This fall at Manhattanville University, I am launching a new course, an honors seminar entitled THE GOAT DEBATE. For several months, in my spare time, I have been moving things around on the draft syllabus, thinking about conversations that move thematically through sport, art, music, film, literature, television, and, well, humanity writ large. I want students to contemplate the concept of greatness, structure rubrics that lead them to answers, understand just how arbitrary it all can be, and take in the history of the moment that being a goat went from being the person on the field who made a critical mistake, causing a loss -- or worse -- to its current usage: Greatest Of All Time.
The term is most commonly used, of course, in sports, so I fully expect that a good portion of the new course will focus in that direction, with all apologies to Beyoncé, Taylor, the Beatles, Breaking Bad, the Bible, and The Empire Strikes Back. On Sunday, I had a bad moment, thinking that all conversations about who is the GOAT in sport was solved, that we no longer had to talk about Pele or Michael or Mikaela or Simone or Muhammad or Al or Babe (Ruth and Didrikson, mind you) or Serena or Tiger.
It’s Katie. Because on Sunday, Katie Ledecky, 28 years old, broke yet another record, her own, in the women’s 800m freestyle in Fort Lauderdale, swimming the grueling distance in 8:04.12, shaving some six-tenths of a second off her previous record, set in Rio at the Olympic Games in 2016. Was it close? Um, no. She finished almost 20 seconds ahead of second place, and now hold the top ten times ever recorded at this distance.
For well over a decade, Ledecky has competed pretty much with herself, dominating long-distance freestyle swimming like no one ever has. Last summer in Paris, she won four medals -- gold at 800 meters (of course) and 1500 meters in freestyle, a silver in a relay, and a bronze in the 400-meter freestyle, making for 14 total career medals -- the most decorated woman in US Olympic history. But she had not set a world record in a while -- some seven years -- leaving some folks to wonder if retirement might be near. Was she still winning titles? Absolutely. Was she still setting records?
She answered that question definitively on Sunday, leaving the doubters -- and her competitors -- in her water-infused dust, her turns sharper than ever, and her legendary kick on fire. After touching the wall and looking up at the clock, Ledecky smashed both hands down on the water, creating a mighty splash before raising a triumphant fist, the crowd screaming its approval.
But in true Ledecky fashion, ever the icon, ever the ultimate sport, she reveled in own record because it happened on the same day that Gretchen Walsh had become the first woman to swim a sub-55 in the 100-meter butterfly -- 54.60. For Ledecky, that made her own record more special, noting that it was the first time she has set a record alongside another American. “Hats off to Gretchen,” she said, “for getting us rolling this morning and starting a world record party.”
That, I hope my students this fall will learn, is GOAT behavior -- that beyond the mental strength and resilience, the physical power, the dedication and commitment, the discipline, the coachability, the optimism, and the will to win, the GOAT is a good teammate, one who supports others and crows about their achievements as loudly as they do their own. And while my class might not decide that Katie Ledecky is the GOAT, they are certainly going to have to concede that she is a GOAT. As final exam questions go, that one is a no brainer.
Amy Bass is professor of sport studies and chair of the division of social science and communication at Manhattanville University. Bass is the author of ONE GOAL: A COACH, A TEAM, AND THE GAME THAT BROUGHT A DIVDED TOWN TOGETHER, among other titles. In 2012, she won an Emmy for her work with NBC Olympic Sports on the London Olympic Games.
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