Serena Williams Named Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of Year

Eschewing an online poll that favored Triple Crown winner American Pharoah as Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year for 2015, editors of the magazine went with tennis star Serena Williams.

The award, now called Sportsperson of the Year, is presented to the person, or the horse in the case of Zayat Stables' American Pharoah, who "embodied the spirit of sportsmanship and achievement."

Sports Illustrated said American Pharoah, the first Triple Crown champion since 1978, won 47% of the online readers' vote when the poll closed the evening of Dec. 12. The Kansas City Royals, winners of the 2015 World Series, came in second with 29% of the vote, while Lionel Messi finished third with 6% of the vote. American Pharoah also beat out Stephen Curry (4%), Jordan Spieth (3%), Simone Biles (2%), and Carli Lloyd (2%).

However, when the winner was announced Dec. 14 on SI.com and the Today show, the magazine said Williams was selected for a number of reasons, not just for her athleticism.

"Sports Illustrated honors her dominance in 2015, when she won 53 of her 56 matches, three of the four Grand Slam events, and built the most yawning ranking points gap between her and her closest competitor in tennis history," managing editor Christian Stone wrote on SI.com. "We honor her, too, for a career of excellence, her stranglehold on the game's No. 1 ranking and her 21 Grand Slam titles, a total that has her on the brink of Steffi Graf's Open Era Slam record, which Williams will likely eclipse by mid-summer.

"But we are honoring Serena Williams too for reasons that hang in the grayer, less comfortable ether, where issues such as race and femininity collide with the games. Race was used as a cudgel against Williams at Indian Wells in 2001, and she returned the blow with a 14-year self-exile from the tournament. She returned to Indian Wells in 2015, a conciliator seeking to raise the level of discourse about hard questions, the hardest ones, really."

A 3-year-old son of Pioneerof the Nile trained by Bob Baffert, American Pharoah ended his racing career with an impressive win in the Breeders' Cup Classic before being retired to stand at Ashford Stud in Kentucky in 2016.