Athletes born during the wrong era

I guess this was one of those random things sports related that I sometimes randomly think about and I am actually blogging about it because I'm not putting it off.

People who become rich/famous (or whatever social status you want to apply here) reaches their status often times do not get to where they are without some sort of (or in some cases, ALOT of) luck along the way. That is not to say or take away any of their hard work to get to where they are along the way, but even with hard work, you got to get lucky, have the right break here or there in order to reach where you are. This don't strictly apply to those who reach the plateau of society, but also applies in different walk of life.

I think the prime example of this would be athletes in their sport. Would Tiger Woods have reached his current height of popularity had he been born 30 years ago when gold was still a sport dominated by Caucasians (or it can be said whether he would even get into golf as a whole)? How many titles would Rafael Nadal have won if he was born a few years later than he was once Roger Federer starts to slowdown as a player?

I don't really know where I'm going with this..just random thoughts that I actually recorded down for once.