Defining ‘Generational Talent’

[steamboat_charlie]

Of course generational talent is overused. When I stuck the label on Brooks I was doing a tongue in cheek NFL equivalency. 
 

In present day national sports media parlance, there’s a generational talent about 10 times per generation. 

[billyhoyle]

For NCAA athletics you could say that a generational talent is one that comes along once every 5 years because that’s the length of a single ncaa athletic generation. 
 

If you want to talk about in terms of the sport as a whole I’d say it’s every 10-20 years. So Gable, Smith, Burroughs. 

[ionel]

6 minutes ago, billyhoyle said:

For NCAA athletics you could say that a generational talent is one that comes along once every 5 years because that’s the length of a single ncaa athletic generation. 
 

If you want to talk about in terms of the sport as a whole I’d say it’s every 10-20 years. So Gable, Smith, Burroughs. 

Generational talent would be on average once every 20+ years.  Example in wrestling would be Uetake then Sanderson. 

[Ragu]

Being a generational talent means you are an athlete that has defined an era. So I believe its possible to have multiple a generation example being Spencer Lee and Gable Steveson

[steamboat_charlie]

8 hours ago, Ragu said:

Being a generational talent means you are an athlete that has defined an era. So I believe its possible to have multiple a generation example being Spencer Lee and Gable Steveson

I think that's fair. 

In team sports there's also the added dynamic of having generational talents by position.  E.g. Mahomes is clearly a generational talent at the quarterback position.  Meanwhile Justin Jefferson is also clearly a generational talent at the wide receiver position, in the same generation.

Lee is a lightweight, Steveson a heavyweight.  I think there's room for them both.  

[Dark Energy]

I disagree.  Goes against what generation means.  Should be more rare.  That said, language is like that.  People misuse words all the time and the meaning is still understood.

‘I literally died laughing!’  

‘Vito freaking murdered that bracket’ - I’ll admit, I get a chuckle when ‘murdered’ is used to describe how dominant a wrestler is vs the field.  Meaning I enjoy it.

 

Edited May 2, 2024 by Dark Energy