Max Sharf

QB Q&A: The best of the rest

Every so often, there is a play in football where all conventional knowledge seems to go out the window. The quarterback snaps the ball and either throws a screen or hands it off. Instead of running with the ball, the ball carrier squares up and launches the football 30 yards down the field. The announcers are screaming into their headsets about how the man who just threw the ball played quarterback in high school.  

Crossword: At the Derby

QB Q&A: The legend of Johnny Unitas

At a certain point in every legendary athlete’s career, something shifts in their perception. At this point, a very small number of living people can say that they have seen Jesse Owens at the Olympics, Babe Ruth at bat or Dolph Schayes on the court. These athletes have become folklore. Their epics are discounted in the modern era. Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game seems just as much of a tall tale as Paul Bunyan’s legendary tall tales, yet these legendary feats are legitimate.

QB Q&A: Sorrow of the Browns

Since the revival of the Cleveland Browns franchise in 1999, their quarterback play has been extraordinarily horrible. It’s been almost 20 years since any quarterback started for the Browns for more than four seasons. Since 1999,40 quarterbacks have started for the Browns, many of whom were career journeymen.

Crossword: In Pain

Obscure Sports: Wheelchair basketball

Of all sports, wheelchair basketball is perhaps the most truly inclusive. If a high school edge rusher racks up 20 sacks in 10 games but is a prisoner to a 5 feet, 10 inches, 160 pound frame, then there is no chance that they will be recruited for the highest level of college football. In wheelchair basketball, however, there is a place for everyone on the court.

Obscure Sports: Bull riding

The bull always wins the ride. It’s quite difficult to stay atop the bucking mammal, so in the sport of bull riding, all the judges ask is for participants to remain on the animal for at least eight seconds. Even eight seconds, however, is often too steep a task, and riders are typically thrown onto the dirt floor of the arena before the required time expires. Even after the rider has been jettisoned from the bull, the rodeo doesn’t end. The rider still has to scamper to a safe location, whether inside the arena or out of it, while the rodeo clowns try to divert the bull’s attention and attempt to calm the raging bull.

Abraham Lincoln’s illustrious wrestling career

Abraham Lincoln is perhaps the greatest presidential athlete in American history. Even though Dwight Eisenhower was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame and Gerald Ford won two national championships with the Michigan Wolverines football team, Lincoln has a better track record than both of them. Over the course of his 12-year wrestling career, he dominated against his compatriots, reportedly amassing more than 300 victories and losing only once. Unlike Donald Trump, who is a WWE Hall of Famer, Lincoln was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 1992, where he is recognized among the greatest wrestlers in history.

Obscure Sports: Sumo wrestling

Wrestlers begin a sumo match with their fists on the floor. Then, the mountains collide. Both men throw absolute death at each other — grabs and strikes, hands latched on to the other’s belt. Suddenly, one of the Goliaths has an advantage. The fighters, known as rikishi, bully one another around the ring until a throwdown ends the match. It’s been six seconds and the Japanese crowd is going wild. However, this joy is not felt across the Pacific. Here in the United States, they are not seen as athletes.

Obscure Sports: The Barkley Marathons, a race against nature

When James Earl Ray escaped from Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary, the clock was ticking until his eventual capture. Martin Luther King Jr.’s killer covered 12 miles in 54 hours before he was caught in the mountains. Every year in eastern Tennessee, around 40 handpicked runners compete in an ultramarathon to try to shatter James Earl Ray’s pace: They attempt 100 miles in 60 hours.