Serena Williams was named the Sports Illustrated Sportsman (or Sportsperson) of the year.
It is still an honor—even if the sports media landscape is much more crowded now than it was when the magazine and the award were created.
Of course, because of a plurality of opinions and opinion makers, there are no shortage of HOT and lukewarm takes available on this topic.
Let us leave aside the concept of a "Horse" winning Sportsman of the year for a second. Yes, the horse accomplished something that literally had not been accomplished in my lifetime before this year. However:
1) Even the horse that many would regard as the greatest of all time, Secretariat, didn't win the award the year he won the Triple Crown, and;
2) It's a horse
With that being said, I wanted to focus on a particular aspect of the coverage surrounding Serena.
It has to do with what some people thought of the cover photo.
It's here, at the top of this piece, in part because there is absolutely nothing wrong with it.
