed to September. The night as a whole wins the award for Best Moment.
The last one I’m going to pick is the Comeback of the Year.
This is one of my favorite categories to select because there is that special feeling when you see a star who has fallen on hard times make a return to glory.
My choice is female tennis star, Maria Sharapova, who is back as the No. 1 ranked player in the world for the first time since 2008. Also, she won her first Grand Slam title, the French Open, since that same year a few weeks ago.
With that said, I hope the 20th anniversary of the event will finally bring out a show worth watching. |
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