When Fiorentina sat comfortably in second place during the turn of the year in the 1992/93 Italian Serie A season, no one could expect that they would drop all the way down to 16th and be relegated to Serie B at the end of the season.
What's more surprising to them, is that their start Argentine striker Gabriel Batistuta would remain with the club in Serie B. And sure enough, Fiorentina's stay in Serie B lasted only one season, thanks to the prolific strike rate of "Batigol".
When Juventus is relegated to Serie B this year following the investigation of a match-fixing scandal, players like Fabio Cannavaro, Gianluca Zambrotta and Lilian Thuram all left the club in a hurry.
And in fact, manager Fabio Capello was the first one to leave the club, when he re-joined Real Madrid before any of their departure.
On the other hand though, Alessandro Del Piero and Pavel Nedved, stalwarts in their midfield, have vowed to remain with the team despite the relegation, hoping to emulate Batigol's feat by bringing Juventus back to Serie A in just one season.
For Batistuta, Del Piero and Nedved, the sacrifices behind their noble act is largely a financial one. But hey, they are rich and famous already, and the loss of exposure won't hurt them much actually.
Then you have Pat Tillman.
Tillman, a safety for the NFL's Arizona Cardinals, turned down a lucrative offer to join the St. Louis Rams in 2002, and decided to enlist in the U.S. Army, shortly after the terrorist attacks on 11 September, 2001.
But in April 2004, he was shot and killed in Afghanistan while on duty. It later turned out that he was killed by a so-called "friendly fire". In other words, he was accidentally shot to death by his own guys.
Tillman turned his back against a million-dollar deal, hoping the serve the country he whole-heartedly loves. Yet tragically, his hopes were shattered and he paid the ultimate price.
ESPN recently ran an excellent piece on Tillman, which can be found here.
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