4 Incredible Underdog Stories That Inspire The Hell Out Of Us
by Christian Markle & Karen Jones
Most sources agree that the term “underdog” originated in the 19th century as the name you'd call a dog that lost a dogfight. Over time, its meaning has morphed into that of the assumed or predicted loser of pretty much any contest, where neither the contest itself nor the participant needs to be fight- or dog-related in any way. And we love the hell out of those stories, if for no other reason than it gives us hope that we won't be eternally terrible at everything.
A Group Of Inmates Out-Debate The Harvard Debate Team
Eastern Correctional Facility is one of New York state’s oldest maximum security prisons. It started out in the early 1900s as a place to house “defective delinquents” in order to preserve society from the hypothetical future children of mentally deficient criminals — basically, eugenics for prisoners. Fortunately, times have changed (somewhat) since then, and today at least, some prisons try to rehabilitate suitable inmates so they may re-enter society with the life-skills to succeed at … well, life.
To that end, Eastern formed a partnership with Bard College to give promising candidates the opportunity to attain a liberal arts degree while incarcerated. The correctional facility shortlists diligent inmates and gives them a place to study, and Bard faculty hold classes there. It's sort of like homeschooling, but with bars, barbed wire, and qualified teachers.
Pixabay
And probably better internet.
In 2013, the Eastern division of the Bard Debate Union was formed. And while the members all consider themselves part of the same team, the incarcerated students aren't allowed to practice with their at-liberty peers, so instead they hone their debate skills with other students in the prison, and each other. Already by 2015, the Eastern debate team had become so good they’d defeated clubs from other universities, including West Point. They did lose a rematch, though, so to get over it they challenged Harvard, who, only months before, had become National Champions. The topic under discussion was whether public schools should be allowed to refuse admittance to undocumented children.
The Eastern team was declared the victor in the debate, and lest you think it was because of course the judges agreed with Eastern's argument that public education should be free to all, that had actually been Harvard’s stance. The Eastern team had debated that undocumented children shouldn't be allowed free public education, a position they personally opposed, but they were able to raise more issues than the Harvard team could counter, so they took home the laurels.
Gay And Trans Volleyball Team Gets Flak, Kicks Everyone's Asses
Imagine being a Hallmark exec and getting this elevator pitch: Gay and trans volleyball players go up against the champions and win against all odds, teaching a lesson on acceptance to bigots and haters along the way. You’d probably reject it for being too saccharine.
But somebody did make that movie, with the added bonus of basing it on true events: the 1996 Thailand Men’s Volleyball Championship.
Tai Entertainment
Despite marketing efforts to the contrary, Thailand hasn't exactly enjoyed a reputation among locals as a safe haven for the LGBTQ+ community. It wasn’t until the ’50s, when somebody pointed out that discrimination based on sexual preference wasn’t very Buddha, for homosexuality to be decriminalized. Hell, being gay was still considered a mental disorder as late as 2002. Over time, more gay and trans rights have been fought for and even won, but there are still great strides remaining to be taken, especially in sports.
In 1996, the only team that would hire Pitsanu Pleankum and Danupol Changeung, two cross-dressing kathoeys (Thai slang for an effeminate male), was a small local team with a new coach. Despite their skill on the court, the other players quit in protest, so the pair filled the newly-vacant roster with friends and former teammates from their college days, most of whom were either fellow gay cross-dressers, or trans. Known as the Iron Ladies, they quickly won over crowds with their winning ways as well as good sportsmanship and fabulous style on and off the court, and went all the way to defeat the top team in the country during the provincial championship.
The movie ends there, but the sobering fact remains that none of the real Iron Ladies were permitted to join the national team to represent their country on the international stage. Officials admitted they were afraid they’d be laughingstocks, and even the players themselves quietly acquiesced, not wanting to cause a fuss.
Bottom-Ranked Sumo Wrestler Delivers Biggest Upset In 20 Years
Rich in tradition and ritual, sumo (相撲) is the national sport of Japan. The athletes are instantly recognizable even in silhouette, and matches are conducted with a lot of ceremony and courtesy. Unlike other martial arts and single-combat sports, sumo wrestlers are not separated into different weight classes. Once a wrestler chooses sumo as a career, he is assigned a rank based on his skill according to a complicated formula that dates back to the Edo period, and must climb through the ranks, advancing only by defeating higher-ranked wrestlers.
Tokushoryu is a prime example of that lowest ranked wrestler. An unknown for most of his career, he began the 2020 New Year’s Grand Sumo Tournament in Tokyo ranked in the last position in his division. Halfway through the tournament he received word that his college wrestling coach had passed away, and he became determined to win despite the odds, to honor his memory. In fifteen round-robin matches he only lost one.
In his final match he faced Takakeisho, a highly ranked and skilled veteran, to become the first lowest-ranked wrestler to win a title in twenty years. Overcome with emotion after his title-winning match, Tokushoryu burst into tears, then laughter, to the delight of the crowd.
A Farmboy Defeats “The Wrestler Of The Century” For Olympic Gold
Aleksandr Karelin's wrestling prowess had earned him a few nicknames, including the unimaginative “Russian Bear” and “Russian King Kong.” But he was also called “the wrestler of the century,” which is to say that the moniker most people used was probably whichever one they figured was least likely to piss him off, for fear of finding themselves on the thorax-busting end of a flying elbow from the top rope. Probably?
But they all are fitting epithets for one of the world’s all-time greatest Greco-Roman wrestlers; one who epitomized the glory of Soviet/Russian athleticism so well that he carried his team’s flag in three different Olympics. He also won gold medals at each of those events, went undefeated for a full 13 years, the last six of which he never gave up a single point, and when he entered the ring for his final match he had a record of 887 lifetime wins to one loss. And it’s no exaggeration to call him the Goliath of the wrestling ring -- he stood over six feet tall and weighed nearly 300 pounds. But in 2000, during the Sydney Summer Games, Karelin-Goliath met his David: a dairy farmer from Wyoming.
Rulon Gardner didn’t even have the shadow of a championship under his belt. The youngest of nine children in a family of farmers, he had plenty of experience getting thrown around by older siblings and livestock, but he wasn't exactly a wrestling prodigy. He had competed in high school, but hadn’t made much of a name for himself. In fact, he had even faced Karelin once before, in 1997, and had been tossed onto his head three times in the course of giving five points away while scoring none himself. Which, to be fair, is also how many points everyone else had scored against Karelin.
Wikimedia / CC BY-SA 3.0
One newspaper wrote, he "looked like a piece of sheet metal," and now his opponents probably know what it's like to wrestle with one.
When they met again in Sydney in 2000, everyone rightfully expected Karelin to walk away with his fourth gold medal. When the match began, one of the sportscasters even said, “If Gardner the American were to win this match, it would be akin to the 1980 US Hockey Team's win over the Soviets.” And when the first round ended scoreless, with Gardner more than holding his own against the seemingly unstoppable Russian, people started wondering if there was more to all that farm work Gardner had been blabbering about, than pure braggadocio.
Most of the nine-minute match was the two men sweating and straining, both having little effect on the other save for making each other exhausted, and with a disappointing lack of piledrivers. But not even Karelin’s signature, match-ending move — a suplex called the Karelin Lift — could compete with Gardner's determination (and perhaps equally important, his additional girth and poundage). The turning point of the match came during the second round when both athletes were required to keep their hands locked while in a clinch position, and Karelin's became separated, which resulted in a warning for Karelin and a point for Gardner.
And that's how it would end, with Karelin conceding the match a few seconds before time had officially expired. When Gardner was asked what wrestling Karelin had been like, he replied, “If you ever get a chance, get up against a cow and push it. That's about what it's like to face Karelin. The only problem is, he's a little quicker.”
