The Sports Illustrated cover jinx is an urban legend that states that individuals or teams who appear on the cover of the Sports Illustrated magazine will subsequently be jinxed.
Explanations A common explanation for the perceived effect is that athletes are generally featured on the cover after an exceptionally good performance, which might be an outlier compared to their usual level of performance. Therefore, their future performance is likely to display regression toward the mean and be less impressive by comparison.Goldacre, Ben. Bad Science. Page 39. London: Fourth Estate, 2008. This decline in performance would then be misperceived as being related to, or even possibly caused by, the appearance on the magazine cover.
Most athletes that seemed to suffer the jinx most typically suffered because of an injury or some other bad luck following their appearance. One prime candidate for this explanation is Eddie Mathews who suffered a broken hand while the team's nine game winning streak came to a close following the cover. In this case, the odds are that a player will suffer an injury while playing any given sport. Injuries are a given in a physical contact sport such as American football or baseball, which is what Mathews played. Even injuries in individual sports such as skiing can fall under this explanation as it is common to make a bad move in this sport and get caught up in a massive mistake of the athlete's own doing which results in injury. Finally, winning and losing streaks come to a close in all sports and this includes Milwaukee's nine-game winning streak in 1954. This makes the 1972 Miami Dolphins perfect season, 2007 New England Patriots perfect regular season, and the 2008 Detroit Lions, and 2017 Cleveland Browns winless seasons all the more remarkable.
SI addressed its own opinions on the alleged cover jinx in a 2002 issue that featured a black cat on its cover.
Notable contradictions to curse While the list of examples of the so-called jinx may be extensive, some records contradict the existence of a curse. Vince Young discredited the Sports Illustrated jinx by appearing on the cover of Sports Illustrated twice during Texas' National Championship season. Emmitt Smith appeared on the cover the same week the Dallas Cowboys won Super Bowl XXVIII. In the America's Game documentary, Smith recalled that he adamantly wanted off the cover for fear of the jinx. Regardless, the Cowboys went on to win their second consecutive title of the 1990s, and fourth in team history. The Houston Astros, who were featured in a 2014 SI cover predicting them to be the 2017 World Series Champions, did in fact win the World Series in 2017, beating the Los Angeles Dodgers 4 games to 3 for their first ever title. However, this contradiction may be questioned after it was discovered that the team used a unique series of signals to steal signs. A cover of a 2016 SI Kids issue showed the Chicago Cubs en route to their victory in the 2016 World Series, where they defeated the Cleveland Guardians and broke their century long losing streak.
Notable incidents Pre-2000 January 30, 1955: American alpine skier Jill Kinmont was competing in a giant slalom event in Alta, Utah, when she lost control and crashed into a tree. She suffered a spinal cord injury and lived with quadriplegia for the rest of her life. Kinmont had been featured on the cover of the January 31 issue, which was on newsstands prior to the race.Jill Kinmont Boothe, ski champion paralyzed in accident, dies at 75 (retrieved February 26, 2024) May 26, 1958: Racing driver Pat O'Connor appeared on the cover of the Indianapolis 500 preview issue. He would die in a fiery crash four days later, on the opening lap of the race. February 15, 1960: After gracing the cover of the Winter Olympics preview issue, Soviet speed skater Gennady Voronin was hampered by injury and finished out of the medals at Squaw Valley. Troubles mounted after he also missed the 1964 games due to injury, as Voronin began to abuse alcohol. Unable to deal with the success of his wife, fellow speed skater and four-time world champion Inga Artamonova, Voronin was convicted of stabbing her to death in 1966 and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.Sports-Reference.com, Gennady Voronin page (retrieved May 10, 2015) March 28, 1960: For a story on wet fly fishing,The Art of Fishing With The Wet Fly, Sports Illustrated, March 28, 1960 (retrieved May 11, 2015) the cover featured an array of ten images.Cover scan of March 28, 1960, issue of Sports Illustrated (retrieved May 11, 2015). They included a photo of the fly-tying pioneer James E. Leisenring (1878–1951)Whitelaw, Ian. The History of Fly-Fishing in Fifty Flies, Stewart, Tabori and Chang (April 7, 2015), retrieved May 11, 2015. and sketches by artist Anthony Ravielli depicting world flycasting champion Johnny Dieckman (at upper right on the cover) and Vernon S. "Pete" Hidy (on the bottom row of the cover).codex99.com, "Ravielli on Sport" (accessed May 11, 2015). Less than two years later, the 35-year-old Dieckman was one of 87 passengers who perished in the crash of American Airlines Flight 1."Fly Casting Champ Dies", The St. Maurice Valley Chronicle (Three Rivers, Quebec, Canada), page 6, published March 8, 1962 (retrieved May 11, 2015). October 31, 1960: Formula One world champion Jack Brabham appears on the cover. For the following season, Brabham found himself outclassed by a newer generation of cars,Lawrence (1998) p. 87 as well retiring from a number of races. February 15, 1961: U.S. figure skating champion Laurence Owen and the rest of the 1961 U.S. figure skating team were killed in a plane crash in Belgium, en route to the 1961 World Championships in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Owen was on the cover of the February 13 issue.Sports Illustrated Vault: February 13, 1961 (retrieved January 3, 2025) May 29, 1961: Johnny Boyd appears uncredited driving in preparation for the Indianapolis 500, he retired during the race with clutch problems. March 18, 1963: On the Final Four preview cover,Cover image from 18 March 1963, si.com (retrieved May 15, 2015). Cincinnati Bearcats guard Larry Shingleton was shown cutting down the nets following his team's second straight NCAA championship in 1962. In the 1963 championship game on March 23, Shingleton missed a free throw with 12 seconds left that would have given Cincinnati a three-point lead and all but clinched another title. Instead, Loyola (Chicago) tied the game in regulation and won it in overtime.Chicago Tribune, "March 23, 1963 Vic Rouse`s Tip-in As Time Expires In Overtime Gives Loyola A 60–58 Victory Over Defending Champion Cincinnati", November 1, 1987 (retrieved May 15, 2015). July 8, 1963: World champion fisherman Jon Tarantino, featured in a cover story on fly casting,The World's Master Caster, Sports Illustrated via SI.com, July 8, 1963 (retrieved May 17, 2015). was shot to death 10 years later, on June 11, 1973, in a robbery at his family's San Francisco fish and poultry market.San Mateo (CA) Times via newspapers.com (subscription required), June 12, 1973 (retrieved May 17, 2015). (SAN FRANCISCO (UPI) – Jon E. Tarantino, the "undisputed master of fly-casting", was found shot to death Monday in his family's fish and poultry market. Tarantino was shot once in the forehead in a robbery, police said. Tarantino held 12 world championships in fly casting.") November 23, 1964: A year to the day after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the cover featured a renderingSports Illustrated online cover archive (retrieved May 18, 2015). of his personal ski instructor,Web site for Bernard Falch ski school , translated to English (retrieved May 18, 2015). Helmut Falch of Austria. An accident would later leave Falch paralyzed,Overview of Helmut Falch autobiography , translated to English (retrieved May 18, 2015). though he went on to win four Paralympic gold medals in alpine skiing. March 15, 1965: Golfer Tony Lema, previously featured on the March 23, 1964, cover,Sports Illustrated cover archive (retrieved May 18, 2015)/ appeared this week in an artist's rendition.Sports Illustrated cover archive (retrieved May 18, 2015)/ In July 1966, the 32-year-old Lema and his wife Betty, 30, were killed along with the two co-pilots when the private plane they chartered to travel between tournaments crashed in Lansing, Illinois. March 22, 1965: Boxer Willie Pastrano, the world light heavyweight champion at age 29, appears with the caption, "Ready to defend his title."Sports Illustrated cover archive (retrieved May 18, 2015)/ On March 30, he lost the WBA and WBC crowns to José Torres on a 9th-round technical knock-out. It would be the final bout of Pastrano's career. March 29, 1965: UCLA's Gail Goodrich was shown shooting against Michigan center Bill Buntin during the Bruins' NCAA basketball championship win.Sports Illustrated cover archive (retrieved May 18, 2015). NOTE: The caption provided by Sports Illustrated states that the Michigan defender is Cazzie Russell. This is an error, as Russell wore jersey number 33 for Michigan. Buntin wore number 22, as shown in the photo on his Wikipedia page. Further evidence provided by this team picture signed by all Michigan players. Buntin died suddenly three years later of a heart attack while playing a pick-up basketball game at age 26. May 1, 1967: Chaparral's Jim Hall, who appeared along with his Chaparral 2F on the cover, would go on to suffer from a number of mishaps for the rest of the decade. At the end of the season, that car found itself ineligible for competition through controversial rule changes. For the following year, Hall collided with another car at the Stardust Grand Prix, ending his driving career effectively. In 1969, his Chaparral 2H suffered from a poor season and in 1970, the innovative 2J fan-car, despite its performance, proved to be unreliable and following protests from competitors, was banned from competition at the end of the season. Hall and his team had to wait until the end of the decade for any success, most notably the 1980 Indianapolis 500, where the Chaparral would win the race with Johnny Rutherford driving. June 19, 1967: The boxing success of welterweight Gypsy Joe Harris, who lost sight in his right eye at age 11, earned him cover recognitionSI.com vault, June 19, 1967, cover (accessed June 15, 2015). despite the handicap which, at the time, had not yet been publicized nor discovered by boxing regulators. However, on October 11, 1968 (about two months after his first career loss in 25 career bouts) a routine doctor's examination of inflammation in the eye revealed his visual impairment. Stripped of his boxing license and unable to hold gainful employment thereafter, Harris fell into a life of drug and alcohol abuse before dying in 1990 at age 44."Gypsy Joe Came Close To A Title, But Then...", Chicago Tribune, February 26, 1989 (accessed June 15, 2015)."Gypsy Joe Harris, Boxer, Dead At 44", Philly.com, March 7, 1990 (accessed June 15, 2015).