Why Does There Have a To Be a GOAT?
“At the end of the day your GOAT changes how you see the world and how you take action. They made it, they already had their time and their moments. Now use what you learned from your GOAT, because now, it’s your turn.”
Sports have always been entertaining, some people might like soccer, some people like football or basketball, or maybe even swimming. Or maybe you just don’t like sports and that is okay. But people overall always have a “GOAT” in the sport they like. In Basketball, people would say Lebron, MJ, or Kobe Bryant. Soccer is Messi or Ronaldo. Football is Tom Brady or Mahomes. I can keep going. You get the point by now.
However, my main question is, Why does there have to be a GOAT?
What I personally think is that everyone’s achievements and accolades might be way different than others. But at the end of the day they all made an equal impact to the teams and organizations that they have played for. Some might’ve won MVP’s or maybe even trophies for their teams that those teams might have never gotten before. But still I don’t get why there are “GOATS.” If that's the case then there would be more than 500 goats, because there are so many athletes that have done crazy things for their sports.
I gathered a group of students who have passion for certain sports to talk about their own personal GOATs. They all gave me completely different answers, even answers like Patrick Mahomes and Dirk Nowitzki that caught me completely off guard. I interviewed Senior Mahamadou Fofana and he told me how his goat was Michael Jordan. He then said “6 rings is more than 4, and he played fewer years than Lebron.C'mon man there shouldn't even be an argument.”
I then asked him the question I asked everyone: why are there GOATs?
Fofana stated “I feel like people just want a topic to debate about.”
This actually makes sense, because as you will see, out of five people, not a single person said the same “GOAT” twice. This means that everyone has different opinions when it comes to this topic.
In my interview with 12th grader Marlon Cruz-Estevez, Cruz-Estevez said how his goat is “Lebron James.” He said “ It’s kinda what every goat has and that’s leadership for every team he arrived at he was to prove that he was a good leader.” Leadership is a big part for players in general. If you know how to lead a team to success then automatically you're seen as a legend for the team you played for. He then proceeds to talk about what makes people goats. “Because they have essential human qualities in life like resilience, consistency , excellence , character longevity they have all these qualities to become too great, and that’s why some human beings are considered goats.“ This was an overall fact to me because everyone talks about awards and stats, but Marlon talked about the personality and the mentality the player has. He even brought up human qualities about the players. It’s like the SCORE values we have here in Comp Sci High. He basically brought up how the player is overall tough and strong in the head to keep going and to become better.
Next person up is a soccer head, the 11th grader Jeremy Ortiz. He talked about his GOAT is “Cristiano Ronaldo”. At first he started bringing up how “He is the top goal scorer in the world, won multiple ballon d'or, and won multiple trophies.” The casual answer that everybody brings up to a great player. What really caught my eye was when he said “I think the goat has to deal with mannerism with how they are on the field and and off of it, People tend to create a perfect player in their mind – what a perfect person would look like or sometimes they just have someone to look up to”.
Wow. He’s right not only do you have to be good at the sport you play, but you have to know how to act now that multiple people love you. You gotta know how to talk and act to the media. If you're a fantastic player but act like a straight dickhead then no one would really want to look up to you. People have GOATs to look up to and if you want a rude GOAT, then you will be shaped into the person you are not supposed to be shape into. But overall Jeremy’s statement is valid because overall you gotta act right.
Jay Castro told me how his GOAT is Patrick Mahomes. He said: “he got drafted recently and already changed the game, not only he won back to back but he is about to three peat cause he is a field general ,and has good communication skills, Mahomes just does it better.” When he said that I knew It was gonna be controversial, and then he got to the juicy stuff, “to have a goat is to mean to have someone to look up to, to learn how to play and to learn by them overall.People would have a goat because they have someone to look up to because that person changed the game more than anyone else who ever changed the game which makes them the goat.”
When I was hearing these sentences come out of his mouth, I thought how that makes sense – people love a role model and why not have a role model that changed the sport overall? Why not get inspired by someone that you consider the best of the best?
He also said something that really got my attention. He said how overall these athletes created trends since they changed the game. He then said “when you shoot a paper ball into the trash can what do you say?” I instantly said, Kobe, because that is so popular and cultural throughout the world due to the basketball player Kobe Bryant being a scoring machine. When he said that, it made me realize that these athletes changed the way we view specific objects around us.
Zyaire Dowe then told me how his goat is “Dirk because he was a power forward that can play all positions.” That was one of the most unexpected answers I have ever heard throughout this whole process, but then again everyone is different. “It can be anything like it can be a chef, it can be anything you like and a person you like up to. “It doesn't have to be like competition” It can just be a person you like. This is what he told me and that expands the whole question. Like he said, it doesn't have to be a competition, it can be a person you like in general that makes you look up to them. What got me was when he said it can be chef, it can be anyone and that is true because it doesn’t have to be an athlete. If you like painting then you might look up to someone like Bob Ross or Frida Kahlo. If you like cooking then you might look up to Gordan Ramsey or Anthony Bourdain. Or in life, GOATs can be someone around you – your mom, dad, brother, or whoever inspires you in general.
Yeah, we all have different GOATs, but we can all agree that this is a personal preference. This is someone who you think is overall a great person, a great player and a great leader. At the end of the day your GOAT changes how you see the world and how you take action. They made it, they already had their time and their moments. Now use what you learned from your GOAT, because now, it’s your turn.