DREAM TEAMS: THE TOP TEN

We‘re willing to concede that SU2C.org Coordinator Mollie Lief’s conception of the Ultimate Dream Team (above) likely wouldn’t work out in terms of practical application. We’d need some combination of a time machine and hard-core smelling salts, not to mention several UN interpreters and probably someone to teach our esteemed team members how to use a microscope. Or a light switch. Plus, Einstein had that pipe. That’s no good for cancer research.

But Mollie and the rest of us put our heads together and came up with a list of the all-time greatest Dream Teams. A few rules: teams have to have been multi-disciplinary. The Davis Cup team doesn’t count. Those guys all play tennis. We considered some sports exceptions. The 1992 U.S. Men’s Olympic Basketball Dream Team, for example. Barkley and Malone could rebound whereas MJ’s forte was scoring buckets (as you may have heard).

But teams that had less of an emphasis on the multi-disciplinary approach (all members playing one sport) were relegated to the honorary mention bin.

10. The Swiss Army Knife

The Swiss Army has mandated obligatory service from the Swiss citizenry for most of the Army’s history, yet the Swiss stay out of most conflicts. This has left them with lots of time on their hands. So we can only assume they assembled a multi-disciplinary joint task force to build the Swiss Army Knife. Think about it: They had to have a toothpick expert, a corkscrewologist, a can opening specialist, a tweezer master, a nail filiographer, and someone who actually knew something about knives. And all of these innovators had to check their egos at the foothills and get along at presumably high altitudes. Not easy. The Swiss Army: giving peace a chance in favor of inventing heavily marketable all-purpose doodads.

(Ed note: The “Swiss Army Knife” is actually credited to just one guy by the name of Karl Elsiner, a native of Switzerland who didn’t dig the fact that the Germans were manufacturing knives for the Swiss Army. But the knife itself? While inanimate, it’s still a dream team.)

9a. The 1984 US Olympic Team

The entire US ’84 squad won, like, everything. In every major category. 83 Gold, 61 Silver, 30 Bronze for a total of 174 medals. Never mind that the main competition—the now defunct USSR—didn’t show up; that’s a lot of winning for one team.

9b. The 1980 USSR Olympic Team

See 9a and replace “USSR” with “US.”

8. The Manhattan Project

Before the atomic bomb was ever dropped, many of the scientists involved in its development were opposed to its unmitigated use and later expressed regret about their roles. At the time Albert Einstein wrote his letter to FDR in 1939, however, it seemed clear that the fate of the world depended on whether Nazi Germany or the United States cracked nuclear fission first. The US government brought together scientists and engineers of various ages and backgrounds and gave them the goal of saving the planet by building a weapon that could lead to its destruction. Understanding the importance of their task, and not knowing how much time they had, the members of the Manhattan Project worked feverishly at sites across the nation to finish the work and successfully build the first atomic bomb, and the second. And we all lived happily ever after.

7. The Continental Congress

Ever been to Philly in July? It’s hot. It’s electric-blanket-in-a-sauna hot. It is fry-an-egg-on-the-hood-of-your-horse-drawn-carriage hot. Even so, representatives of all attitudes and specialties from all 13 colonies came to Philadelphia in 1776 and signed their names to what could have been their own death warrant. Thomas Jefferson, aka T-Jeff, wrote much of it (and well!) and everybody else put their edits in (some less wise than others), and it was off to the races/the Revolutionary War. There has been speculation that the signatories were extra-motivated to throw off the yoke of British oppression by their desire to throw off their wigs and jump in the Delaware River.