Megan Rapinoe isn’t Completely Wrong. Sue Bird is Awesome.

Being supportive of a loved one isn’t a crime. In fact, it’s something to be celebrated. That’s certainly true of soccer star Megan Rapinoe being enthusiastically in the corner of her fiancée, Sue Bird, as the WNBA legend’s jersey was recently retired in Seattle.

Rapinoe may have taken her support a step too far, though. In her overzealous speech, she declared Bird to have had the greatest career in sports of all time. And not surprisingly, it has rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, particularly fans of other high-achieving athletes. These people may need to take a step back and look at the context.

The Legend of Sue Bird

First and foremost, let’s just get this out of the way. Sue Bird, who is not related to NBA icon Larry Bird, is easily one of the greatest basketball players of all time. That goes for both the NBA and the WNBA as well as around the world. Don’t believe me? Here’s short list of her accomplishments.

• Four time WNBA champion;
• 13 time WNBA All-Star;
• Five time Russian National League champion;
• Five time EuroLeague champion;
• Two time NCAA champion;
• USA Basketball Female Athlete of the Year;
• Five Olympic Gold Medals in Women’s Basketball;
• Four FIBA Basketball World Cup Gold Medals;
• And a list of personal awards and honors almost too long to mention.

Yeah. She’s good at what she does. And she played her entire 20-year WNBA career with the Seattle Storm, winning all four championships there. It makes sense that the organization would retire her jersey. She deserves an honor like that as much as Larry Bird did in Boston back in 1993.

I suddenly feel very, very old.

There’s no denying the high caliber of athlete we’re talking about here. And if anyone knows that, it’s Megan Rapinoe. She is a world class soccer player and has a list of accomplishments, accolades, and awards as long as my arm. That’s only impressive if you know how tall I am. And I am tall.

Keeping in mind that they have been engaged since 2020, Rapinoe is in an excellent position to be a judge of Bird’s career and it’s impact. And, as an aside, I didn’t actually know they were engaged until writing this. Something about two world-class athletes being in love makes me very happy. I may start shipping Shaq and Chuck.

But the insane accomplishments of Sue Bird’s long, successful career are not up for debate. The problem was her fiancée’s assertations of Bird basically being better than anyone else in sports that doesn’t quite sit well with a lot of sports fans.

Any Sport Ever?

At a recent event at Climate Pledge Arena, Sue Bird’s jersey was retired as part of a three-hour ceremony in front of a massive Seattle Storm crowd. It was a well-deserved moment to cap off what was possibly the greatest career of any female basketball player.

During a speech honoring her fiancée, Rapinoe congratulated Bird on having, “arguably the best career that anyone has ever had in the history of any sport, ever.”

Now, Rapinoe was not declaring that Bird is the greatest athlete of all time. That’s an important distinction. But making such a broad statement is bold to say the least. Had she said women’s basketball and/or the WNBA, there definitely would have been an argument to be made. But in the history of any sport ever? That’s a much harder position to defend.

Even just talking basketball, Michael Jordan had a far more illustrious career than Sue Bird did. His list of awards and accomplishments is immense. Jordan’s career was so influential and impactful that the NBA is still struggling to reckon with it fully.

And he’s not the only one. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Russell, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Wilt Chamberlain, Allen Iverson, and so many more have had hugely successful basketball careers. What about Larry Bird? That man was an absolute beast, as well.

That’s just basketball. What about players in other sports like Tiger Woods, Wayne Gretzky, Roger Federer, and Muhammad Ali? Even worse, Rapinoe’s comments don’t even take into account other amazing female athletes.

Take a look at Venus Williams’ list of accomplishments. She has won 49 singles titles and 22 doubles titles in her career. Then there’s her sister, Serena, who has 73 singles titles and 23 doubles titles. On top of that, they each have four Olympic Gold Medals.

Speaking of the Olympics, let’s talk about Simone Biles. She has seven Olympic medals, four of them being gold. Between the Olympics, the World Championships, and the Pacific Rim Championships, Biles has a total of 34 medals, 25 of which are gold.

How about Lindsey Vonn, one of the greatest alpine ski racers of all time? She’s got a trophy case full of medals from the Olympics and World Championships. But at the World Cup, she’s made the podium 137 times across six different events. In case you’re wondering, she came in first 82 times, which is more than her second and third placements combined.

These are the kind of arguments people have been making since the speech, and they’re not wrong. It’s all more than a little reminiscent of kind of arguments that come up online anyone argues about who the GOAT is in any sport. But there are other angles to look at this from, some of which are much nicer.

All Anyone is Talking About

Does Megan Rapinoe actually think that Sue Bird has had the best career in any sport ever? It’s really hard to say. This is someone who isn’t afraid to have bold opinions and speak her mind. I have long respected that about Rapinoe, and hope she never changes.

Additionally, this would have been an emotional night for her. The woman she loves and plans to marry is receiving one of the greatest honors of her life. It was the culmination of decades of hard work on Sue Bird’s part in building her career. Frankly, it’s easy to understand why Rapinoe may have gotten a little overzealous in her comments and busted out the hyperbole.

Does Sue Bird have a better career than the Williams sisters, Simone Biles, or Lindsey Vonn? No. Do they have better careers than Bird? No. They all have great careers and have done incredibly well for themselves. Rapinoe just got a bit carried away celebrating one of the greats. That’s easy to understand.

At the same time, it’s kind of unfortunate. Her comments have overshadowed the importance of the evening, leaving the media to dissect what she said instead of celebrating Sue Bird’s accomplishments.

But the other side of that is the media tends to overlook a lot of women’s sports, particularly the WNBA. It lives in the shadow of the NBA and too many great WNBA players don’t get the attention they deserve. Before she got locked up in Russia, how many people knew who Brittney Griner was? Before Rapinoe made her bold comments, how many people knew the name Sue Bird?

While Rapinoe’s comments may have stolen some focus, they also may have brought a bigger media spotlight to Sue Bird, her career, and the WNBA as a whole. It’s unlikely Bird’s jersey retirement would have gotten the same kind of attention from the media without Rapinoe saying what she did. And that’s too bad.

People need to stop worrying about what Rapinoe said and focus on what Sue Bird did. She may be the greatest player in the history of the WNBA and possibly the greatest women’s basketball player of all time. There are easy arguments to be made for both those claims.

The reality is that Sue Bird deserves every ounce of pomp and circumstance she got from Seattle, not to mention the kind words she got from Rapinoe. Whether Megan meant her comments literally or not is irrelevant. They came from a place of love and support, and that’s a beautiful thing.