Today, Two of History's Greatest Athletes Share a Birthday

Michael Jordan tops most "GOAT" lists.(Kip-koech/Flickr)

Jordan & Jim Brown, arguably the greatest in their respective sports, share a birthday

New York — What are the chances the greatest basketball and football player share a birthday?

Sure, most Millennials consider Tom Brady the "GOAT" in football, but the NFL stats tell another story.

"Brady's the greatest quarterback," Uncle Reggie loves to say, "but the greatest football player is Jim Brown. Period." He went on to explain how Brady's success requires offensive line protection, sure-handed receivers, etc.

"Brown was Superman!" he said. "They gave him the football and he ran over or around everyone."

Jordan and Brown both have New York connections. Jordan was born in Brooklyn and Brown starred at Syracuse University.

As for noted sports' birthdays, the theme ends not there.

Muhammad Ali is considered the greatest boxer ever. As for boxing trainers, Cus D'Amato is the greatest. After all, D'Amato trained the youngest heavyweight champion in history (Floyd Patterson).

Thirty years later, D'Amato met a tough street kid from Brooklyn, named Mike Tyson, and trained him to break Patterson's record.

Chew on this: Ali and D'Amato were born on the same day.

Some say LeBron James is the GOAT in basketball.

Some say Tiger Woods is the GOAT in golf.

Whatever the case, history's two greatest sports prodigies were born on the same day.

Because mathematics is the language of the universe and mathematics is defined as "the science of patterns," unsurprisingly two of history's greatest athletes were born today.

In short, as I wrote in a recent article:

When individuals are born on the same day, sometimes — their destinies and destinations mirror each other’s, even occasionally overlapping.

(Note: destiny and destination come from the same Latin root destinare — ‘make firm, establish.’)