Year in Sports Review: 1994 – The Circle of Life

Andy Kious

From the day we arrive on the planet
And blinking, step into the sun
There’s more to see than can ever be seen
More to do than can ever be done
It was 1994 and it moved us all…

1994 was much like any year, a lot of stuff happened. The Cold War was for serious done. Bill Clinton was in his first term as President. TV was dominated by non-football programming in Seinfeld, ER, Home Improvement, and Grace Under Fire. There are a lot of movies we look back on nostalgically. The public internet was becoming a thing.

Like most years, however, 1994 turned out to be like a box of chocolates; we were never quite sure what we were gonna get. We ate it up all the same.

Here’s some athletes that were born in 1994:

Jameis Winston, American football player
Denis Suárez, Spanish footballer
Landon Collins, American football player
Faith Kipyegon, Kenyan middle-distance runner
Emre Can, German footballer
Eric Dier, English footballer
Matthias Ginter, German footballer
Addison Russell, American baseball player
Dansby Swanson, American baseball player
Memphis Depay, Dutch footballer
Axel Reymond, French Marathon swimmer
Eugenie Bouchard, Canadian tennis player
Arkadiusz Milik, Polish footballer
Tyreek Hill, American football player
Jordan Pickford, English footballer
Gerard Deulofeu, Spanish footballer
Joel Embiid, Cameroonian basketball player
Will Fuller, American football player
Corey Seager, American baseball player
Mateo Kovačić, Croatian footballer
Alex Bregman, American baseball player
Marquinhos, Brazilian footballer
Aly Raisman, American gymnast
John Stones, English footballer
Jessica Fox, Australian canoeist
Vincent Janssen, Dutch footballer
Amari Cooper, American football player
Shaq Lawson, American football player
Leonard Williams, American football player
Corey Coleman, American football player
Derrick Henry, American football player
Victor Lindelöf, Swedish footballer
Benjamin Mendy, French footballer
Todd Gurley, American football player
Corentin Tolisso, French footballer
Bernardo Silva, Portuguese footballer
Filip Forsberg, Swedish ice hockey player
Jack Conklin, American football player
Tiémoué Bakayoko, French footballer
Bruno Fernandes, Portuguese footballer
Carlos Correa, Puerto Rican-American baseball player
Seth Jones, American ice hockey player
Olivia Smoliga, American swimmer
Sean Monahan, Canadian ice hockey player
Jared Goff, American football player
Jalen Ramsey, American football player
Kurt Zouma, French footballer
Jordan Howard, American football player
Deion Jones, American football player
Julius Randle, American basketball player
Nyjah Huston, American skateboarder
Giannis Antetokounmpo, Greek basketball player
Yuzuru Hanyu, Japanese figure skater
Hunter Henry, American football player
Raheem Sterling, English footballer

Here are some of the athletes that died in 1994:

Arthur Espie Porritt, New Zealand politician and athlete (b. 1900)
Johnny Temple, American baseball player (b. 1927)
Helen Stephens, American runner (b. 1918)
Matt Busby, Scottish football manager (b. 1909)
Ulrike Maier, Austrian alpine skier (b. 1967)
Jersey Joe Walcott, American boxer (b. 1914)
Ellsworth Vines, American tennis player (b. 1911)
Ira Murchison, American athlete (b. 1933)
John Curry, British figure skater (b. 1949)
William Albertini, English cricketer (b. 1913)
Julius Boros, American golfer (b. 1920)
Roberto Balado, Cuban boxer (b. 1969)
César Tovar, Venezuelan baseball player (b. 1940)
Jean Borotra, French tennis player (b. 1898)
Ray Flaherty, American football coach (b. 1903)
Jack Sharkey, American boxer (b. 1902)
Anita Lizana, Chilean tennis player (b. 1915)
Billy Wright, English footballer (b. 1924)
Wilma Rudolph, American athlete (b. 1940)
Allie Reynolds, American baseball player (b. 1917)
Peter May, English cricketer (b. 1929)

News of the Year:

The 1994 Winter Olympics begin in Lillehammer.
A photo by Marmaduke Wetherell, previously touted as “proof” of the Loch Ness Monster, is confirmed to be a hoax.
Apple Computer, Inc. releases the first Macintosh computers to use the new PowerPC Microprocessors.
Ice skater Nancy Kerrigan is attacked by Tonya Harding’s bodyguard
The Canadian Football League expanded further in the U.S. in 1994 with the Las Vegas Posse, Baltimore Stallions, and Shreveport Pirates.
The Channel Tunnel, which took 15,000 workers more than seven years to complete, opens between England and France, enabling passengers to travel between the two countries in 35 minutes.
NFL star O. J. Simpson and his friend Al Cowlings flee from police in his white Ford Bronco. The low-speed chase ends at Simpson’s Brentwood, Los Angeles mansion, where he surrenders.
The 1994 FIFA World Cup starts in the United States.
Cold War: the last Russian troops leave Germany.
Ken Griffey, Jr. leads the Mariners to a 12–3 win over the Angels by stroking his 31st home run of the season. In doing so, Griffey Jr. breaks Babe Ruth‘s record for most home runs before the end of June.
Microsoft announces it will no longer sell or support the MS-DOS operating system separately from Microsoft Windows.
Colombian footballer Andrés Escobar, 27, is shot dead in Medellín. His murder is commonly attributed as retaliation for the own goal. Escobar scored in the 1994 FIFA World Cup against the United States soccer team.
Jeff Bezos founds Amazon.
Woodstock ’94 begins in Saugerties, New York. It is the 25-year anniversary of Woodstock in 1969.
All Major League Baseball players go on strike, beginning the longest work stoppage in the sport’s history.
George Foreman wins the WBA and IBF World Heavyweight Championships by KO’ing Michael Moorer becoming the oldest heavyweight champion in history.
The NHL locked out its players and the regular season was put on hold for the next 3½ months and the season began under a 48-game schedule through 1995.
WXYC, the student radio station of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, provides the world’s first internet radio broadcast.
Drew Bledsoe sets NFL single game records for pass attempts (70) and pass completions (45) helping New England Patriots beat Minnesota Vikings 26–20.
In a rainy and windy game at Soldier Field on Monday Night Football, Dick Buktus’ and Gale Sayers’ Jerseys were retired at Halftime, but the Bears were blown away by Brett Favre and the Packers, 6–33
Georgia Representative Newt Gingrich leads the United States Republican Party in taking control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate in midterm congressional elections, the first time in 40 years the Republicans secure control of both houses of Congress.
George W. Bush is elected Governor of Texas.
Online service America Online offers gateway to World Wide Web for the first time. This marked the beginning of easy accessibility of the Web to the average American.