Who is the only person to have won an Olympic gold medal and a Grammy Award?
As the wealth of novelty numbers and misguided pop detours attest to, there’s always been a dubious overlap of sports and music.
Ever seen Glenn Hoddle and Chris Waddle’s stiff, uncomfortable dancing on Top of the Pops for their earnest ‘Diamond Lights’ single? Perhaps you blocked out Kevin Keegan’s drippy ‘Head over Heels in Love’ ballad. And, while faring a little better in New Order’s ‘World in Motion’, famed midfielder John Barnes’ clunky flow on 1988’s ‘Anfield Rap’ rattles around Liverpool FC’s skeleton closet as the tacky hip-hop disaster it is.
Granted, we’re dwelling in UK football territory here, but music and sport’s clash fares little better across the Atlantic, from boxer Manny Pacquiao’s po-faced cover of ‘Sometimes When We Touch’ to former track and field athlete Olympic gold medalist Carl Lewis’ soggy synth-funk flop ‘Break It Up’ which very much did not win a Grammy.
The only real success that doesn’t have a whiff of novelty is Six-time World Snooker Champion Steve Davis, who jumped into a fairly acclaimed second career as an electronic musician and DJ. Still, it’s slim pickings for any sports star’s entry to the Recording Academy’s consideration. Regarding an actual music release, it’s only sextuple boxing champion Oscar De La Hoya who got close, nominated for ‘Best Latin Pop Album’ at the 2001 Grammys for his eponymous debut album, Shakira walking away with the gong instead for Shakira: MTV Unplugged.
Nearly 40 years earlier, Muhammad Ali found himself nominated for ‘Best Comedy Album’. Back when he was still Cassius Clay, the trash-talking boxer geared himself for his World Heavyweight Championship fight with the incumbent title holder Sonny Liston with 1963’s I Am the Greatest LP, full of skits centred on Clay’s colourful braggadocio. It wouldn’t win, the prize handed to Allan Sherman’s My Son, the Nut instead, but Clay’s lyrical punch and rollercoaster monologues would sow the seeds for rap awaiting around the corner.
So, who is the only Olympic gold medalist to have won a Grammy?
Despite enjoying the prime of his NBA career as far back as 1979, Los Angeles Lakers legend Magic Johnson was still able to wow the basketball world even into the 1990s – Johnson wound up co-captaining the so-called ‘Dream Team’ for the 1992 Summer Olympics, joining some of the biggest stars of the day over to Barcelona for the United States Men’s Olympic Basketball Team’s domination.
Helped by Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, and Charles Barkley, the ‘Dream Team’ won Gold with an 8-0 record with Johnson averaging 8.0 points, with the Lakers star receiving significant ovations due to his recent announcements of a HIV diagnosis.
Such private battles would lead to his Grammy Award. In efforts to educate on the topic of HIV/AIDS awareness, as well as fight the virus’s stigma, Johnson decided to release an audio version of his What You Can Do to Avoid AIDS information book.
For the first and only time for any Olympic Gold winner, he won, taking the Grammy for ‘Best Spoken Word or Non-Musical Album’ in 1993 amid the era’s ‘Magic Effect’ that saw more heterosexual men take tests and a broader cultural shift away from the homophobia of prior years.
