The Underdog

Mar 18, 2012

Why does everyone love the underdog? The underdog usually gets tons of support from sports fans and sports media, and the bigger the underdog, the bigger the hype! When David beats Goliath, heroes are born, headlines are printed, and sometimes even movies are made.

Biggest Upset Ever? Courtesy of the NCAA

Fans go crazy for Lehigh Courtesy of CBS

Headlines Predict Super Bowl Courtesy of the NFL

Lehigh beats Duke Courtesy of the NCAA

Miracle on Ice Courtesy of the Olympics

Mountain Hawk Madness

In the 2012 March Madness NCAA College Basketball tourney, the whole nation has fallen in love with a small unknown team from Lehigh University of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Lehigh Mountain Hawks, ranked #15, knocked out one of the biggest names in College basketball history and currently ranked #2, the Duke Blue Devils.

Devastated Duke

Lehigh beats DukeCourtesy of the NCAA

It’s very exciting when a team like Lehigh beats Duke because they don’t have the power to recruit star high school players like Duke. When Lehigh beat Duke, everyone was wondering who is this CJ McCollum… finding out CJ is a star is like discovering treasure no one knew existed!!!

Double Trouble

Headlines Predict Super BowlCourtesy of the NFL

The story of the 2012 Super Bowl Champions New York Giants was like deja-vu when they previously beat the New England Patriots in 2008. New England was only one game away from a perfect season in 2007-08 and the Giants pulled off the huge upset to stop them. Then they surprised everyone again when they barely made it into the playoffs and became the “Giant-killers” knocking out the #1 ranked Green Bay Packers on route to the biggest Super Bowl upset times two!

Miracle Movies

Miracle on IceCourtesy of the Olympics

So what are some other amazing underdog stories? How about the ones that have become movies:

Rudy is the story of a short kid who nobody gave a chance to play college football until the last play of the final game in his senior year. The whole stadium was chanting his name to get the coach to put him in the game. He ended up getting a sack on the final play of the game and the team carried him off the field... the only player to ever be carried off the field at Notre Dame.
Miracle is the story of how team USA beat the unbeatable Russian team for the Olympic Gold Medal in ice hockey at the 1980 Olympic Winter Games.
There is talk to produce a film about Jason McElwain, a high school basketball manager with autism. The coach put him into uniform one night and when he got the call to play, he sunk 6 three pointers in a row including one at the buzzer. It was all caught on video and it will probably bring tears to your eyes.

Have Your Say...

Who do you think was the biggest underdog with a good story? Let us know in the comments below.