Sports' Forgotten Heroes

Pete Sampras is not, necessarily, a name that most tennis fans think about when discussing the greatest to ever play. However, upon closer examination, especially when it comes to the greatest American men to ever play, not only should Sampras be considered, statistically speaking, he should be considered the best to ever play. Period. While Jimmy Connors won the most singles tournaments in the history of the game, Sampras’s 14 Grand Slam championships are a phenomenal number. At the time he won his 14th, no other male player in the history of the game had won that many. The problem Sampras has is that his reign as the man who had won more Grand Slam championships than anyone else in history was short-lived. While it took him 13 years to win them all, beginning with his improbable win over Andre Agassi in the championship match of the 1990 U.S. Open and ended with his win in the 2002 U.S. Open over Agassi once again, it didn’t take the amazing trio of Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal to surpass