ESPY 2016 Winners: Awards Results, Recap, Top Moments and Twitter Reaction
The ESPY Awards are always a celebration of the year's best in sports. But the 2016 edition was unique because the biggest winner was culture and the athletes who strive to make the world a safer place.
Wednesday night's telecast began with LeBron James, Chris Paul, Carmelo Anthony and Dwyane Wade on the stage. James and the others gave an impassioned speech imploring athletes to help make a change in ending violence and erasing the cultural racial divide:
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The moment created a stir on social media and set the tone for the night:
Turner Sports sideline reporter Craig Sager, U.S. Army Sgt. Elizabeth Marks and the family of Zaevion Dobson also gave powerful speeches that touched on perseverance through their respective hardships.
The mother of Dobson, a high school football player who was awarded the Arthur Ashe Courage Award after being killed shielding three girls from gunfire, took center stage when accepting the trophy on her son's behalf. Standing between Zaevion's brothers, Zenobia Dobson told the story of also losing her nephew to a drive-by shooting and asked those in attendance to use their sway to enact change to gun laws:
"I'm here to urge all of you to join the movement tonight, to save innocent lives. We need to rewrite laws to make it harder for the people to get guns. ... All the athletes in this room, you have a lot of power. People look up to you. I know Zaevion did. I urge you to think tonight about why he died and what you can do tomorrow to prevent the next innocent young man or woman from being lost as well.
"
Her words sparked encouragement:
"Courage. Humanity. Love. Hero. Zaevion Dobson. #ESPYS
— LizzLocker (@Lizzs_Lockeroom) July 14, 2016"
Both Marks and Sager were there to tell their own stories. Marks became the first active-duty member of the military to win the Pat Tillman Award for Service. A paraswimmer who suffered severe injuries to her hips while serving in Iraq, Marks used the sport to aid in her recovery. She went on to become an Invictus Games gold medalist.
"If you're hurting, whether it's mental or emotional, if ever you think you're alone, you're not," Marks said.
| Best Record-Breaking Performance | Stephen Curry |
| Best Breakthrough Athlete | Jake Arrieta |
| Best NBA Player | LeBron James |
| Best MLB Player | Bryce Harper |
| Best International Athlete | Cristiano Ronaldo |
| Best Comeback Athlete | Eric Berry |
| Best Play | Aaron Rodgers Hail Mary |
| Best Team | Cleveland Cavaliers |
| Best Female Tennis Player | Serena Williams |
| Best Moment | Cleveland Cavaliers NBA Finals |
| Best Female Athlete | Breanna Stewart |
| Best Male Athlete | LeBron James |
| Best Coach/Manager | Tyronn Lue |
| Best NHL Player | Sidney Crosby |
| Best Bowler | Jason Belmonte |
| Best Jockey | Mario Gutierrez |
| Best Male Action Sports Athlete | Ryan Dungey |
| Best Female Action Sports Athlete | Jamie Anderson |
| Best Fighter | Conor McGregor |
| Best NFL Player | Cam Newton |
| Best Male College Athlete | Buddy Hield |
| Best Driver | Kyle Busch |
| Best Male Golfer | Jordan Spieth |
| Best Female Golfer | Lydia Ko |
| Best Male Tennis Player | Novak Djokovic |
| Best MLS player | Sebastian Giovinco |
| Arthur Ashe Courage Award | Zaevion Dobson |
| Icon Award | Kobe Bryant, Abby Wambach, Peyton Manning |
| Pat Tillman Award for Service | U.S. Army Sgt. Elizabeth Marks |
| Jimmy V Perseverance Award | Craig Sager |
Vice President Joe Biden presented Sager—who announced on HBO in March his leukemia had returned—the Jimmy V Award for Perseverance. As an emotional Sager took the stage, he offered words of encouragement, of keeping a positive attitude in the most adverse situations, of never stopping the fight.
"I will never give up, and I will never give in. I will continue to keep fighting, sucking the marrow out of life as life sucks the marrow out of me. I will live my life full of love and full of fun. It's the only way I know how," Sager said.
Sager's words elicited an understandably strong reaction:
On a night of activism, Seattle Storm star Breanna Stewart asked for greater gender equality in sports. She won the Best Female Athlete Award after taking home four straight NCAA championships at UConn.
"Now that I am in the WNBA, playing with other amazing female athletes, I'm trying to understand why we, as professional female athletes, don't receive anywhere near the fame. This has to change," Stewart said.
Stewart's Huskies did fail to win the Best Team award, which went to James' Cleveland Cavaliers. James was the biggest winner on the sports side, taking home Best Male Athlete, Best NBA Player and Best Championship Performance in addition to the Cavaliers' team honors.
The only loss James suffered all night was controversial, when Aaron Rodgers' 61-yard Hail Mary to Richard Rodgers took home Best Play. James was nominated for his block of the Golden State Warriors' Andre Iguodala in Game 7 of the NBA Finals.
Hosted by WWE Superstar John Cena, the ESPYs also featured a few light moments between the seriousness.
Cena's at-times racy monologue pulled no punches and included a tongue-in-cheek insinuation that sports were rigged. His comparison of Vince McMahon and Roger Goodell—calling the WWE boss a "maniacal billionaire pulling the strings behind the scenes who uses every trick in the book to manipulate things to his advantage any way he can" before flashing a picture of the NFL commissioner—elicited the biggest noise from the crowd of the night.
Freddie Coleman of ESPN Radio offered his take:
Overall, though, the 2016 ESPYs were about the call to activism. Against gun violence. Against racial unrest. Against cancer and self-doubt.
If there is anything the three-hour ceremony taught fans, it's that their sports heroes are not afraid to stand up for what they believe.
Follow Tyler Conway (@jtylerconway) on Twitter.
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