In our current day and age, stories about underdogs have become almost commonplace as the media portrays every type of underdog story in the same format: there is a team that starts off the season with a very bad record, they then start to win some games, and they eventually end up impossibly defeating a far super team in a championship matchup.
Movies like “The Mighty Ducks” have made underdog stories seem almost commonplace
Just look at movies like “The Mighty Ducks” or “The Little Giants“ (among many others), and you will see this exact storyline. Granted, I just named two of my favorite movies growing up, which were both extremely successful, but Hollywood has truly made underdog stories seem repetitive and almost boring. That is why it is great when one finally discovers a truly heartwarming and incredible underdog story that would have been impossible to make up. Both the story of Andrea Joyce and the 1980’s United States men’s national hockey team serve as great examples of inconceivable and heartwarming underdog stories.
Andrea Joyce is a University of Michigan graduate who went on to become a sports anchor and commentator following her college career, and is now employed by NBC Sports.
Andrea Joyce is a sports anchor has worked on several big stages such as anchoring the Summer Olympics for NBC.
What is so amazing about Joyce, is the way in which she followed her dreams to become a sports anchor. Growing up, she claimed that she had always wanted to be a sports broadcaster. However, during the 70’s and 80’s, female sports broadcasters did not even exist. At that point in time, it was unheard of for a woman to be involved in the calling or analyzing of sports at all. But, despite the obstacles, Joyce was adamant on fulfilling her goals.
After graduating from the University of Michigan, Joyce found it almost impossible to find any job in which she would be able to report news about sports. She eventually found a job reporting for the ABC station in Dallas Texas. While there, the station was short-staffed one night after a Dallas Mavericks game, and asked that she try to get an interview with the Denver Nuggets coach following the game. The coach of the Nuggets at the time was Doug Moe. He was notoriously known for not giving interviews, but Joyce was incredibly adamant. As she stated, if you are to do anything in life “you need to attack it, and take a risk.” That is just what she did, as following the game, she went into the Nuggets locker room and successfully got an interview from Moe. Following that interview, Joyce’s stock skyrocketed as she became a full-fledged weekend sports anchor for that same ABC station. From there she went on to work for CBS Sports and NBC Sports, where she ultimately broadcasted as a reporter and sports anchor during the summer olympics. Despite that she was judged by a different standard as a female sports anchor, she persevered as a sportscaster.
Even though people tried to make her fail, Joyce persevered
The amazing success of Andrea Joyce is very similar to that of the 1980 United States Winter Olympics hockey team. The team was made up of college hockey players (rather than NHL players), many of whom were playing together for the first time, and was going up against elite and professional level Soviet hockey players.
The Unites States 1980’s hockey team beating the Soviets was one of the greatest sport’s spectacles of all time
Despite that the odds were clearly not in their favor, like any great underdog, the Americans succeeded. As the majority of people know (if not they should know), the United States hockey team went on the beat the Soviet national team in the semi-finals of the Olympics, in what has become know as the “Miracle on Ice”. While the Americans were not at all more talented than the Soviet team, they worked extremely hard, and just like Joyce, they prepared harder than anyone else, so that when it came to crunch time, they were always ready for whatever was thrown at them.
Through analyzing these two stories, one may notice that the famous quote from Thucydides “Melian Dialogue”, “The strong do what they will, and the weak suffer what they must.” is not always true, as we have just brought up two real life circumstances in which people overcame adversity and persevered. Furthermore, in Professor LeVaque-Manty’s book “The Playing Fields of Eton” (there is no version of this online, so just as in my previous post, I hope that this awesome picture of our professor will suffice) he discusses the institutional barriers that kept women out of sports for an incredibly long period of time. What I found so interesting about both of these stories was that both the men’s hockey team and Joyce had to overcome barriers similar to those mentioned in Professor LeVaque Manty’s book, and that is what makes them so special. Had the United States been playing professional players rather than college players, and if Joyce had been born twenty years later, then both stories would be incredibly different. While movies such as “The Mighty Ducks” and “The Little Giants“ are fun to watch, what makes these two stories so special is the obstacles that the US hockey team and Joyce overcame in achieving their respective goals, which made their subsequent success all the more sweeter.
Touchdown Theory 
I agree that Joyce’s success is something to be revered, for women with jobs associated with sports are often times mocked. Her emergence is an underdog story that should be celebrated across the nation. I think you could have gone more in depth when relating her story to Mika’s opinions regarding feminism. The reason why Joyce was looked down upon when reporting was because of the masculine aura that is associated with sports. When it comes to reporting, a women could have the same level of knowledge, speaking skills, and experience as a male reporter, but the fact that she doesn’t ‘belong’ there is reason enough to look down upon her.
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