Not Upset About Upsets

There is nothing in sports more exhilarating than upsets.

They get your attention, they have you shaking your head, they get you talking.

Upsets get you to ask the question, “how did this happen?”

Unless your team is on the wrong side of an upset, or you lost money on a bet, you are, in a way, delighted at the result of an upset.

Some are shocking, like top-ranked Alabama losing to so-so Vanderbilt last weekend in a college football weekend loaded with surprises.

The Vandy crowd tearing down the goalposts says it all.

Four top-11 ranked teams lost to unranked opponents.

Arkansas staged a fourth-quarter comeback to knock off No. 4 Tennessee.

Washington, losers to Michigan in the national title game last season, beat the No. 10 Wolverines.  No. 11 USC fell to Minnesota.

In all, six undefeated teams lost.

It was an unusual weekend because in college football, upsets are rare.

Usually, the powers either roll over their foes, or after a scare, they gather themselves and pour it on.

Upsets which occur in all sports, of course, spark conversations that continue into the next week. Some are talked about for years. Even decades.

In a way, it’s the magic of the games people play.

Few predict them, but they’re always a possibility, slim though they may be.

They sneak up on you.

I love upsets. They send the ultimate message. You just never know.

Because they are so rare, it makes them special.

If they happened all the time, it wouldn’t be the same.

 

So, the obvious question is , how do they happen?

Once you understand that the better team doesn’t necessarily win, but the team that plays better does, it starts to make sense.

Take the Alabama loss. Remember that a week before, the Crimson Tide defeated arch-rival Georgia to take over the No. 1 spot.

It is not easy to avoid letdowns in athletic competition. Just put your self in the shoes of the Alabama players who started to prepare for Vanderbilt after that huge victory.

You know you have to get ready for the next game, and you know all that it takes. But at the same time, there is an understandable, and unmistakable mental feeling that the determination and drive to get ready for a team you should easily beat is just not that strong.

It’s like exhaling. There is a feeling of relaxation that can’t be explained.

Couple that lack of intensity with the group on the other side that is primed to play its best game, knowing that winning will be the highlight of the season.  In this case, it will be precisely that for Vanderbilt.

Most of the time, the superior team can withstand getting rocked early, and pulls it together to avoid a devastating defeat.

It’s impossible to list most of the great upsets we’ve witnessed over the years. I recall a few in many sports that I’ll never forget because of how they hit me. Many occurred when I was growing up.

My first was in 1954. Yes, that far back, when my baseball team, the New York Giants (yes again, before they moved to San Francisco), stunned the Cleveland Indians in four straight games in the World Series.

The Giants had a great year, winning the National League pennant on Willie Mays’ return from two years military service.

Beating the Brooklyn Dodgers anytime, was a major achievement, and the Giants put it all together win the pennant.

But the Cleveland Indians were the American League champions, finally ending a string of five consecutive world titles by the vaunted New York Yankees, and setting a League record winning 111 games.

The Tribe were heavy favorites to win it all, but the Giants, with timely pinch-hitting heroics from a fellow named Dusty Rhodes, and air tight pitching quieted  the Cleveland big bats, didn’t lose a game.
The sensational back-to-the-plate catch by Mays in game one set the tone for the underdogs.

We know in baseball, pitching is the equalizer. If you have great performances from your pitchers, there’s a great chance you’ll win, despite anything else.

 

I remember when heavy-favorite Floyd Patterson, the heavyweight boxing champion was stunned by Swede Ingemar Johansson, who knocked Patterson down seven times in the second round to capture the title.

Patterson would go on and dominate Johansson in the other two fights they had.

But that late-fifties bout was insignificant to the shocking triumph by Cassius Clay over Sonny Liston for the world title in 1964.

Soon after, Clay became known as Muhammad Ali, but there were few who gave the 22-year old brash-talking Clay a chance against mean-looking and hard-punching Liston.

What most considered fear in the way Clay acted going into the fight, was instead, a confidence that his speed, lightning jabs, and elusive style would frustrate and confuse the plodding Liston. And it did big time.

As it turned out, he would never be an underdog again.

 

In my view, there are two college basketball NCAA championship games that stick with me as major upsets.

The first was in 1961, when undefeated Ohio State, led by Jerry Lucas and John Havlicek were shocked in overtime by the no-name Cincinnati Bearcats in the title matchup.

The other was the huge, unanticipated triumph by Villanova over powerful Georgetown coached by John Thompson and led by Patrick Ewing, in 1985. It was the last college basketball game played without a shot clock. Possessions were precious in those days, and the champion Wildcats made 22 of 28 shots, for an incredible percentage of 78.6.

They attempted only 10 shots in the second half and missed only one.

But they did not freeze the ball as some teams did back then.

They deserved the victory, but the shot clock made the game a lot more watchable.

 

How about a pair of  Super Bowls that still resonate with fans as two of the greatest upsets in any sporting endeavor.

The first has to be Super Bowl 3, the third championship battle following the merger between the NFL and AFL.  The New York Jets, led by the sport’s matinee idol at the time, quarterback Joe Namath, did the unthinkable by beating the established Baltimore Colts.

It put the American Conference teams on the map for good.

Then in 2002, the New England Patriots, given little chance of knocking off the “Greatest Show on Turf”, the prolific St. Louis Rams, connected on a 48-yard field goal by Adam Vinatieri as time expired to capture the first of six Super Bowl titles for the Patriots and for quarterback Tom Brady, who added a seventh with Tampa Bay.

Only two years ago, the Boston Bruins, with the best record in the NHL, led the upstart Florida Panthers 3 games to 1, before the underdogs won the last three to upset Boston.

When it comes to pulling an upset in a single game, it seems to come down to the underdog executing and doing most everything right, while the favorite, trying to get back into the fray, tries to do too much, and ultimately falls by the wayside.

When it comes to knocking off a favorite in a series of games, it appears that the unlikely team gains confidence to spring a surprise, while the expected winner struggles to regain its form and runs out of time.

I believe the mental part is huge.

Every sports follower has his own book of upsets he remember and will probably never forget.

I’ve listed just a few of mine, the ones that jumped into my head while writing.

I’m sure I can think of a lot more, but in this case, it’s a matter of rapid recall of those few moments that grabbed my attention, when the big guy went down, and the little guy won in a shocking upset.

Upsets. They are special. They don’t happen all that often. But they always lurk.