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Sports Then and Now



Famous Athletes Afraid of Flying 10

Posted on September 10, 2014 by Martin Banks

Professional athletes spend roughly half of their time on the road during the season, so flying between destinations is part of the job. Therefore, athletes who suffer from aviophobia, or a fear of flying, may find it very difficult to handle the constant air travel. Sports teams tend to travel in style, taking chartered planes to their road games, but this doesn’t make the trip any easier for these athletes who get just as nervous for the plane rides as they do for their athletic events.

Wayne Gretzky

wayne

You wouldn’t know it by the records he broke on the ice, but the Great One was actually terrified to fly early in his career. His roommate at the time, Ace Bailey, eventually learned how to calm him down before flights and made flying much easier for Gretzky. Tragically, Bailey was on one of the planes involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Gretzky also used a hypnotist to help him get over this fear.

Cortland Finnegan

Despite his fearless attitude on the football field, Cortland Finnegan does have one fear: flying. When he was selected to his first Pro Bowl in 2008, Finnegan thought about taking a cruise ship to the game because the thought of flying over the Pacific Ocean terrified him.

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      Rusty Staub

      The Sports Then and Now Vintage Athlete of the Month is a former major league baseball player who came into the game as a teenager and stayed until he was in his 40s. In between, Rusty Staub put up a solid career that was primarily spent on expansion or rebuilding teams.

      Originally signed by the Colt .45s at age 17, he made his major league debut as a 19-year old rookie and became only the second player in the modern era to play in more than 150 games as a teenager.

      Though he hit only .224 splitting time between first base and rightfield, Staub did start building a foundation that would turn him into an All-Star by 1967 when he finished fifth in the league with a .333 batting average.

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