Before Curt Cignetti and Indiana, what were the best turnaround stories in sports history?
The Cinderella story of Indiana football’s dramatic turnaround under head coach Curt Cignetti has been one of the best narratives in college football over the last two seasons, with the Hoosiers just one win away from a national championship.
After leaving James Madison in November 2023, Cignetti inherited a team that had just finished a 3-9 season and, at the time, was the losingest program in major college football history. In his first season, Indiana went 11-2 and bowed out in the first round of the College Football Playoff. This season, No. 1 Indiana has gone 15-0 behind Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Fernando Mendoza. In the Hoosiers’ last three games, they’ve beaten reigning national champion Ohio State in the Big Ten Championship Game and traditional powerhouses Alabama and Oregon in the CFP quarterfinals and semifinals.
Indiana’s Playoff wins have been dominant, trouncing the Crimson Tide and the Ducks by a combined score of 94-25. Now, the basketball school’s historic bottom-dweller of a football program has a chance to complete its Cinderella run Monday night in the national championship game against the Miami Hurricanes in Miami Gardens, Fla.
As incredible as the Hoosiers’ ascension has been over the last two seasons, they are far from the first team to pull off a frighteningly fast, sensational turnaround.
Here’s a look at some of the most impressive and memorable turnarounds the sports world has seen.
Leicester City, 2016 Premier League champions
The ultimate Cinderella story. Leicester City finished 14th in the 2014-15 Premier League. A year before, the club was in the EFL Championship, the second division of English soccer. Teams that move between divisions aren’t expected to compete for Premier League titles, yet the Foxes improbably captured the 2015-16 title after oddsmakers gave them a 5,000-1 chance of winning it all at the start of the season. That makes Leicester City, by most accounts, the longest long shot ever to win a major sports championship.
Unlike many teams on this list, Leicester’s turnaround wasn’t spurred by the arrival of new superstars. Instead, the Foxes won with talent that matured with the club. Riyad Mahrez, the 2016 PFA Premier League Player of the Year, and Jamie Vardy, who scored in 11 straight games that season, were with the club before its return to the Premier League.
Aside from adding then-unheralded French midfielder N’Golo Kanté, the roster remained largely intact during one of the fastest and most improbable turnarounds in sports history.
San Francisco 49ers, Super Bowl XVI champions
The future Hall of Fame duo of head coach Bill Walsh and quarterback Joe Montana struggled in their first two seasons with the 49ers in 1979 and 1980, going 2-14 and 6-10, respectively.
Then, the following year brought a gold rush of success to the Bay Area. Walsh’s 49ers surged to 13-3 in 1981 and captured Super Bowl XVI to deliver the franchise its first NFL championship and the first of four Super Bowl titles in the ’80s.
St. Louis Rams, Super Bowl XXXIV champions
Kurt Warner draws a face mask penalty against Tennessee Titans defensive end Jevon Kearse in Super Bowl XXXIV. (Timothy A. Clary / AFP via Getty Images)
Tony Banks was the quarterback for St. Louis in Dick Vermeil’s second season in 1998. After a disappointing year, the Rams signed Trent Green — coming off a 25-touchdown season with Washington — to a four-year, $17.5 million contract to revive the franchise.
The turnaround was immediate: The team went 13-3 in 1999 and won the Super Bowl.
But it wasn’t Green who made it happen.
The franchise quarterback tore the ACL and MCL in his left knee during the 1999 preseason and missed the entire season. In his place stepped undrafted Kurt Warner, who had previously been bagging groceries and playing in the Arena Football League. Warner was a revelation, throwing for 4,353 yards and 41 touchdowns while leading “The Greatest Show on Turf” to an NFL championship and earning league and Super Bowl MVP honors along the way.
Boston Celtics, 2008 NBA champions
The 2006-07 Celtics had future Hall of Famer Paul Pierce, who played only 47 games that season, and little else in terms of ready-to-win NBA talent. The team finished 24-58, the second-worst record in the league, giving Boston strong chances to land a top-two pick in the 2007 NBA Draft and the rights to select one of two perceived generational talents: Greg Oden or Kevin Durant. Instead, the luck of the Irish failed to come through for Boston, as the Celtics slid to fifth in the draft.
General manager Danny Ainge pivoted, orchestrating trades to bring former MVP Kevin Garnett and multiple-time All-Star Ray Allen to Boston to form the trio, alongside Pierce, that popularized the term “big three” in NBA conversations. Like Cignetti adding Mendoza through the transfer portal before this season, the infusion of experience and ability produced immediate results.
The Celtics finished the 2007-08 regular season 66-16, winning 42 more games than they had the previous season, a mark that still stands as the largest single-season turnaround in NBA history. More importantly, Boston won the 2008 championship, proving, in Garnett’s words, that “anything is possible.”
New Jersey Nets, 2002 Eastern Conference champions
From 1994 to 2001, the Nets had just one winning season (43-39 in 1997-98) and spent the better part of a decade as a lottery team. Then, in 2001, Nets GM Rod Thorn saw a chance to add All-Star point guard Jason Kidd.
New Jersey sent Stephon Marbury to the Phoenix Suns that year in return for Kidd, whose impact on the Nets was immediate. Kidd, under head coach Byron Scott, transformed the Nets, leading them to consecutive NBA Finals appearances, though they lost both series, first to the Los Angeles Lakers and then to the San Antonio Spurs.
New York Mets, 1969 World Series champions
The 1969 “Miracle Mets” were 100-1 long shots to win it all entering the season. In just seven years of existence, the fledgling New York franchise had never posted a winning record. By the fall of 1969, they had finished the regular season 100-62 and went on to topple the heavily favored Baltimore Orioles in the World Series.
The turnaround was built quickly. In 1967, the Mets acquired ace pitcher and future Hall of Famer Tom Seaver. The next year, Gil Hodges took over as manager. By 1969, the pieces were in place for the franchise to win its first World Series.
Minnesota Lynx, 2011 WNBA champions
Like the Mets, the Lynx struggled for years after being founded in 1999, posting only two winning records through the 2010 season.
Then they drafted UConn star Maya Moore with the No. 1 pick in the 2011 WNBA Draft.
And all Moore did was win.
After reaching the Final Four in each of her four seasons with the Huskies and helping UConn to undefeated championship seasons in 2009 and 2010, Moore turned the Lynx into a similarly dominant force at the pro level. Minnesota coach Cheryl Reeve joined the team a season before Moore, mirroring the Cignetti-Mendoza dynamic. But Moore made the difference, averaging 13.2 points as a rookie and leading the Lynx, alongside veteran stars Seimone Augustus and Lindsay Whalen, to the WNBA championship.
It remains to be seen if Indiana can complete its championship run and then sustain success beyond this season. Moore never let Minnesota fade into obscurity. Over her eight-year career, the Lynx reached six WNBA Finals series and won four titles.
Pittsburgh Penguins, 2009 Stanley Cup champions
Like Cignetti’s impact at Indiana, a rapid turnaround often requires a singular spark. For the Penguins, that figure was Sidney Crosby. Dubbed “The Next One,” Crosby was selected No. 1 in the 2005 draft.
The Penguins struggled in his rookie season, but by his second year, Crosby had won the Hart Trophy as league MVP and returned Pittsburgh to the playoffs for the first time since 2000-01. By the 2008-09 season, Crosby and the Penguins were Stanley Cup champions, punctuating one of the fastest rebuilds in modern hockey history.
Valentin Vacherot, 2025 Shanghai Masters champion
Valentin Vacherot after defeating Novak Djokovic at the 2025 Shanghai Masters. (Hector Retamal / AFP via Getty Images)
Vacherot entered the Shanghai Masters in October 2025 ranked No. 204 in the world. A Masters 1000 event, one tier below the Grand Slams, Vacherot wasn’t expected to last long in a field packed with the world’s elite tennis players.
He didn’t seem to care.
Vacherot beat four top-20 opponents in Shanghai, eliminating No. 20 Tomas Machac, No. 14 Alexander Bublik, No. 10 Holger Rune and No. 4 Novak Djokovic on his way to the title. He is the lowest-ranked player to win an ATP Masters 1000 title. Vacherot became just the second male tennis player ranked outside the top 200 this century to defeat three or more top-20 foes in a single event, and his world ranking surged to No. 40 following the tournament.
Steve Stricker’s golden 40s
Stricker epitomized the late bloomer. Cignetti didn’t land his first Power Four head coaching job until age 62, decades into his career, and Stricker followed a similarly delayed arc. Before he turned 40, Stricker had managed just three PGA Tour wins and even lost his tour card in 2004, when he was 37.
Then, in 2006, the 39-year-old Stricker worked his way back — this time to the top, and fast. From 2007 through 2013, he was consistently ranked among the top ten golfers in the world, peaking at No. 2 and winning nine additional PGA Tour events along the way.
Miami Hurricanes, 1983 national champions
A Cinderella story is woven into the orange-and-green fabric of the program Cignetti and Indiana must overcome to write their own fairy-tale ending. When Howard Schnellenberger took over as head coach of the Hurricanes in 1979, he inherited a program with just one winning season over the previous four years. After an initial 5-6 campaign, Schnellenberger redirected the trajectory, guiding Miami to a 9-3 record in 1980.
Then came quarterback Bernie Kosar. He arrived in Miami in 1982 and redshirted during the Hurricanes’ 7-4 season. Once handed the reins in 1983, Kosar’s impact was instantaneous. The Hurricanes went 11-1 and beat Nebraska in the Orange Bowl to win the school’s first consensus national championship.
