Athlete success stories are straight-up heroin to me right now. I’m sitting here in my freezing Kansas City basement apartment at 2:47 a.m. on November 18, 2025, eating cold Totino’s pizza rolls off a paper plate balanced on my gut, scrolling X like a degenerate, and bawling at clips of people who refused to stay mediocre. And yeah, I’m fully aware that sounds pathetic. Good. Because that’s the point—these stories only hit if you’re still mad at the version of yourself that quit.
Let’s start with the one that guts me every single time: Kurt Warner. Dude was literally bagging groceries at Hy-Vee in Cedar Falls, Iowa—twenty minutes from where my cousins live. I drove past that exact store last Christmas and almost threw up from secondhand shame. The man stocked shelves, went home to his wife and four kids in a shitty apartment, and still threw in Arena League and NFL Europe when everyone, including me if I’m honest, would’ve told him to grow the fuck up. Then one night in 1999 Trent Green blows out his knee, Warner steps in, and suddenly he’s throwing lasers to Isaac Bruce while I’m over here failing at Planet Fitness. I hate him and love him in the same breath.
The Ones Nobody Talks About (But I Can’t Shut Up About)
There’s this WNBA player, Sophie Cunningham—she went to my rival high school in Missouri. I remember watching her play in like 2014 thinking “yeah she’s good but she’s not THAT good.” Wrong. Dead wrong. She scratched and clawed her way to Arizona, then to the league, and now she’s out here hitting logo threes and talking massive shit on national TV while I’m still traumatized from getting cut from 8th-grade basketball for “lack of lateral quickness.” Coach’s exact words. Still have the note.
Or take Michael Bennet, the defensive lineman—not the famous one, the other one who bounced around practice squads for years, worked construction in the offseason, and still made a Pro Bowl. I met him once at a bar in Houston in 2019. Told him I was trying to get in shape. He looked at my beer gut, laughed, and said, “Bro you either do the work or you don’t. No magic.” I hated him for being right. Still do.
The Most Embarrassing Athlete Success Story: Mine (Kind Of)
2022 I decided I was gonna run a marathon. Bought all the gear, posted the training plan on Instagram like a total tool, told everyone I was “becoming a runner.” Trained for 18 weeks. Felt like a god. Race day in Chicago—October, freezing rain. Mile 17, my nipples bleeding, legs cooked, I see the 4:30 pace group pull away and something in me just… broke. I walked the last 9 miles. DNF’d at mile 23. Sat on a curb crying while a 70-year-old lady patted my head and said “it’s okay honey.”
That failure hurts worse than anything because it proved I’m still the same quitter from middle school. But here’s the sick part—these athlete success stories keep dragging me back to the pavement. Because if Kurt can stock shelves and win Super Bowls, if Sophie can come from Columbia, Missouri and drain threes in the W, then maybe my pathetic ass can at least finish one goddamn marathon before I die.
Why These Stories Are Dangerous
They make you think you still have time at 2 a.m. when you’re 30 pounds overweight and hating your job. They make you lace up shoes in November darkness. They make you text your ex “hey” at 3 a.m. because “what if.” They’re dangerous as hell. I hate them. I need them. I’m currently registered for the 2026 Kansas City Marathon and I’m terrified. If I quit again I’ll never forgive myself. If I finish… fuck, I don’t even know what happens then.
Anyway. If you’ve got your own athlete success stories—or glorious failure—drop it below. I read every single comment like the masochist I am. And if you’re sitting there thinking you’re too old, too broken, too ordinary… good. That’s exactly where all of them started. Now quit reading blogs at 3 a.m. and go do something stupidly hard.
Outbound Links:-
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Warner
- https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/19486678/how-kurt-warner-went-stocking-shelves-super-bowl-mvp
- https://www.theplayerstribune.com/articles (multiple athlete letters)
