With ESPN on the air 7 days a week, more sports blogs than you can count, and viral emails finding their way to your in box, many of you might be familiar with inspirational sports stories like:
* Mackenzie Brown, a 12 year-old girl in New Jersey, who pitched a perfect game in little league baseball. Mackenzie, one of only two girls in the whole league, retired every boy on the opposing team.
* Jason McElwain, the autistic high school team manager, who scored 20 points in the last 4 minutes of his high school basketball game. McElwain, all 5’6″ of him, put in six 3-pointers and another basket leading his teammates to carry him off the floor after the game to wild applause. His book The Game of My Life has already been published and a movie is in the works.
* Sara Tucholsky, who upon hitting her first home run in college softball, injured her knee rounding first base. Badly hurt, she was unable to take her home run trot. The umpire indicated that her teammates and coach could not assist her in rounding the bases. It looked like she would have to settle for a long single. That is, until two players from the opposing team, Mallory Holtman and Liz Wallace, took matters into their own hands (literally). They carried Sara around the bases, enabling her to touch each one, and officially register her home run.
Why have these inspirational sports stories become so popular?
Increased media coverage is one reason. Sports receive more comprehensive coverage now than ever before. ESPN has become the most successful network in the U.S. via their day-in-and-day-out coverage of sports generating $4.3 billion a year from subscriber revenue alone. Even so, to keep up with the blogs, ESPN recently shifted their daytime SportsCenter to live broadcasting so that they could bring viewers fast-breaking news quicker. Inspiring stories from the world of sports have always been around. Maybe, we’re just hearing more about them now as sporting news receives more coverage.
Another reason for the increased popularity is that peopl 해외축구중계 e love an underdog. Our heroes have to overcome big obstacles. In addition to being autistic, Jason McElwain had never played a varsity basketball game before. Rudy, of Notre Dame football fame, was an undersized, walk-on. Remember Hoosiers? It was the small town Indiana team versus the big city teams – hick versus slick. Hollywood-types gravitate to this well-tested formula like bees to honey.
People aspire to do great things, and these moving stories usually involve significant achievements. Perhaps it’s a title bout, an Olympic event or a state championship that’s on the line. Yeah, we like underdogs, but we like our underdogs to win. SeaBiscuit doesn’t get the movie deal if it hadn’t beaten Man-o-War. Not only is history written by the winners, it’s written about the winners.
Perhaps more than anything, these inspiring sports stories continue to grow in popularity because they remind us of some of the reasons we were attracted to sports in the first place. They make us feel good.
