Comingsoon.net is getting back in the game to find the most washed-up sports stars in film. Check out our selections in the gallery below!
If we’ve learned anything from American sporting events, there’s nothing more compelling than an underdog team or a rags-to-riches player who manage to overcome all odds in order to be the best of the best. Almost as interesting, though, is the idea of the sports movie has-been: The former superstar-turned-loser, the ancient talent who’s lost it all, the old number one who’s fallen all the way to the bottom.
That’s not to say that those has-beens can’t be winners, though—in many cases, especially as evidenced by the films below, a has-been might be just what an underdog team needs in order to rise to the top. In celebration of former glories big and small, these are the best sports movies has-beens.
sports has beens
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A League of Their Own (1992)
With all the men away fighting in World War II, the women of A League of Their Own are far from has-beens—how could they be, when they’ve never even gotten the chance to play in the first place? No, the real has-been here is Tom Hanks’s character, a washed-up coach who attempts to guide them (and maybe himself) to glory.
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Any Given Sunday (1999)
Jack “Cap” Rooney, played perfectly by Dennis Quaid, is the epitome of a football has-been. Once at the top of the game, his character’s injury has practically reduced him and his team to rubble. The movie boasts an all-star cast, but Quaid’s Rooney is the one to see here.
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Bull Durham (1988)
Kevin Costner stars here as Crash Davis, a minor league catcher tasked with helping a rookie pitcher rise to glory. Davis might be the most memorable (and washed-up) has-been in sports movie history.
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Cool Runnings (1993)
The last John Candy film to be released in his lifetime, Cool Runnings pays tribute to one of the coolest winter sports ever: the bobsled. Candy’s character, a disgraced coach, is recruited to help a hapless crew win big at the Winter Olympics, despite the fact that they’ve lived their whole lives in tropical Jamaica.
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Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004)
Despite what the title suggests, Vince Vaughn and Ben Stiller’s classic 00s comedy Dodgeball is not based on something that actually happened. Still, that doesn’t mean that it’s hard to imagine Vaughn’s washed-up character Peter and his ragtag crew existing in real life—the same goes for their coach, Rip Torn’s Patches O’Houlihan.
