ESPY Awards 2012 Winners: Pat Summitt and the Show's Most Deserving Victors

There were certain outcomes we all expected from Wednesday's ESPYs telecast.

For example, we knew there was no chance LeBron James could lose the Best Male Athlete award, and we knew that nobody could beat the Miami Heat when it came to Best Team, and that Maria Sharapova was a shoo-in for Best Female Tennis Player.

But some other moments we saw at this year's ESPYs were a bit more poignant and heartfelt. LeBron may have won the most awards on Wednesday, but he wasn't the biggest winner—there were plenty of other moments that made the telecast truly unforgettable.

Here's a rundown of the most deserving champions at the ESPYs.

Pat Summitt
Arthur Ashe Courage Award

She served as the head coach of the Lady Vols for 38 years, and in the process, she became the winningest coach in the history of NCAA basketball. All of that was cut short over the last two years, however, when she was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's. Though she coached through the 2011-12 season, she stepped down at the conclusion and was given the title Head Coach Emeritus.

On Wednesday night, Peyton Manning and Reese Witherspoon were two of the superstars who played a part in presenting Summitt with the Arthur Ashe Courage Award. She accepted it on the heels of a standing ovation from the crowd before launching into a heartfelt speech that had the whole venue in tears.

She told the audience (via Yahoo! Sports):

"

It is time to fight. I ask all of you to join me together so we will win. I can tell you tonight, I am deeply touched as all of you heard my story. I'm going to keep on keeping on, I promise you that.

"

Check out the full video here, but make sure you have some Kleenex on hand.

Eric LeGrand
Jimmy V Award for Perseverance

LeGrand's story is one of the most heartbreaking we've seen in sports over the last several years. The former Rutgers defensive tackle suffered a spinal cord injury early in his junior season and was paralyzed from the neck down. In a matter of seconds, his life as he knew it was over, all because of a football hit gone awry.

Throughout the rehabilitation process, LeGrand has steadily been regaining feeling throughout his body, despite being told he'd have to stay on a ventilator. In 2012, he was signed to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who are coached by LeGrand's former head coach at Rutgers.

The ESPYs honored LeGrand with the Jimmy V Perseverance Award, named after former NC State basketball coach Jim Valvano and awarded to a sports figure who has overcome great obstacles. Like Summitt, LeGrand received a standing O, and with a big smile, he told the crowd that he still wouldn't give up on his dream of walking again someday.

Mario Gutierrez
Best Jockey

It's rare that the sports-loving world even knows a jockey by his full name; it's even more rare that the public becomes truly invested in one horse and its jockey during the height of the horse-racing season from May to June.

But Gutierrez and I'll Have Another, in their quest to become the first Triple Crown winners since 1978CK, made people care about horse racing again, until their dreams were cut short one day before the Belmont, when America's new favorite horse went down with a career-ending injury.

It wasn't a great year for horse racing. There were abundant allegations against trainers for drugging their horses, there were sanctions, there was a big black cloud cast over the sport. Gutierrez—a young, inexperienced underdog of a jockey who was never expected to win the Kentucky Derby or the Preakness, never mind both—and I'll Have Another combined to become one of the only bright spots of the year.

People are never going to care about Mario Gutierrez as much as they care about LeBron James, but at least the jockey got some of the recognition he deserves.