My articles are usually discussing how athletes become faster or what are some of the new tricks of the trade to get you to run faster and improve your speed.  I’ve highlighted a lot of pro athletes and discussed their speed programs.  In some cases, I’ve even made suggestions to what they can do to improve their program to prevent injuries.  (Read my article about Andre Johnson and how he could have prevented his hamstring injury.)

Today, I wanted to take a look at the other side of the coin.  There are athletes out there that are not fast.  They run like they have a piano strapped to their back.  I wanted to take a moment and acknowledge some of the non-fast athletes out there.  I’ve created a Top 7 list of some of the greatest “non-fast athlete moments” in sports history.  Actually, just what I could recall.  If I could have recalled ten moments then this would have been a top 10 list, but I couldn’t so you’ll just have to deal with the top 7.

What made these moments special?

Ideally, these were slow athletes that had an awesome sports memory.  So consequently, when Michael Vick ran right through the Minnesota Vikings defense with two defenders colliding into each other, this wasn’t exactly a stellar moment for the slowness of the Vikings defense.  This was more a jaw-dropping, spectacular highlight reel, for Michael Vick and his freakish speed.

So let’s list the Top 7 Non-Fast Athlete Moments and enjoy (these are in no particular order):

  1. Alright, granted Rich Eisen isn’t an athlete, but he covers sports for the NFL Network.  Each year they cover the NFL combine and obviously part of that combine is the 40 yard dash.  So one year Eisen runs the 40 yard dash as fast as he can, in tennis shoes and his suit.  It is some of the slowest running you will see.  If you want to see something funny, go to Youtube and type in “rich eisen 40 yard dash.”  They have video of him running his 40 in over 6 seconds.  Then, through the magic of the computer, they have him running simultaneously against Tim Tebow, Julio Jones, Jacoby Ford, and others.  They give Rich a 10 yard lead sometimes and watch as the other runners track him down at the finish line.  Take 5 minutes and watch this.
  2. Did you see Sogelau Tuvalu run his 100 at the World Championships?  How have you not heard of Sogelau Tuvalu??  Well, neither had I until he ran his 100 in April of this year.  Tuvalu is from the tiny South Pacific Island, American Somoa.  He thought he was going to the World Championships to compete in the shot put, but the standards had changed to qualify for the shot, and when he got there, he realized he hadn’t qualified.  The American Somoa decided to enter him in the 100M.  I guess this has happened before with this island (you would think they would re-read that rule book each year).  So, Tuvalu (obviously a pretty big guy) ran the 100M in 15.66 seconds and didn’t qualify to move on.  But, at least he can say he competed in the World Championships.
  3. Back in 1989, the Cleveland Indians took on the hated New York Yankees for the American League Pennant.  The score was tied and Jake Taylor, the catcher for the Indians, was up to bat.  With a man on second, he catches the Yankees off guard with a bunt.  Running with all his might he barely beats the throw to first, but Willie Hayes Mays was on second and started running right from the get-go and scored the winning run.  Taylor’s running form was awful.  Arms flailing everywhere, but he got down there.  I’m of course talking about a scene from the movie Major League.  It counts, right?
  4. Dan Connolly is a lineman for the New England Patriots and was on the kickoff return team.  Green Bay kicked the ball, squibbed it or mishit it, but this lineman caught it.  Most lineman just fall on the ball and let their teammates cover him to end the play, but not Connolly.  He had been vying for the return specialist position for weeks and knew this was his opportunity to impress Belichik so he took off running (I’m just guessing here).  In what seemed like minutes, Connolly covered 70 yards in no time flat (I got up, went the bathroom, came back, and he was still running) before he was tackled.  Connolly then begged for oxygen, as the Patriots later scored and ended up winning the game.  The game all turned around by this speedy lineman who showed just how to put it into that special gear of speed that many of us just dream about.
  5. Super Bowl 27 pitted the Dallas Cowboys against the Buffalo Bills for the second year in a row.  Dallas crushed the Bills, so not much is memorable except for the Leon Lett play.  Jim Jeffcoat tackled quarterback Frank Reich who fumbled the ball.  Lett picked it up and ran the other way.  He was already thinking of his Disney world commercial and the thought that when he scores this will tie the most points scored in a Super Bowl game ever.  But out of nowhere Don Beebe knocked the ball from behind out of Lett’s hands and it went for a touchback.  Beebe went on to produce speed training videos, while Lett’s blunder made people forget about his Thanksgiving day blunder when he tried to recover a blocked kick only fumbling back to Miami who ended up kicking the game winning field goal.
  6. If Sid Bream had been a speedster, no one would have remembered Game 7 of the 1992 National League Championship Series so much.  He would have been safe by a mile and the Braves would have gone on to the World Series.  But, because he was lumbering around the basepaths and just beat the throw to home, his name goes down in baseball history.  His slowness propelled him to that nostalgia.  Here’s to having no speed.  Way to go Sid!
  7. One of the slowest 40 yard dash times in quarterback history was ran by some guy named Tom Brady.  He ran a 5.23 seconds at the combine and supposedly ran a 4.99 sometime his senior season at Michigan.  I’ve talked about the 40 yard dash and how overrated it can be and this is the prime example.  Tom Brady will never win the NFL’s fastest man award, but 2 league MVP’s and 3 Super Bowl titles isn’t all bad.

I would be interested to hear who you think should be on this list.  Go ahead and comment below or on my Facebook fanpage.  My mind was struggling so let’s see who you can come up with.