As the seasons for many sports are drawing to their respective closes, it doesn’t take much to realize how much we as fans have been treated this year to the performances of a lifetime.
We’ve seen it all this year: Miracle comebacks that defy the odds, records broken, teams on a roll slicing through the competition like a hot knife through butter. It’s the hall of fame performances like these that solidify an athlete as a demi-god of sorts. All the things that embody what we love about sports have materialized into a spectacle for the ages.
Whether it was Adrian Peterson’s remarkable comeback season, rushing for 2,097 yards (nine yards shy of the all-time NFL record). Keep in mind that this was a mere eight months after devastating ACL and MCL tears in which many critics and pundits were skeptical of his ability to even play a full season.
Whether it was Lebron James and the Miami Heat catching fire on a 27-game win streak, six games shy of the mark the legendary Los Angeles Lakers have held for 42 years.
Whether it was Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins making history in a lockout-shortened NHL season, winning every game in the month of March and continuing the streak into April, leaving the 2012 Pittsburgh Penguins’ streak second only to their 1992 counterparts led by the great Mario Lemieux.
Whether it was seeing Michael Phelps compete in his last-ever Olympic games, still finishing as the most successful swimmer of the meet with four gold and two silver medals, and leaving as the most decorated Olympian of all time.
The list goes on and on.
We as sports fans have been treated to some of the best performances of all time that transcend the mundane performances that will be forever etched into the history books and remembered as the work of legends.
It’s not a long shot to say that year-in and year-out, we are given something jaw-dropping and breathtaking in sports that all we can say is “wow!” However, years like these, where the sports world as a collective offers up their best for the world to see, are once in a lifetime.
