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They were told they weren't good enough to play, but these five American coaches used their rejection as fuel to completely reshape the sports that once dismissed them. Sometimes being cut from the team is the first step toward changing the game forever.
Before the championship rings, the Hall of Fame speeches, and the highlight reels, these five American sports icons had something else in common: someone told them they weren't good enough. Here's what happened in the moments that nearly ended everything — and why those early failures may have been the best thing that ever happened to them.
Wilma Rudolph was told as a child that she would never walk normally. By 1960, she was standing on the Olympic podium in Rome with three gold medals around her neck, the fastest woman on the planet. What happened in between is one of the most fragile, improbable stories in American sports history.