14 Moments That Rocked the Sports World in 2017, From Super Bowl Overtime to World Series Nail-Biter (Photos)
Down 28-3 against the Atlanta Falcons, coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady engineered the greatest comeback in the history of the Super Bowl to win 34-28 in overtime. It didn’t take long for some to start calling the game the greatest Super Bowl of all time.
After losing to Alabama the year before, the Clemson Tigers met the juggernaut Crimson Tide in a national championship rematch on January 9, 2017. Led by quarterback Deshaun Watson, the Tigers erased a fourteen point deficit to secure the lead (and the win) with one second left on the clock.
On April 19, only days after being acquitted of a double homicide charge, former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez was found dead in his prison cell of an apparent suicide. Doctors later discovered that Hernandez was suffering from stage 3 chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the most severe case ever discovered in a person his age.
After a year and a half of “will they, won’t they,” undefeated boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. and UFC superstar Conor McGregor met on August 26, 2017 for one of the most highly-anticipated fights in history. Mayweather won the match after McGregor tired out, but both men earned untold millions of dollars for one night of their lives. Did anybody lose?
Just months after he signed off on multiple layoffs from Fox Sports and eliminated much of its online editorial content, Jamie Horowitz exited as president amid claims of sexual misconduct and harassment.
In early November, ESPN announced the company would lay off more than 100 employees after Thanksgiving, by far the most significant cut felt since October 2015, when roughly 300 workers were laid off in order to cut costs to keep up with the viewers lost.
NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick started a movement in 2016 when he decided to kneel on the sideline during the national anthem, though it arguably had lost steam by 2017. After President Donald Trump called for kneeling players to be fired in September of this year, the movement caught fire as many more players protested against the president by kneeling, locking arms, or even refusing to come out of the locker room during the anthem. The movement has since spread to pro baseball, the WNBA, and Major League Soccer.
On September 22, two-time NBA MVP Stephen Curry tweeted that he did not want to visit the White House after winning the championship with the Golden State Warriors. Donald Trump quickly fired back, tweeting that Curry was no longer welcome. The entire team decided to stick with Curry and announced they would not go to the White House while LeBron James, who lost to Curry and the Warriors in the Finals, called President Trump a “bum,” adding “[g]oing to the White House was a great honor until you showed up!”
With a 2-1 loss to Trinidad and Tobago on October 10, the United States Men’s National Soccer Team stunned American fans by failing to qualify for the FIFA World Cup for the first time since 1986. After less than a year on the job, Hall of Famer Bruce Arena resigned as the team’s manager.
On September 11, SportsCenter co-host Jamele Hill called President Trump a “white supremacist” during a series of critical tweets, prompting a backlash from the White House and the president’s supporters. Despite calls for her firing, ESPN stood by her and clarified that her views did not reflect ESPN’s position. The company later suspended Hill for two weeks after she suggested fans should boycott Dallas Cowboys advertisers after Jerry Jones threatened to bench players who knelt during the national anthem.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, Houston Texans star J.J. Watt started a drive to raise money for those who were affected by the devastation. With an initial goal of two hundred thousand dollars (half of which Watt donated himself), the movement became a phenomenon that resulted in over $37 million being raised. His actions would later lead to him being named the 2017 Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year, an honor he shared with Houston Astros second baseman Jose Altuve.
2017 could easily go down as The Year of the Injury. Arguably the worst rash of injuries in NFL history has seen an unusually large number of superstars such as Watt, Odell Beckham Jr., Richard Sherman, and Aaron Rodgers knocked out of the season too soon.
The NFL wasn’t the only organization to suffer from injuries. Six minutes into his debut as a Boston Celtic, Gordon Hayward fractured his leg and dislocated his ankle after landing awkwardly during a national broadcast. The gruesome image horrified many, and Hayward was later confirmed to be out for the remainder of the season.
One of the craziest World Series ever played, the 2017 Fall Classic was perfectly encapsulated by Game 5, one of the greatest World Series games ever played. No team (or fan) felt safe while ahead, nor out of hope while behind. In the end, the Astros won the game, and eventually clinched the Series for the first time in the franchise’s 56-year history.
