Houston's GOAT Mountain of sports: JJ Watt, Hakeem Olajuwon, Jose Altuve, Earl Campbell voted best of the best

The Sporting News GOAT Mountain project named four pro athletes from the 9 cities that have had three of the following four leagues represented for at least 20 years – NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL. Last summer, we looked at 13 four-sport cities. There were no hard-and-fast rules pertaining to the athletes selected. Our panels of experts considered individual resumes, team success and legacy within the sports landscape of each city. Not every franchise within a city needed to be represented. All sports fans have an opinion on this topic. This is ours.

If this project considered individual athletes from the Houston area, our group would have a much different feel. Simone Biles, a Houston native and one of the greatest Olympic athletes ever, would be right up top, cozied up with motorsports hero A.J. Foyt. He’s the only driver ever to win the Indianapolis 500, the Daytona 500, the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the 24 Hours of Daytona in his career.

Yeah, those two would make a good starting point. But, as you know, we’re only looking at the athletes who competed for professional teams based in Houston, which narrows the field quite a bit. You’d think that might make this list easier, right? 

Nah. 

And, look, it’s not just about counting championships or counting the number of seasons of greatness while wearing the uniform of a Houston-based team, though those factors certainly do matter. We found that out the hard way when it was suggested to longtime Houston writer John McClain that football hero Earl Campbell — who played only four healthy seasons with the Oilers — might not make the cut. 

We were, shall we say, set straight.

“Any list that doesn't have Earl Campbell at the top about greatest Houston players has no credibility whatsoever,” McClain said over the phone, volume added for emphasis. “Anybody in Houston would tell you that.”

David Barron, another long-time columnist based in Houston, echoed McClains sentiments. So, yes, Oilers legend Earl Campbell makes the list. So does J.J. Watt, the greatest player in the history of Houston’s other NFL team, the Texans. 

About the only easy, no-doubt choice was Hakeem Olajuwon, who’s on the short list of the greatest NBA players ever, won two NBA championships for the Rockets and, oh yeah, was an elite college player in the town, too. Olajuwon has to get the nod over James Harden, right? Even though Harden put up some truly epic numbers for the Rockets in his nine years with Houston. It’s not an easy omission. Neither were the Houston Comets trio of Cynthia Cooper, Sheryl Swoopes and Tina Thompson; all they did was help the Comets win each of the first four titles in WNBA history. 
So that’s three spots and we haven’t even gotten to the Astros, the longest-running franchise in Houston history.

Nolan Ryan is the most famous Astro — and a native of Alvin, which is basically a Houston suburb — but he only played nine of his 27 seasons with the club, and his best years were elsewhere. And only one of his seven no-hitters came while in an Astros uniform. Can’t do that. 

You could choose either Jeff Bagwell or Craig Biggio. Their Hall of Fame careers were intertwined for more than a decade, but those Astros teams never reached the mountaintop. So that brings us around to the player we went with, Jose Altuve. His Astros have won two World Series titles — one quite controversial, of course — and the diminutive Altuve has authored 13 pretty incredible seasons so far, including one MVP, eight All-Star nods and countless unforgettable moments.  

So, yeah. Reasonable minds could go through this same exercise, using slightly different parameters and come up with a completely different group. 

Just a word of advice: Maybe don’t exclude Earl Campbell. 

MORE: See the GOAT Mountain selections for all nine cities

EARL CAMPBELL (Oilers, 1978-84)

There are Texas legends, folks, and then there are Texas LEGENDS. 

Earl Campbell sits squarely in that second category. He was a prep football phenom at John Tyler High — about three hours north of Houston — leading his team to a 15-0 record and state championship his senior season (played in the Astrodome, by the way). He was a sensation at the University of Texas, winning the Heisman Trophy as a senior in 1977. And, yeah, he was an instant deity for the Houston Oilers, a superstar from the moment his cleats first touched an NFL field. 

“Earl has a certain mythical quality that demands his presence,” Barron said. 

He’s in the Texas Sports Hall of Fame, the College Football Hall of Fame and the Pro Football Hall of Fame, all representing, you guessed it, Texas. 

“The most popular guy in Houston history is Earl Campbell,” McClain said. “It’s what he did on the field, led the league his first three years, first-ballot Hall of Famer, one of the best power backs in history.”

The Oilers owned the No. 17 overall pick in the 1978 draft, but head coach Bum Phillips was determined to land the Longhorns’ star running back, so Houston sent four picks — including No. 17 overall — and its starting tight end, Jimmie Giles, to Tampa Bay for the No. 1 pick. No chances were being taken. 

It was one of the best trades in franchise history. Campbell led the league in rushing yards each of his first three seasons, getting better every year — 1,450 in 1978, 1,697 in 1979 and 1.934 in 1980. It’s not a coincidence that the Oilers made the playoffs all three years, the first three times since the AFL/NFL merger became official after the 1969 season.

All was not milk and honey with football's Oilers. Then Earl Campbell hit town. The Oilers immediately crashed through the ho-hum barrier.

Oiler ticket-buying is now the town's newest industry. If the December 17, season-ending San Diego game sells out, every ticket to each of the team's 11 home games will have been purchased.

Campbell and his uniqueness have been the big attractions. Where else in America can you see a man who looks like Plymouth Rock run 40 yards in 4.6 seconds.

When Oiler Coach Bum Phillips was asked if he'd noticed how slowly Campbell gets up, Phillips shot back, "Yep, but he goes down real slow, too.”

—The Sporting News, Dec. 9, 1978

The game plan was relatively simple: Earl left, Earl right and Earl up the middle. 

The Oilers couldn’t quite reach the Super Bowl, though, falling all three years to the eventual champs — in 1978 and 1979 to the Steel Curtain club from Pittsburgh, and in 1980 to the Oakland Raiders in the wild-card game. 

“The Oilers have never been to the Super Bowl, never won the AFC Championship,” Barron said. “But twice they put 80,000 people in the Astrodome to welcome the club back after they lost the game to the Steelers. That is the degree to which they had a hold on this city’s psyche, that probably never has ever been equalled by any team, including the Astros.”

People still talk about Campbell’s legendary moments. Oh, the moments. Like that Monday Night Football game in 1978 against the Dolphins, when he rushed for 191 yards and four touchdowns. Or the Jack Tatum collision in 1979. 

“Tatum finished his career the next year and he told me this, that he fell backward but he knew he knocked Earl back because it was the hardest hit he ever made,” McClain said. “And he was on his back and he heard the crowd cheering and he wondered ‘Why is the crowd cheering?’ And then he realized that Earl had gone backward, managed to spin around and get around the corner and get over the goal line with the ball. Earl had Oakland imprint on his sternum that he got from that hit, but he still scored.”

Campbell Tatum 💥 #Oilers #Raiders pic.twitter.com/poSV0YzQAY

— Old Time Football 🏈 (@Ol_TimeFootball) May 28, 2023

HAKEEM OLAJUWON (Rockets, 1984-2001)

Two NBA titles, two trips to the Final Four, 12 All-Star nods and a spot in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, all while representing Houston? Yeah, that’ll get you a spot on Houston’s GOAT Mountain. In that flat area of Texas, though, it’ll probably have to be located on a raised freeway entrance. 

“He’s such a beloved figure in Houston. Still spends a bunch of time here,” McClain said. 
“He’s a guy who got off a bus and walked through the front door at the University of Houston athletic facility and said, ‘I’m here.’

“They didn’t know if he was going to be any good. They just knew this tall guy who didn’t know much about basketball showed up at Guy V. Lewis’ front door. And Lewis said because of the way he moves, being a goalie in soccer, he’s got great feet and now we’ve just got to teach him to shoot and play defense. He did, and he played on what I think was the greatest college basketball team in history not to win a championship, Phi Slama Jama.”

The Houston Cougars rolled through the NCAA Tournament twice, in 1983 and again in 1984, before falling short in the championship game (to N.C. State and Georgetown, respectively). 

Olajuwon left college after his junior season, just in time for the Houston Rockets to have the No. 1 pick in the 1984 Draft. And, yes, that was the Michael Jordan draft, but there’s a reason the folks in Houston aren’t filled with regret like those in Portland (the Trail Blazers took Sam Bowie No. 2, and MJ went No. 3 to the Bulls). Olajuwon was pretty much everything a team could have hoped for with a pick at the top of the draft. 

He played 17 seasons in Houston, averaging 22.5 points, 11.4 rebounds and 3.2 blocked shots per game. Olajuwon helped revolutionize the center position, and he brought home NBA titles — with former Cougars teammate Clyde Drexler as his wingman — in 1994 and 1995. Olajuwon was pretty much unstoppable in the playoffs. 

What has helped Olajuwon, 31, is his resiliency. He didn't beat Bird and Magic Johnson in their prime, he outlasted them. And he became a better player during the waiting period, sharpening such skills as passing and jump-shooting to become the best player in the game.

"His game has developed over the years." Rockets Coach Rudy Tomjanovich says. "It's amazing how far he's come. He was really pretty raw when he got to America (in 1980), but now he's got the power and the quickness. He can beat you with the finesse game. going outside. He can play big, strong guys in the middle or drift out on a guard and use his quickness. It's really a great story about how far he's come."

Not coincidentally, Olajuwon became the first center to win the league's Most Valuable Player trophy since Malone in ’82-83.

—The Sporting News, June 6, 1994

In the 1994 playoffs, he averaged 28.9 points, 11.0 rebounds, 4.3 assists and 4.0 blocks, while shooting 51.9 percent from the field in Houston’s 23 games. 

In the 1995 playoffs, he averaged 33.0 points, 10.3 rebounds, 4.5 assists and 2.8 blocks, while shooting 53.1 percent from the field in Houston’s 22 games. 

“They came at a time when the only major championships that a Houston team had won were the 1960 and 1961 AFL Championships, by the Oilers, and those didn't really count in terms of what people considered championship lineage,” Barron said. “So the fact that he was able to do that and to do so twice, it put Houston a little bit more on the map in terms of being a championship city.”

Maybe it’s fitting that Olajuwon is one of the greatest Houston athletes of all time.  

“He represents pretty much what Houston is,” Barron said. “There are hundreds of different languages spoken in this city, probably one of the more diverse cities of the country. Hakeem came here from Nigeria, played here in college, played here in the NBA. There is a monument to him outside Toyota Center, but it's not a picture or a likeness of Hakeem, because that is contrary to the tenets of the Muslim faith. So basically, there's just a statue outside the Toyota Center with the uniform number 34.”

J.J. WATT (Texans, 2011-2020)

Of all the players we’ve featured in this project, it’s probably a safe bet that J.J. Watt was the only one vehemently booed when it was announced he was joining the team. 

That’s exactly what happened when the Texans picked Watt with the No. 11 pick in the 2011 NFL Draft. Watt obviously wasn’t the fans’ first choice, and he wasn’t even the guy atop the club’s want list for that spot, McClain said. Head coach Gary Kubiak and defensive coordinator Wade Phillips originally wanted to add pass-rusher Aldon Smith from Missouri, but the 49ers had snagged him at No. 7. So the pick was Watt, a pass rusher who’d started at Central Michigan before playing his senior year at Wisconsin. A local TV station at the draft party caught the emphatic booing from fans, front and center for the cameras.

Seems first impressions are often wrong, eh?

“He was relentless with how hard he worked on the field and off the field. He was a walk-on at Central Michigan as a tight end,” McClain said. “He had a job delivering pizzas. The guy told him he's never gonna make anything out of himself. And at Wisconsin, nobody paid any attention to him until he had a great combine.” 

Watt had a strong rookie year — 5 1/2 sacks, 49 solo tackles, two fumble recoveries — before making the type of impact every rookie dreams of in the postseason. With the AFC wild-card game tied in the final minute before halftime, Watt reached out and — somehow — grabbed a pass from Cincinnati quarterback Andy Dalton that was intended for a target many yards downfield, then ran it back for a touchdown. The Texans would go on to win, 31-10, and the Watt legend was officially born. 

“It was the next year in training camp that Wade had a profound quote, and everybody thought he was crazy,” McClain said. “He said, ‘Watt’s gonna be a bust.’ And we're like, ‘What? What do you mean?’ He said, ‘He’s going to be a bust in Canton.’ ”

Phillips was spot-on. Over the next four years, Watt won AP Defensive Player of the Year award three times, recorded 20 1/2 sacks twice and led the league in tackles for losses three times. He was named All-Pro all four years and deflected a ridiculous 61 passes from his defensive end spot as a Texan. Injuries hampered his final few years in Houston, at least from an on-the-field perspective. He played more than eight games just twice in those five seasons. 

But ask pretty much anyone from Houston what they’ll remember forever about Watt, and they’ll talk about 2017 and the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. The storm devastated the Gulf Coast, dumping incomprehensible amounts of rain over the entire region, causing flooding the likes of which had never been seen. Life, as Houstonians knew it, stopped.
Watt wanted to help, and true to his nature, he was relentless raising money. 

“Just the fact that he stepped forward and and made that effort, the way he rallied people to a particular avenue for giving,” Barron said. “There was something about him that appealed to people, beyond his athletic skills because otherwise you're not gonna get that sort of outpouring if you're just a great athlete. You have to bring more to the table than that.”

The original goal was $200,000, but Watt’s foundation raised more than $37 million, helping to distribute more than 239 million meals to hurricane victims and rebuild more than 1,100 homes in the area. The funds raised went to build and renovate more than 950 childcare centers, helping those impacted with prescription drug costs and physical and mental health services. 

“I've never seen a player do as much off the field as Watt did for people and people still don't know most of it,” McClain said. “What he did with Hurricane Harvey, that got him NFL Man of the Year, everybody knows about that. There's so many stories about him off the field that he would do for charity.

“Several times I’d ask him about something and he’d asked me not to write it because it looked like he was blowing his horn. I said, ‘Well, a fireman called me and told me you did that.’”

Watt might not have wanted the publicity, but those he’s helped want people to know.

“For what he’s done, on and off the field,” McClain said, “there’s never been a more popular, respected or beloved player than Watt.”

JOSE ALTUVE (Astros, 2011-present)

Jose Altuve appeared on Houston’s radar at an odd time in Astros history. The Astros were early-tank, and the worst was yet to come. When Altuve made his MLB debut, it was in the midst of the club’s 106-loss season of 2011, which was to be followed by a 107-loss season, then a 111-loss season. 

“He came here during a period when the team was just absolutely awful,” Barron said, putting it mildly. 

At first, he was more of a curiosity than anything, a diminutive minor-leaguer who could hit pretty much anything thrown toward the plate, whether it was in the dirt or over his head. We all remember the videos of the 5-foot-something Altuve jumping out of his shoes to slap a neck-high fastball down the line for an extra-base hit, right? And, yeah, just how tall was he anyway? Baseball fans started measuring things by how many Altuves tall or long things were. 

Altuve was fun. He’d hit a combined .389 in 87 games between High-A and Double-A in 2011 when he was called up to the majors, and then hit a respectable .276 in the bigs. In his first two full seasons in the majors, he batted .286 with 68 total stolen bases, 65 doubles, 12 homers and 144 runs scored. 

He had proved that he belonged in the majors. At 5-foot-6, that seemed like one hell of an accomplishment. Turns out, Altuve was just getting started. From 2014 to 2017, Altuve was the best second baseman in the majors. He posted a .334/.384/.496 slash line, with an average season of 18 homers, 42 doubles, 39 stolen bases, 98 runs and just 68 strikeouts. 

“Just the fact that he was that small and yet that powerful, I think he’s sort of like an everyman,” Barron said. “He just appealed to people in a way that was very special.” 

And the 2017 season, that was really something. And, yeah, it’s complicated. 

That season, of course, was interrupted by Hurricane Harvey in mid-August. The Astros were the Houston sports team in-season, and these Astros were good. Like, World Series-or-bust expectations, such a far cry from when Altuve first broke into the bigs. The Astros embraced their role in the community’s recovery, and Altuve was front and center. 

“One of the very vivid memories I have of the post-Hurricane Harvey recovery was the George R. Brown Convention Center being set up as a refugee center for people,” Barron said. “The Astros came in off the road, the first thing they did was go to the George R. Brown and meet people. There was a woman there and her dream was to meet Jose Altuve, and he danced with her in the entry area there.”

The Astros played inspiring baseball down the stretch. Altuve, of course, won the AL MVP award — .346, 24 home runs, 86 RBIs, 32 stolen bases, 160 OPS+ and a 7.7 bWAR — and the club won the franchise’s first World Series title. That mattered, in that year, to folks living in Houston. Altuve and his Astros were a source of joy in an awful year. 
At the time, obviously, nobody knew anything about the sign-stealing scandal that would break a few years later. That’s where it gets complicated. 

“Of course, the accomplishment is somewhat tainted in people's minds by subsequent revelations,” Barron said. “But I don't think that Altuve’s status is changed in any way in the minds of the people in Houston. I think they're grateful how he helped them, helped give them a break from what was a pretty grim time. 

“You can see aspects of Harvey around Houston to this day, and you probably will for years to come in some areas. So just the fact of what the Astros did in that particular season, I think, is what makes them stand out permanently.”