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Sports Illustrated to 99: It's been great

Sports Illustrated to 99: It's been great

The Great One has called it a Great Career, and it's up to us to remember it. CNN/SI offers a comprehensive Sports Illustrated retrospective, including this gallery of SI covers, a pop-up photo essay , SI's 40th Anniversary tribute to Gretzky, and a "They Said It ... We Wrote It" file going back to 1978. Use the pull-down menu to navigate among these and other features.

Oct. 12, 1981

Feb. 15, 1982

Dec. 27, 1982

Jan. 23, 1984

Feb. 18, 1985

Jun. 1, 1987

May 30, 1988

Aug. 22, 1988

Dec. 18, 1989

Mar. 11, 1996

Oct. 7, 1996

Apr. 26, 1999

In a 1990 story on SI covers, writer Steve Wulf sympathized with the editors who had to think up headlines for Gretzky.

"It's not easy coming up with an original cover billing, especially when the subject is a regular. Wayne Gretzky has appeared 12 times in all, but seven times we couldn't avoid the use of a certain word: THE GREAT GRETZKY; GOING GREAT GUNS; GREATER AND GREATER; THE GREAT ONE GETS GREATER; GREAT, GRETZKY; GREAT MOVE, GRETZKY; and THE GREAT ONE BREAKS THE NHL SCORING RECORD."

Photographs by Paul Kennedy; Steve Goldstein; Brian Lanker; Paul Bereswill (4); Bill Robbins; Paul Bereswill, John Iacono, Bill Robbins; Robert Beck, Robert Rogers.