People Break Down The Greatest Comeback Stories They've Ever Heard

At the 1964 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan, runner Billy Mills won the 10k meter race—the first and still only runner from the United States to win Olympic gold in the 10k.

Mills is a member of the Oglala Lakȟóta tribe of the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ (Sioux Nation) from Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Mills' Mother Grace died when he was 8 years old and his Father Sidney died when he was 12.

A survivor of the Indian Boarding School system, Mills struggled with his stamina while running during his days at Haskell Indian School and at the University of Kansas, which was later linked to undiagnosed Type-2 diabetes.

Earning an athletic scholarship from KU, Mills was a three-time NCAA All-America cross-country runner and won the Big Eight cross-country championship in 1960. After graduating, Mills joined the United States Marine Corps and was still active duty when he competed in Tokyo in 1964.

An American announcer famously exclaimed "Look at Mills, look at Mills!" as he overtook the runners favored to win in the final moments of the 10k race.

Mills is now a revered figure in both the running community and among Indigenous peoples.

He is a motivational speaker dedicated to helping Indigenous youth in the United States through the organization he co-founded, Running Strong for American Indian Youth.

Mills wasn't expected to win in Tokyo and in the last lap he was jostled and fell behind the frontrunners.

"When Billy was passed by others, they bumped and jostled him. When Billy turned on the jets, he went outside letting his opponents have their line. He has been such a good champion, always sharing. A true and gracious champion."

His unexpected win in Tokyo and in life is viewed as a great comeback from lifelong adversity.

youtu.be

People love a great comeback story.

They can provide happiness, hope and inspiration.

Reddit user DubNation365 asked:

"What is the single greatest comeback story of all time?"

Humanity

"Humanity."

"Humans/Hominids got smacked down to a population of around 2,400-2,500 individuals around 800,000-900,000 years ago during the Pleistocene Epoch (2.6 million to 11,700 years ago).

"During the Holocene Epoch, hominids rebounded to over eight billion Homo sapiens sapiens by 2025 AD."

~ Dansken525600

Apple

"When I was young, Apple were an also-ran who were just about holding on selling beige boxes to a few rare arty types. You'd put them alongside other dead/dying platforms like Commodore or Atari and everything was going to be commodity PC clones in slightly different boxes forever."

"Then, BOOM - iMac G3 was suddenly hotter than the sun, Apple were seriously cool, and Steve Jobs was the new messiah. Then iPod and iPhone and iPad and Apple pretty much have a licence to print money."

~ JCDU

"By 1997, the company was worth less than $2 billion. That is, of course, a lot of money, but for a company that old and that size, it's basically a stepping stone on the way to bankruptcy."

"Today it is worth almost $4 TRILLION."

~ froction

Cyberpunk 2077

"'Cyberpunk 2077' video game. The hype was indescribable. They delayed it like 4 times. And it was STILL a piece of sh*t when it launched."

Still, the developers stuck with it. Patch after patch. Update after update. Now, ~5 years after it first launched, it's a pretty f*ckin' good game. Best videogame 'comeback story' of all time."

~ b_wald81

"Not gonna lie, I was on the hype train and immediately bought the game at launch. Had no idea it was getting the hate that it was because I was having too good a time playing it."

"The story and the world absolutely sucked me right in. Even with its initial warts, you could tell someone had put a lot of love into this game."

"Enjoyed the heck of it then, enjoy it from time to time now."

~ JupiterTarts

Boston Red Sox

"Boston Red Sox over New York Yankees, down 3-0. No team in professional baseball in the MLB had ever come back from a 3-0 deficit in a best-of-7 series. No other MLB team has done it since. The Astros made it back to 3-3 in 2020, but lost Game 7."

"Other than that, it's happened four times in hockey in the NHL. That's it."

"The Yankees had played in 6 World Series out of 8 since 1996. They had won four, including three in a row from 1998-2000. In 2003, they had defeated the Red Sox to reach the World Series in a 7 game affair that still hurts to think about."

"They were on a somewhat downward trajectory, but still very much the team that had put together the last great MLB dynasty. They had also recently acquired the best player in baseball."

"The Red Sox had famously gone without a World Series win since 1918, despite being one of the most beloved franchises in the country and fielding some of the greatest players in history. Often losing in spectacular, heartbreaking fashion."

"Their history with the Yankees is national folklore that they often ended up on the wrong side of, from the Babe to Boone. The 2003-2004 seasons are generally regarded as the peak of that rivalry. All throughout the season words were thrown around, hitters were beaned, benches were cleared and punches were thrown whenever these two teams met. It was electric."

"To top it off, these teams couldn't have looked more different. The Yankees were clean-cut and professional. The Red Sox were loud-mouthed, had big hair and beards and called themselves 'Idiots'. The two teams meeting in the ALCS, in a repeat of the previous season's showdown, felt like fate."

"In the first three games, the Yankees had been surgical, culminating in a devastating 19-8 win in Game 3. The Sox had looked empty and helpless in those three games. Their best pitcher all season was injured and their ace for the past few seasons (and GOAT starting pitcher) was having a down year."

"They were down one run in the bottom of the ninth in Game 4 facing the greatest closer of all time. They were three outs away from their season being over, with three more chances for the Yankees to seal it."

"They were simply not supposed to win."

"Then Millar walks, Roberts steals 2nd after a hundred pickoff attempts, Mueller brings him home. Ortiz finishes it in the 12th and they don't lose another game until April."

"Not to mention, they win three more World Series after that—more than any other team in the 20th century so far—when generations of Sox fans had come and gone without witnessing one. People visited graves that week to tell relatives who passed waiting for a Sox win."

"It was a strange, magical, wonderful week that is forever etched into the brains of every Red Sox fan, and forever changed what the team stood for. 'Back to Foulke', 'he can keep running all the way to New York' and other calls from that postseason are enough to trigger chills in any fan to this day."

"They keep making documentaries about it 20 years on because honestly, it'd sound cheesy if it was a movie concept."

~ sbrockLee

Nelson Mandela

"Nelson Mandela, from 27 years in prison to becoming the president of South Africa."

~ Acrobatic-Isopod5292

"He was classed as a terrorist by the White supremacist government of South Africa and therefore persona non grata in the United States, even while the rest of the world was singing 'Free Nelson Mandela', aware that he was a victim of apartheid and had been unjustly locked up for decades."

~ Salome_Maloney

Mick Doohan

"Grand Prix Motorcycle rider Mick Doohan getting back on that bike after almost losing his leg in a horrible accident, escaping the hospital to meet with what I would call a real life Dr Frankenstein who sewed his legs together to save the bad one."

"Came back to win four championships."

~ unbearablebastard

Mulholland Drive

"David Lynch's film 'Mulholland Drive'."

"It was originally a TV pilot that ABC decided not to pick up as a series. That seemed like the sad end of the story. It happens all the time; people put all that work and hope into a pilot, but it doesn't pan out, so they lick their wounds and move onto something else."

"But then a year later a light-bulb went off above Lynch's head: maybe if he filmed new scenes to give the pilot an ending then he could turn it into a proper film—luckily it had been made on 35mm film, not standard definition video."

"To cut a long story short, now 'Mulholland Drive' regularly appears on 'Greatest Films of All Time' lists."

~ RunDNA

Romans, Battle of Zama

"The Romans at the Battle of Zama in 202 BC has to be up there."

"The legendary Hannibal Barca had crushed them in several battles leading up to it and Rome was essentially on it's knees and made one last attempt to quell Hannibal and put an end to the Punic Wars."

"This was before Rome really popped off too."

~ B0DZILLA

"I would like to add that 'crushed' is if anything an understatement of what Hannibal had done to Rome."

"The combined casualties of Trebia, Lake Traseimene, and Cannae was a significant percentage of Rome’s entire population. Some estimate that a full 20 percent of the adult male population were killed in that campaign, something like 100,000 men in two years."

"We’re talking something like Russia's WW2 casualty percentages equivalent, but in less than half the time, mostly due to only a few battles, and it taking out a decent amount of the Roman leadership at the same time."

"That's like not just war losing amounts of damage, but civilization ending levels for most places."

~ JMHSrowing

Rocky Bleier

"If you like sports comebacks, Rocky Bleier is a real tear jerker. NFL player sent to Vietnam and was wounded by a grenade and gunshot in the legs."

"Told he would never play football again. Took him several years of rehab but made it back to play and win in a superbowl in the 70s with the Steelers."

~ N2trvl

"Told he may have to walk with a cane the rest of his life."

Telegram sent from owner Dan Rooney to Rocky Bleier while he was recovering in a military hospital: 'Rock. The team's not doing so well. We need you back'."

"A few years after he was back, he had a thousand yard season."

~ Lawyering_Bob

Ghengis Khan

"I can't think of a bigger known example than Ghengis Khan. He was a boy when his father, a tribal leader, was murdered."

"The tribe didn't honor his inheritance. He and his mother were abandoned by the tribe to live in poverty. He was even enslaved as a teenager."

"He had no military or political inheritance to work with. So he had to start from scratch."

"Suffice to say, he made a comeback."

~ MrSahab

Steven Bradbury

"I’m going for Australian short-track speed skater Steven Bradbury, from last place to 1st, getting him a gold medal at the Olympics."

~ HallettCove5158

"Most people know of everyone falling down and him being last man standing to win, but his injury comeback is massive."

"He lost four litres of blood after his quad was sliced pretty much right through."

~ StockholmSyndrome85

Niki Lauda

"Austrian race car driver Niki Lauda."

"Almost died (was given last rites in the hospital), burned half his face off and was back in the car after 6 weeks. Pure legend."

"The movie Rush is about Niki Lauda."

~ lordblum

"Was looking for someone to mention Lauda. Beat his two teammates on his return at Monza despite still not being recovered and with blood seeping into his balaclava."

"Won more races and titles after his accident. Never bothered to get cosmetic surgery except to fix his eyelids. Absolute legend."

~ reverend-frog

Kurt Angle

"Kurt Angle winning an Olympic gold medal with a broken neck was pretty great honestly."

"Dude had a doctor give him shots to numb his neck before each match until he won. Petty cool story if you hear him tell the full version."

~ Iamaman88

"He’s also gone through an insane amount of personal trauma (dad died when he was a teen in a construction accident, his wrestling coach who was like a father to him was murdered, his sister OD’d on heroin, several of his brothers have been in severe legal trouble [including one who killed his own wife], his ex wife cheated on him with his boss when he was in TNA and he had a severe painkiller addiction [100+ pills a day], then started drinking alongside the pills and got several DUIs and basically hit rock bottom before getting clean and sober and turned his life around."

"The fact that he’s relatively healthy (he has permanent damage from the neck surgeries but can still function on a day to day basis) and seemingly happy after everything he went through is inspiring."

~ LTS55

Terunofuji Haruo

"Sumo wrestler (rikishi) Terunofuji Haruo."

"He reached the second highest rank (ozeki) before devastating knee injuries crippled him in 2017. He withdrew from several tournaments leading to him dropping down to the second lowest division (jonidan) before beginning to fight again in 2019 and managed to climb back through all the ranks and eventually take the white rope being promoted to the highest rank Yokozuna in 2021."

"He would win 10 top division championships before retiring in 2025 and is now the coach of the Isegahama Stable."

~ sgtaxt

Hometown Hero

"Girl I went to high school with. Cancer survivor as a child, had kids as a teenager, absent parents, bad people around her all together. Rough family in a rough part of town. No car no nothing."

"Managed to still graduate high school top of her class, got into a nursing program, got on the bus and went to nursing program with two kids strapped to her that she constantly had to deal with admin, other classmates complaining, still got her nursing degree, kept doing school plus nursing career plus raising kids all alone, no family support, no significant other, and now is a very prominent nurse administrator at a local hospital making six figures."

"Kids turned into hard-working teenagers. She runs outreach programs and is a pillar of her community."

"And still just the friendliest, funniest, smartest, most driven person."

~ BrosephBruckuss

What's the greatest comeback story you know?