Recap of 2018: The best in sports
As 2018 draws to a close, it’s a great time to reflect on another year full of amazing moments in sports. Some teams and athletes celebrated a championship victory for the first time. Some overcame tremendous odds to make it to the top for the first time. This year even served as a coming out party for some athletes.
Indeed, it’s been an awesome ride and one that personally makes me excited about the year to come. For now, however, I will focus on this year and give you my picks for the best of 2018.
Best team: Philadelphia Eagles
There’s no denying the greatness of teams like the Golden State Warriors, but I like to give credit to teams that people don’t expect to win the big one. After starting quarterback Carson Wentz tore his ACL late in the regular season, very few (if any) people gave the Eagles a shot. However, Nick Foles stepped up and carried Philadelphia to the big game and capped off their amazing run by leading them to an upset victory over the heavily-favored New England Patriots in a Super Bowl thriller.
Best male athlete: LeBron James
I was torn between the King and Russell Westbrook on this one. After all, Westbrook averaged a triple-double for the second straight season, which is unheard of. In the end, however, LeBron won out because he took a mediocre-at-best Cleveland Cavaliers team and carried them to the NBA Finals for the fourth consecutive season. Also, LeBron is perhaps the greatest ambassador in the history of sports. He’s not afraid to take the lead in discussing social issues and he even opened up his own school for underprivileged youths. He’s like Batman in a sense; he’s the hero we don’t deserve but the one we desperately need.
Best female athlete: Chloe Kim
If you don’t watch snow sports, then you’re missing out on a truly special athlete. Kim began her dominant year in January by winning gold in the SuperPipe event at the X Games in Aspen. The following month, she dominated the halfpipe event en route to a gold medal at the Winter Olympics. From there, Kim won the ESPY award for Best Female Athlete. She was even named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2018. The most amazing thing is she’s only a teenager. Also, her tweets about food are the stuff of legend.
Best celebration: Alexander Ovechkin
Up until 2018, Ovechkin’s NHL career with the Washington Capitals was marked by regular-season success and playoff disappointment. So it’s no wonder why he led the celebration of the century after finally leading the Capitals to their first Stanley Cup title in June. Ovechkin and his teammates took Lord Stanley everywhere with them from baseball games to bars. They even took the trophy to a fountain. They even used the trophy to do keg stands. To top it all off, fans actually marked every location where the champs celebrated on Google Maps. Sounds like the best party ever to me.
Best uniforms: Miami Heat’s “Miami Vice” Uniforms
I’ll admit it: I’m a nostalgia freak. I love “Miami Vice” (I can hear Don Johnson’s theme music right now). I was also born in the 1980s. That being said, these uniforms are a nice throwback to a period in American pop culture that may have passed long ago but to this day remains extremely popular. The color combination of pink, light blue, and either white or black (along with the font of the city’s name) make this one of the coolest uniform designs in the history of sports. The Heat even have the floor to match. It’s just too bad neither of the two glows in the dark.
These are just some of the greatest sports memories I will take from 2018. There are many more moments that have made this year so special. If the events of 2018 are any indication, 2019 should be even better. Let’s buckle up and enjoy the ride.
