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I'm surprised that no one has mentioned John Mackey yet.
Great football player - one of the top 50 NFL pros ever, college lacrosse and football star, incredible high school basketball player and state pole vault champion is , in my mind, right up there in a small group well behind Jim Brown. He's been mentioned.
Jim Brown just outshines everyone. Now, second best Long Island Athlete ever is a different story!
You are all way off... Clearly it's Deer Park's own Rodney Dangerfield. Not one of the aforementioned "athletes" could pull off a Triple Lindy.
I consider this matter closed
In a vacuum, I think Dr.J is probably the most athletic person to come out of Long Island.
I'd say in terms of who is more heralded in their respective sport, Jim Brown is probably the greatest athlete to come out of LI.
Shout outs to UFC Middleweight Champ, Chris Weidman, who is probably the current best athlete on LI, he could go down as one of the GOAT fighters. Two time All-American in wrestling too.
My choice would be Dr. J (Julius Erving). He was inducted in the Nassau County Sports Hall of Fame in 2004 along with Boomer Esiason.
This is not to nitpick but to give you an idea of the type of athlete Jim Brown was, suffice it to say Julius Erving did not break Jim Brown's Long Island basketball scoring record and basketball was Julius' only sport and basketball was Jim Brown's third best sport (after Football and Lacrosse and probably in front of baseball and track/field...then again Jim Brown was nationally ranked in the Decathalon and sniffed by the New York Yankees). Brown did start for two years on the Syracuse hoops team - not a bad squad to make....
Of course Julius Erving was an excellent ballplayer who really blossomed at UMass and even more in the pros and is one of the top 10 pros of all time (IMHO).
Asking for LI's best athlete is sort of like asking who was the best horse in 1973.
FWIW, I've never heard of Jim Brown before this thread.
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