Watch The World's Greatest Athlete Videos

The World's Greatest Athlete is a 1973 American feature film released by the Walt Disney Company. It starred John Amos, Roscoe Lee Browne, Tim Conway, Dayle Haddon, and Jan-Michael Vincent. It is one of the few wide-release Hollywood sports films to look at the world of track and field, as the "World's Greatest Athlete," Nanu, played by Vincent, tries to make history by winning every event at the NCAA Track & Field Championship. In a series of establishing shots, Sam Archer (Amos) and his assistant Milo Jackson (Conway) are depicted as coaches at the fictitious Merrivale College; their... MORE

The World's Greatest Athlete is a 1973 American feature film released by the Walt Disney Company. It starred John Amos, Roscoe Lee Browne, Tim Conway, Dayle Haddon, and Jan-Michael Vincent. It is one of the few wide-release Hollywood sports films to look at the world of track and field, as the "World's Greatest Athlete," Nanu, played by Vincent, tries to make history by winning every event at the NCAA Track & Field Championship. In a series of establishing shots, Sam Archer (Amos) and his assistant Milo Jackson (Conway) are depicted as coaches at the fictitious Merrivale College; their teams invariably lose. A series of plot coincidences sends the pair to Africa, where they catch sight with their Safari guide Morumba (Don Pedro Colley) of the Tarzan-like Nanu, who can outrun a cheetah in full bound. Seeing this, the coaching staff quickly whip out their recruitment pen and papers, but soon fall (literally) into the clutches of Nanu's godfather, spiritual leader Gazenga (Browne). Nanu, it develops, is an orphan and an innocent child of the bush. Gazenga believes that throwing Nanu into the world of competitive United States college athletics would interfere with his spiritual LESS