Over the last century in the sporting world, the world that seems to exist aside from the real world, there have been many athletes to transcend sports.

Starting in the first quarter of the century, you had the Native American named Jim Thorpe who was that day’s version of Deion Sanders, only more talented and probably less of a jerk.

He was a baseball/football/track star that was as gifted as you’ll ever see. Then you had George Herman Ruth, a.k.a. “the Babe,” who would be a dominating pitcher for the Boston Red Sox before making a career move to outfield and hitting 714 home runs and establishing records that may not ever be broken.

Around the middle part of the century, you had Muhammad Ali, who could kick anyone’s ass in the ring with the “sting of a bee.”

He was perhaps the greatest boxer of all time, but I’m sure Joe Frazier would have something to say about that, as the three Ali-Frazier fights would indicate. Frazier had to dethrone Cassius at some point.

Then there was Michael Jordan, the all-world pro basketball player who became a household name like Coca-Cola, or heaven forbid, apple pie.

Many could claim that Michael was the only athlete to thoroughly transcend his sport, but I agree only a teensy-weensy bit. One other person comes to mind: Wayne Gretzky.

What can you say about Gretz? This guy, the scrawny hockey player from Ontario, Canada, set 61 National Hockey League records while winning the Stanley Cup four times with the Edmonton Oilers in the 1980s.

Despite all his great accomplishments on the ice, the Great One was the guy you’d want your daughter to date. The guy was overly nice, never seemed to bicker with anyone and let his play show people up rather than trash-talking his way to stardom.

What Gretzky did for hockey will probably never be duplicated by any professional athlete. Upon his trade to the Los Angeles Kings in 1988, hockey was a sport that “those Canadians” played but not something that could grow in the United States.

True, there were a few teams in the NHL, but only in major metropolitan areas. Three years after Gretzky’s arrival in L.A., another California team emerged in the San Jose Sharks.

In 1992, the Tampa Bay Lightning was born and a year later the Anaheim Mighty Ducks and Florida Panthers began play. Do you notice a trend here?

If not, how about the Minnesota North Stars relocating to Dallas after the 1992-93 season? If you still don’t get it, I’ll be nice enough to tell you.

Gretzky took the game into warmer climates, and allowed that thing called roller-blading to catch on as an alternative to those who can’t ice skate for squat.

Michael sure didn’t do that. For all the things he did well, he didn’t move half a dozen teams to glitz and glamor parts of the country where the game was allowed to become a fashionable trend.

The NHL is thinking about putting Gretzky in the Hall of Fame almost immediately, without him waiting the mandatory seven years to get in.

To not put him in now would be bordering on criminality. Besides, Mario Lemieux got in immediately and he wasn’t as good as Gretzky. Only nine people have entered shortly after retirement, and Gretzky could be next.

If he doesn’t, it’s like saying Brett Noble knows nothing about WWF or Jack Haley (that’s not a slam, my friend)!

Gretzky’s on-the-ice accomplishments are second to none. The holder of 61 NHL records, of which over half probably won’t be broken for quite some time (if ever), let his shiny aluminum hockey stick do the work by enhancing his teammates’ skills as well as his own.

Gretzky had only one play, the pass to the front of the net from behind it, but it may be the most used play in hockey, and no one did it better than Gretz.

The records that stand out are the ones that make your eyes pop out of your head. In 1981-82, he scored 50 goals in the first 39 games of the season en route to a record 92 goals for the season.

He got the last five of those 50 in one game! For his career he amassed 382 playoff points. He scored over 200 points in a season four times, and folks, when you are playing 80 games per season, that’s an average of almost three points per game!

He scored 894 (or somewhere in there) goals in his NHL career, which spanned 19 seasons to easily surpass Gordie Howe’s 801, which took 26 seasons to get (though Howe played about half as many games per season).

With over 1,900 assists, he has more of those than any other player has points! There are certainly more records, all of which are significant, but there are too many to count.

As mentioned before, Gretzky was the consummate gentleman. With the press, when he was making the decision to retire, he actually asked reporters if they had anymore questions for him.

Also, in his final game he gave each player from both teams one of his hockey sticks (50 in all) to keep. What a guy!

Who could forget the standing ovations (and the song “Nobody Does It Better” by Carly Simon, to which I probably know by heart now) after the games in Ottawa (when he played his final game in Canada), and in Madison Square Garden after the overtime loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins in which he went out in style by getting an assist?

The sell-out crowds finally recognized and appreciated what the Great One meant to hockey on this continent.

The league, like major league baseball did with Jackie Robinson, said number 99 will never be worn again.

Also, I’m sure Gretzky has sent enough memorabilia to the Hockey Hall of Fame to fill up an entire wing by himself.

Despite all of Wayne’s “greatness,” it was time for him to hang up the skates.

His productivity was still high-quality, but he was playing on average teams with the Rangers that were long-shots to win the Cup.

His retirement was something that people anticipated for a couple of years.

It would’ve been nice if he could’ve taken one last run at the Stanley Cup with a good team (not the New York Rangers), but he left the game as a champion in every facet of the game.

For this, I salute the Great Gretzky, the athlete who has meant more to his sport than any other athlete this century.

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Chad Drury is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Marshalltown.