re: the Fictitious Athlete Hall of Fame

I was going to send this privately via the form mail, but your site's scripts choked and won't send it.

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I'll try to keep this as polite, but holy crap, that's difficult. I certainly won't be able to keep it short.

Who is/are responsible for the contributing to the "Fictional Athlete" list? That person or people can't be too well versed on popular culture, or is too US-centred and ignorant of what happens outside of his/their own borders.

The arbitary 1970 cutoff rule eliminates one of the best fictional characters and one of the greatest racing movies. James Garner's character Pete Aron was the Formula 1 World Champion in John Frankenheimer's 1966 masterpiece, "Grand Prix". If McQueen's Michael Delaney deserves a mention, then so does Aron.

It wasn't just the character who was a driver, Garner was a fairly good on in his own right, and did his own driving for "Grand Prix" (and later, "The Rockford Files"). He had been an amateur race driver in his early 20s. The movie was made using actual F1 drivers of the time like Phil Hill and Jim Clark, though they were driving Formula 2 cars and not actual F1 cars.

www.bondurant.com/pit-row/news/james-gar...80%93-july-19-2014-0

Why is there no mention of James Caan's Jonathan E. from "Rollerball" (1975)?

Where's "Gumball Rally" (1976) and former Monaco Grand Prix winner, Franco?

Where's 'Danny The Dog' from "Unleashed"? If you're going to count street fighter Tyler Durden as an "athlete", then you've got to count Jet Li's character who wins every fight in the movie, most against much larger opponents with weapons.

Where is Junior Battle from "Coach Carter"? Willie Weathers from "Gridiron Gang"? Heismann candidate Joe Kane from "The Program" (unless I missed that one...)? Jamal Wallace from "Finding Forrester"? "The Slaughter Rule"?

Most importantly where the hell is the cycling team from "Breaking Away" (1979)? That movie predates the US's olympic hockey team's "miracle on ice", yet the story is as improbable, likable, watchable and emotional as the US's gold medal win. Or did you want to avoid mentioning Dennis Quaid a third time?

At least you didn't mention the horrible film "Personal Best", which is the worst sports movie I've seen. Goldie Hawn's "Wildcats" was funny, but not that great a movie, not that great a team, though it's better than some football movies. And every "aerobics" movie ever made is/was utter crap. There are several, "Perfect" being the most well known.

And then there's the US-centric problem. There have been plenty of long running and popular fictional characters and series in many other countries and other languages. I doubt "Victory" wouldn't even have been mentioned if it weren't for Sylvester Stallone and Michael Caine. Here are just a few, there are plenty more.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_of_the_Rovers

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slam_Dunk_(manga)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lance_et_Compte

British comics alone could produce a dozen or more characters and series (e.g. Skid Solo).

www.26pigs.com/index.php

There are several soccer movies from England in the past decade, most worth mentioning or seeing, some not. There's "Goal!" and it's horrible sequel. "A Shot at Glory" features top-level talent like Michael Keaton and Robert Duvall in supporting roles, and horrible lead acting by a former soccer player, Ally McCoist.

The most notable and funny UK soccer movie is "Mean Machine" (2001) featuring Vinnie Jones ("Juggernaut" from "X-Men III", the coach from "She's The Man"). It's a remake of "The Longest Yard", convicts in a British prison playing the other type of football. It's definitely better than Sandler's remake.