Sports are such an ubiquitous presence in our daily lives that it is hard to imagine a time when they didn’t exist. While modern sports can usually only trace their roots back a hundred years or so, ancient humans had their own games which pitted teams against each other, often with bloody results.

10 Pitz
Culture: Mayan

Littered with cultural and religious significance, the sport known to the Mayans as pitz is one of the oldest games in human history, believed to have originated as early as 2,500 BC. A number of different variations existed, with the rules on ball size or what was used to hit it changing to fit the context of the game. Nevertheless, the game was originally much like racquetball, with the later addition of hoops that served as goals. The main focus of every town in the Mayan empire, the ball court was often used as a proxy for war, a way for enemies to settle their disputes without bloodshed.

In addition, Mayan kings, much like their Aztec counterparts, would often stage dramatic reenactments of their myths right on the court. The most popular myth played out on the court was that of the Maize Gods and the Hero Twins. As they were avid fans of pitz, the Maize Gods would often play loudly, which angered Xibalba, the god of the Underworld. So he killed the two of them and buried them on the court; he also took one of their heads and hung it from a tree in the Underworld. It spat on one of the princesses of the Underworld, who became pregnant, and she gave birth to the Hero Twins, who resurrected the Maize Gods.

Human sacrifice also played a role—captured kings or the captains of the losing team would often be decapitated after the game, although the games may have just been an elaborate ritual, with the outcome predetermined.

9 Harpastum
Culture: Roman

An early predecessor to the modern sport of rugby, harpastum was an ancient Roman game played with a small, hard ball of the same name. Derived from two early Greek games, the goal of the game varied often, but each version included two teams. Some variations involved a single player in the middle of a scrum, attempting to grasp the harpastum and escape, with the opponents trying to keep him inside and away from the ball.

Other versions were more like rugby, with two evenly matched teams squaring off on a field, with goals on either side. Passes, as well as feints, were common, as the goal was to get the ball to the opposite end of the field, and injuries abounded since there were no rules on grappling. A predetermined amount of time was agreed upon and the winner was the team with the most points at the end.

Galen, the famous Roman physician, claimed that harpastum was one of the greatest exercises, because it was cheap, easy, and could be tailored to fit the skill level of any player.

8 Fisherman Jousting
Culture: Egyptian

The game of choice for the poor and lower-class fisherman of the Nile River, fisherman jousting was exactly what it sounds like. Two teams of boatmen would square off, utilizing their hands or feet to knock the other team off balance and send them careening into the water. Papyrus boats, propelled by poles which would also be used to defeat the other team, were the stage for the contests, some of which were believed to have been impromptu games designed to settle territorial disputes.

Generally a very violent sport, fisherman jousting often ended in the deaths of a large number of the participants. Hippos and crocodiles roamed the waters, ready to maim the contestants who fell overboard. In addition, swimming was not as universally practiced as it is today, and many of the fishermen drowned simply because they didn’t know how to swim.

Some scholars believe there may have been a religious aspect to some of the fights as well, with murals depicting competing boats filled with offerings. The boatmen appear to be racing to be the first to honor the gods, with combat coming into play during a close race.

7 Buzkashi
Culture: Turkic

Developed by the Turkic people sometime between the 10th and 15th centuries, the sport of buzkashi is still played to this day, predominately by the descendents of its inventors. The national sport of Afghanistan, it involves two teams, riding on horseback, whose goal is to drag a headless goat carcass across the field and drop it inside a predetermined area, usually a circle. Occasionally, a sheep or calf is used instead of a goat.

Banned under the Taliban’s rule, buzkashi is a violent sport, with the riders equipped with whips with which to beat the other riders’ horses. They’re not supposed to use their whips on the riders themselves, but that rule is often disregarded. Often, the social status derived from owning the horses of the winning team is enough to cover the costs associated with maintaining the health of the animals between matches. The origins of this violent sport are lost in time, but the story goes that Genghis Khan and his Mongols would steal livestock from the Turkic people, who would brave death to snatch it back from them on horseback.

6 Pato
Culture: Argentinean

Derived from the Spanish word for duck and also known as horseball, pato is the official sport of Argentina and an eclectic mix of polo and basketball. The youngest sport on this list, it was created in the 1500s and was originally played with a duck in a basket rather than the ball that today’s participants use. A violent sport, riders would often attack each other in order to win, often because a large amount of money was at stake.

Throughout its history, the sport has been banned numerous times, mostly due to the increasing violence which often resulted in the deaths of many of its participants. In the 17th century, the Catholic church was so concerned with the sport that they would excommunicate anyone found playing. Up until the 20th century, it remained underground, until rule changes made it much safer to play; the duck in a basket was also replaced with a unique ball with six leather handles. The goals themselves have changed over time, evolving from a simple box on the ground to a hoop with a net that is in use today.

5 He’e Hölua
Culture: Hawaiian

One of the more dangerous entries on this list, he’e hölua (Hawaiian for “sled surfing”) is a sport which originated on the Hawaiian Islands over 2,000 years ago. It consists of a dangerous trek up the side of a volcano, with a large sled made of wood and coconut fibers. Once at the top, the rider, or team of riders, would race down the slope, either on their stomachs or in a typical surfing pose.

Speeds of up to 80 kilometers per hour (50 mph) were common, and the races were seen as tributes to Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of fire and volcanoes. Brought to a stop by 19th century Christian missionaries, who saw the sport as dangerous and a waste of time, it has been recently revived by native Hawaiians trying to reconnect with their heritage.

4 Pelota Purépecha
Culture: Mexican

Pelota purépecha is a pre-Hispanic game similar to field hockey, but with a fiery twist: The sport is played with a ball which is lit on fire. Named for its inventors, the indigenous Purépecha people of what is now the Mexican state of Michoacán, the game involved a ball which had been smeared with pine resin and lit on fire, which was batted around by players armed with wooden sticks. Goals were set up on either side of a stretch of field and the goal was to knock the ball across the line.

The ball, known as a zapandukua, was normally made up of interwoven cloth and twine, and the game was normally played at night, as the ball made for more of a spectacle under the light of the moon. Like many of the games created by the indigenous people of Mexico, pelota purépecha has been largely forgotten, but concerted efforts by the Mexican government are helping to raise awareness for this piece of national history.

3 Naumachia
Culture: Roman

Less well-known than the gladiator battles which frequented the Roman sports world, a naumachia was a mock naval battle, played in front of a crowd of onlookers. Normally pitting condemned criminals against each other, they often took place in man-made basins designed specifically for this purpose. The earliest recorded example of a naumachia was in 46 BC, begun by none other than Julius Caesar, who used it to celebrate his military accomplishments in a Roman ritual known as a triumph.

Basically, two ships were placed on either side, filled with “willing” participants, and then the fighting began. It lasted until one side was completely killed. Some of them were so elaborate that sea creatures were brought in and placed in the waters. The largest recorded naumachia was set up by Emperor Claudius in 52 AD, with 100 ships and over 19,000 men participating in the game.

2 Hurling
Culture: Irish

One of the oldest games still played today, hurling is sort of like hockey mixed with lacrosse. Basically, there are two teams and the object is for the players to use a wooden stick, known as a hurley, to hit a small ball called a sliotar into a goal. The fastest field sport in the world, ball speeds reaching up to 145 kilometers per hour (90 mph) are extremely common, and participants are often left bruised and bloodied after a match.

However, that’s nothing compared to the 3,000-year-old history of the sport, where it was more like warfare, with relatively few rules and matches that could last for days. In addition, there could be teams numbering in the hundreds squaring off against one another, only adding to the violence. Believed to have been brought to Ireland by the Celts, the sport has tales of mythological heroes playing which date as far back as the 12th century BC.

1 Chunkey
Culture: Native American

One of the earliest sports played in what is now the United States, chunkey was developed by the Mississippian culture and centered around the ancient city of Cahokia. Basically, any number of people participated on either of two teams, though it was usually just one-on-one. A small stone disk was rolled from the starting point and the opposing teams would throw spears at the area at which they thought the disk would end up.

Spreading to much of the Native Americans of the Southeast, chunkey is believed to have played a major role in joining the different tribes together, as they formed one of the largest North American civilizations north of Mesoamerica. Each tribe had unique rules, but the spirit of the game was the same. The sport was taken so seriously, and gambling so ingrained in the culture of chunkey, that losers would even commit suicide in some cases, normally because they had wagered all of their possessions.

As we all learned through high school dating, it takes a tremendous amount of failure to learn anything worthwhile. The same lesson applies to modern sports. Sports would not be where they are today without the mind-boggling failures of many other leagues. These upstart leagues made the same mistakes over and over again, all while leaving behind important touchstones which still resonate in modern sports.

10Coloured Hockey League

The National Hockey League (NHL) fielded its first black player in 1958 when Willie O’Ree signed with the Boston Bruins. Eight years earlier, a player named Art Dorrington signed with the New York Rangers in 1950, but he never played in the NHL. This was nearly five decades after the formation of the Coloured Hockey League (CHL), which was Canadian as the spelling shows. Founded in 1895, the CHL featured only black players along with an incredibly modern style of play.

Hockey at the turn of the 20th century was a stale, low-scoring affair, lacking in both speed and agility. And slap shots. There were no slap shots before the CHL. Eddie Martin, a CHL player, is believed to have invented the slap shot decades before it was introduced into the NHL.

The CHL was also innovative in how goalies were used on the ice. Previously, goalies never left the crease, and played the entire game standing up. CHL goalies changed this by chasing pucks out of the crease and dropping to their knees to stop pucks. The goalies quickly became the team leaders in the CHL, a role they still hold today. These CHL tactics were quickly co-opted by neighboring white leagues, who were, of course, averse to giving credit to the black players.

The CHL toiled as a moderately successful regional league in eastern Canada until World War I robbed it of many of its best players, and the league folded in 1925.

9Federal League

Only once in Major League Baseball’s history has anyone attempted to challenge “America’s Game.” Naturally, the attempt ended in dismal failure, but it led to some interesting footnotes which still reverberate in modern baseball.

In 1913, the Federal League (FL) enacted its plan to become the “third” professional baseball league—after the American League (AL) and National League (NL)—in 1913. The FL offered players exponentially higher salaries than the other major leagues, and started franchises in major baseball markets to compete directly with already established franchises.

The plan was unsustainable since the FL could never hope to make enough money to pay the players in already saturated markets. It didn’t help that many FL teams lacked official nicknames and instead went by “Brooklyn Feds,” “Kansas City Feds,” etc. These factors caused the Federal League to disband in 1915, but not before suing the AL and NL for being “illegal monopolies.”

This case was decided by the Supreme Court in 1922 in Federal Baseball Club v. National League in favor of Major League Baseball. The Supreme Court ruled the MLB was a legal monopoly since it was primarily entertainment, and the Sherman Antitrust Act did not apply to it. This ruling effectively ended all future attempts to create rival baseball leagues, and gave the MLB the freedom to do whatever it wanted.

Additionally, the forgotten Chicago Whales of the Federal League built a stadium which came to be known as Wrigley Field, a minor cultural touchstone in baseball history.

8World Football League

The World Football League (WFL), begun in 1974 as a rival to the upstart NFL, immediately ran into trouble after the Philadelphia franchise gave away tens of thousands of tickets, but then marked them down as “paid for” in the accounting books. This caused many to view the league as illegitimate and amateurish. These naysayers were supported by the constant financial problems which plagued the league. Players were not paid during the season, and at least one team used McDonald’s coupons as meal money. The Birmingham Americans’ jerseys were even repossessed immediately after they won the championship.

Amid all of this turmoil, there was the bizarre situation of the Houston Texans’ John Matuszak. While Matuszak played in the WFL, the NFL’s Houston Oilers, who Matuszak had previously been under contract with, filed an injunction banning him from playing in the WFL. This injunction caused federal marshals to force Matuszak off the field in the middle of a game immediately after he sacked the opposing quarterback.

Additionally, the schedule (a blistering 20 games long) was so poorly formatted that teams often played each other in back-to-back weeks. And the league instituted a bizarre new rule where touchdowns were worth seven points and a bonus “action point” made them worth eight.

But the WFL achieved notable success in luring nearly 60 players, including Super Bowl Champions Ken Stabler and Larry Csonka, to switch leagues. However, like many upstart leagues, the salaries they offered (a combined nearly $3.5 million to Larry Csonka, Jim Kiick, and Paul Warfield)—in an era without multimillion-dollar contracts—were unsustainable.

Besides exorbitant salaries, the league was years ahead of the NFL with many other innovations. The WFL added an overtime period for games tied at regulation, and outlawed bump-and-run coverage after three yards (changed to five yards in the NFL). Most importantly, the WFL changed the location of the field goal to its modern location. Until then, the field goal was puzzlingly located at the front of the end zone. This helped to end the dominance of field goal kickers at the time and just makes complete sense.

7Continental League

By the 1950s, baseball was a stale game. There had been no new franchises since the MLB’s formation, and the Yankees won every single year. Also, when the Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles they discovered that people west of the Mississippi liked baseball, too, but they simply had no other teams in that half of the country. This state of affairs prompted Branch Rickey, the guy who signed Jackie Robinson, to orchestrate his Continental League (CL) “scheme.”

In 1960, the CL publicly announced its plans to add new franchises in major cities currently without baseball teams, such as Houston. No one knows if Rickey was serious about the Continental League or if he simply wanted to force MLB’s hand to expand. Either way, his plan worked and the mere threat of a new major league caused Major League Baseball to immediately expand into Minnesota, Houston, and Washington, D.C. All of these cities were chosen since they would have been the homes of Continental League teams. Over the next 15 years, the MLB added teams in Seattle, Toronto, Kansas City, Montreal, and San Diego, and threw in the New York Mets for good measure. Without a single pitch being thrown, the Continental League shoved baseball into the modern era.

6United States Football League

Donald Trump has been the part of many failures over the years—often marriage-related—and his forays into sports have been no different. In the mid-1980s, Donald Trump, then a legendary real estate tycoon, decided he had had enough of the National Football League. He teamed with David Dixon, the guy who built the Superdome, to create the United States Football League (USFL) in 1983.

Dixon had a conservative plan, which called for moderate spending, a spring schedule, and slow expansion into NFL markets, to allow for the USFL to successfully compete. The Dixon Plan was moderately successful over the league’s first two seasons as the USFL signed three straight Heisman Trophy winners, including Herschel Walker, and began to generate interest from major networks for a network television deal.

The deal with Herschel Walker, valued at $5 million over three seasons, foreshadowed the USFL’s demise, as it greatly exceeded the $1.8 million salary cap established for each team by Dixon. Once the Walker deal was allowed, other teams began signing exorbitant contracts, some to future Hall of Famers like Steve Young and Jim Kelly. These deals gave the league credibility but made it financially unstable.

But the league could have perhaps survived if “The Donald” had not convinced the other owners to switch the USFL to a fall schedule in 1985 to compete directly with the NFL. The results were disastrous, and the league decided to stake its future on filing an antitrust lawsuit against the NFL. Shockingly, the USFL won the lawsuit, but were awarded only three dollars in compensation. The jury found the NFL was an illegal monopoly, but that the USFL had failed based on its own poor management, so they did not deserve any compensation. Almost immediately after this, the USFL folded in disgrace.

But the dispirited league left behind the legacy of the two-point conversion, instant replay reviews, and a salary cap, all of which the NFL adopted within a decade.

5American Basketball League

The American Basketball League (ABL) was founded when Abe Saperstein, the owner of the Harlem Globetrotters, was spurned for the new Los Angeles NBA franchise in 1960. Naturally, as revenge, he decided to create his own league, because that’s how rich tycoons settle grudges. To enact his plan, Abe enlisted the help of a relatively unknown young man named George Steinbrenner, who would lose boatloads of money in this venture before finding success with the New York Yankees.

The ABL was doomed for failure from the start since many of the players were amateurs, washed-up stars, or players previously banned from the NBA. To worsen matters, the owners clearly did not know how to run professional teams. Such was the chaos that Steinbrenner, owner of the Cleveland Pipers, sold player Grady McCollum’s contract at halftime. These wild moves caused Steinbrenner to personally lose over $2 million and taught him well for his future sporting ventures.

However, the ABL was instrumental in introducing two new innovations to the game of basketball. They added a three-point line and a wider free throw lane to curb the dominance of big men like Wilt Chamberlain. In time, both of these changes were implemented in the NBA, providing for a more energetic and high-scoring game.

4World Hockey Association

Surprisingly, the National Hockey League was made up entirely of North American players before the late 1970s. That all changed after the upstart World Hockey Association (WHA) attempted to, and failed to, compete with the NHL. As with many upstart leagues, the WHA signed its players to lucrative contracts which forced NHL owners to pay their players more. The WHA’s higher salaries had a major impact on the NHL since, until then, NHL players had been by far the worst paid of the Big Four leagues.

These high contracts eventually caused the WHA to fold in 1979, but it allowed the WHA to achieve playing parity with the NHL. The WHA won the majority of interleague exhibition games during its existence.

Most importantly, though, the WHA decided its best bet was to sign players from Europe. Until then, Europe had been a surprisingly overlooked market considering how dominant European teams were in the Olympics. This flood of foreign talent forced the NHL to do likewise, and changed the game into a more fast-paced and high-scoring affair, more like European hockey.

Wayne Gretzky started as an unknown player in the WHA before becoming “The Great One,” and five modern teams (among them the Edmonton Oilers, who became an NHL dynasty in the 1980s) originated in the WHA. Hollywood is even indebted to the WHA, as the Hanson brothers from Slapshot are based on the Carlson brothers who played for the WHA’s Minnesota Fighting Saints.

3North American Soccer League

Before the North American Soccer League (NASL) began in 1968, soccer was a mostly unknown and, at times, reviled sport to many Americans. The game’s mechanics, such as a clock which counted up, and a plethora of draws, made no sense to traditional American viewers. However, the English victory in the 1966 World Cup captivated English-speaking viewers around the world and gave the NASL the boost it needed to slowly bring soccer to America.

By 1973, the NASL was popular enough for the Philadelphia Atoms to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated, the first time soccer had been profiled by a major American sports publication.

Then, in 1975, the New York Cosmos signed Pele—arguably the greatest soccer player ever—and American soccer exploded. Soon, the Cosmos were regularly drawing crowds of 50,000 people and Pele was a media sensation. Pele was the sort of famous where his mere presence caused Nigeria to pause its civil war for 48 hours when he visited.

Such a star attraction caused CBS to pick up the Soccer Bowl (the NASL championship), and other networks began broadcasting regular season NASL games. Other NASL teams also signed aging European stars such as Franz Beckenbauer and Johan Cruyff to create a truly cosmopolitan league.

Pele’s popularity during three seasons with the Cosmos created a youth soccer boom, which catapulted soccer to the top of many youth sports statistics. The ensuing popularity led FIFA to award the US the 1994 World Cup. Of course, the NASL was still unable to make soccer a fully profitable league, and the high salaries to European players, along with the 1980 economic downturn in the US, led to its demise in 1983.

However, the lessons learned from the NASL were remembered by those in Major League Soccer (MLS), which began in 1994 and still operates today. The MLS imposed a strict salary cap, while still maintaining a high level of play and luring in past-their-prime-but-still-famous European players. Thanks to the NASL, soccer finally “made it” (kind of) in America.

2National Basketball League

The modern day National Basketball Association (NBA) was formed in 1949 when the Basketball Association of America merged with the National Basketball League (NBL). Yet, in 1996, the NBA celebrated its 50-year anniversary, which marked the 50th anniversary of the BAA, completely ignoring the NBL’s contribution to modern-day basketball.

This historical disregard for the NBL is unfathomable since the NBL was the league which first welcomed African Americans into the basketball world. The NBL also was where George Mikan, whose athletic prowess and star power practically saved the NBA in its unstable early years, began his career. Mikan’s scoring dominance eradicated the dead ball era of basketball, where scores were routinely in the 20s and 30s.

The Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons (which became the Detroit Pistons), a stand-out NBL team, were owned by Fred Zollner, an automobile magnate, whose money was integral to the NBA in its infancy. Additionally, five current NBA franchises—the Detroit Pistons, Denver Nuggets, Los Angeles Lakers, Sacramento Kings, and Philadelphia 76ers—can trace their lineage to the NBL. Without the NBL, there might not be Christmas Day basketball.

1American Basketball Association

Plain and simple, the American Basketball Association (ABA) is one of mankind’s greatest creations, and certainly the only truly successful upstart major league. There was an ABA coach named Slick and a star player named “Bad News.” They played with a red and white ball, the Indiana Pacers even used a wrestling bear as a halftime show, and a franchise called the Memphis Tams offered all their players $300 to grow a mustache. All those novelties, combined with frequent financial chaos, created the most colorful sports league in history.

The ABA, founded in 1967, brought NBA basketball out of the doldrums and into the modern era by redefining how basketball was played. Like the ABL, the ABA instituted a three-point line which dramatically increased scoring by forcing defenses to defend the perimeter. This, in turn, created more space for drives and dunks. Given how obsessed modern basketball is with dunking, its shocking to know that dunks were not a major part of the game until the ABA’s flashy playing style began. The ABA capitalized on the popularity of dunks with a yearly slam dunk contest.

Furthermore, the ABA revolutionized the financial structure of basketball by allowing free agency, eliminating the reserve clauses which tied players down, and recruiting players directly out of high school. This allowed the ABA to grab talent before the NBA, and gave them a competitive balance most upstart leagues never achieved.

The list of NBA legends who began their career in the ABA is simply ridiculous: David Thompson, George “Ice Man” Gervin, Connie Hawkins, Spencer Haywood, Artis Gilmore, Jerry Lucas, Moses Malone, Dan Issel, and the human highlight reel—Julius (Dr. J) Erving. Future NBA coach Larry Brown also began his career coaching the ABA’s Denver Nuggets.

Yet, for all its flashiness and innovation, the ABA still failed because it was poorly managed, and put franchises in places like Pittsburgh and Baltimore. In 1976, amid dwindling revenue and only nine remaining teams, (most of) the ABA merged with the NBA in 1976. From the ABA came the Indiana Pacers, Denver Nuggets, San Antonio Spurs, and the New York Nets, along with an influx of talent which resurrected the NBA from declining attendance and TV sponsorships in the early 1970s.

Geoffrey earned seven worthless liberal arts degrees before deciding to become a comedian. Follow his missteps on Twitter @filthyson.

Professional sports are highly competitive and feature the very best athletes and coaches from all over the world. The stakes are often quite high, as there is a great deal of turnover among coaches, executives, and players if success is not achieved very quickly. It’s no surprise then that professional sports teams are constantly on the lookout for any edge they can find to beat their opponents. What follows are 10 of the strangest ways pro sports teams try to gain an advantage.

10Using Facial Coding

Psychologists have been using facial coding to determine how a facial expression may betray an emotion, and animators have used facial coding to ensure that their characters possess realistic facial expressions. The Milwaukee Bucks, however, have turned to a facial coding expert in order to help evaluate the emotional stability of a player who may ultimately receive a multimillion-dollar contract.

The Bucks hired Dan Hill, a facial coding expert, for the evaluation process related to the NBA draft. With the help of Hill’s analysis, the team decided that Jabari Parker had the emotional wherewithal to be successful in the NBA, whereas another player, Dante Exum, might not hold up emotionally. The facial coding analysis played a significant role in their selection of Parker over Exum. The Bucks—along with other pro sports teams—are now analyzing “emotion metrics” in order to gain a better understanding of their players so that the team can get the most out of them from a performance standpoint.

9Employing ‘V Energy’

Fans of the Los Angeles Dodgers were understandably frustrated with the direction of the franchise under then-owner Frank McCourt, whose divorce proceedings revealed some of the financial mismanagement that had caused the Dodgers to have disappointing seasons during his reign.

One of the oddest things done by the McCourt regime was the use of “V energy,” for which the Dodgers paid a Russian scientist-turned-healer a six-figure salary. Vladimir Shpunt, living in Boston, was on the Los Angeles Dodgers payroll to send positive energy to the team from across the country.

Shpunt, who admittedly knew nothing about baseball, emigrated to the United States with the help of future Nobel prize winner Zhores Alferov, a physicist who stated that Shpunt was an “eminent scientist” and “outstanding inventor.” So for five years, Shpunt was paid a considerable sum to send positive energy to the Dodgers, and he was even asked to treat a player, Jayson Werth. The “V energy” did not work for Werth, and it is difficult to believe that it ever worked for the Dodgers, either. The team was, however, clearly committed to exhausting every available option in order to win a World Series title.

8Zen Teachings And Meditation

There have been many interesting coach/player pairings in the history of sports, but Phil Jackson and Shaquille O’Neal must have been a true joy to watch. O’Neal, now a commentator for TNT, has talked about Jackson’s triangle offense quite a bit, but one of the more interesting aspects of Jackson’s sessions has to be his use of meditation during practice, a tactic he employed with both the Chicago Bulls and the Los Angeles Lakers. On occasion with the Bulls, Jackson also had the team practice in the absence of light and in the absence of sound.

Jackson was also well known for giving out books to his players as gifts, usually because the book contained a lesson that was particularly appropriate for the player. Jackson once gave O’Neal a copy of the book Siddhartha by Herman Hesse, and then jokingly asked the jovial big man to give him a book report. O’Neal obliged after reading the book, saying, “Story about a young man who’s rich, famous, good-looking, and has a lot of women—just like me.”

7Developing New And Incredibly Specific Analytics

Professional sports teams have become heavily invested in properly analyzing players, including those they currently employ and those they may target in the future. In order to completely understand a player’s value, teams have begun using advanced analytics. An NBA general manager may have once looked at a player’s points-per-game and rebound averages while also relying on scouts for further analysis, but they are now looking at things like PER (player efficiency rating), win shares, and rebound percentage (the percent of the available rebounds grabbed while the player was on the floor).

In baseball, things have gotten very specific. It was once the case that a player’s batting line (batting average, home runs, and runs batted in) was used to tell most of the story, but teams are using reams of data to determine the true value of a player. One of the more interesting developments relates to pitch framing, a metric used to determine how well a catcher “frames” a pitch. Catchers can now be judged based on how many pitches they are able to get called as strikes, regardless of whether the pitch was in the strike zone or not. The accumulated value of pitch framing is quantified by runs saved, which can be as many as 50 over the course of a single baseball season.

6Emulating And Applying Wall Street Strategies

Being able to identify undervalued assets and market inefficiencies are of vital importance to those working on Wall Street, and given the deep understanding of advanced financial strategies, many investment bankers are finding that their experience has made them a hot commodity in Major League Baseball.

Andrew Friedman, formerly of the Tampa Bay Rays and now with the Los Angeles Dodgers, is a perfect example of this. After leaving his position as an analyst at Bear Stearns to join the Rays’ front office, Friedman began applying his Wall Street strategies to turn a losing team into a small-market monster. He worked feverishly at identifying market inefficiencies that allowed him to sign players to affordable, long-term contracts, allowing him to compete with other AL East teams that carried $100 million more in payroll each season.

Friedman values the information that he and his staff utilize so greatly that new hires are required to sign a non-disclosure agreement, allowing Friedman’s front office to maintain an information advantage.

5Cultivating A ‘Happy’ Atmosphere

For many years, it has simply been accepted that participation in competitive sports is going to involve quite a bit of yelling. Perhaps not on the level of a Bobby Knight tirade, but screaming and harsh criticism are generally considered par for the course when playing for a team that has championship aspirations.

But not for the Seattle Seahawks.

Pete Carroll, the head coach of the defending Super Bowl champions, has worked very diligently to ensure that his players enjoy a happy atmosphere. Everyone in the organization is instructed to maintain a positive disposition, with Carroll pushing his players to “do your job better than it has ever been done before,” rather than chastising them when a mistake is made. The Seahawks have adopted Phil Jackson’s practice of having players meditate as a part of practice, and they have also added yoga sessions and “imagery work,” which is a part of Seattle’s Neurotopia brain-performance testing.

4CIA-Type Surveillance

Although we wrote this list before the explosion of “Deflategate,” it isn’t the first time the Patriots have been in hot water. In one of the more infamous scandals in recent NFL history, Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots were heavily fined and penalized for an incident known as “Spygate,” in which the coach and other members of the team spied on the New York Jets in order to steal their sideline signals. A Patriots intern videotaped the opposing team’s defensive signals so they could be decoded, allowing the Patriots to know exactly what the Jets were doing well before they did it.

In order to make full use of the information the team had uncovered, the Patriots also set up a hidden radio frequency through which a member of the team’s personnel could communicate with the quarterback long after the NFL’s mandated time, which prohibits communication from the sideline to the field once the play clock is down to 15 seconds. This allowed Patriot coaches to talk to quarterback Tom Brady while plays were going on, and it has been reported that the coaches were telling Brady which receivers were open on each play.

A recently published book on the subject contends that the spying has not ended, and may be the reason that the Patriots’ home record has been so strong over the years—and why so few coaches have had success after leaving New England.

3Code Breaking

Because of the ease with which NFL sideline signaling can be deciphered by opponents, many teams now take protective measures to maintain the secrecy of their calls. The Philadelphia Eagles are a bit more paranoid than others, and have gone to extreme measures to ensure that no opponent can crack their code. Chip Kelly, the Eagles’ head coach, uses multiple assistants, each holding various placards at different times while wearing a specially colored shirt, arm band, or hat.

To see just how well Kelly’s code worked, ESPN tried to crack the code using a mathematician and a team of photographers back when Kelly coached at the University of Oregon, but were unable to discern how the placards and colors related to the plays that were ultimately run. Kelly also employs a sports sciences coordinator—Shaun Huls, formerly the strength and conditioning coordinator for none other than the Navy SEALS—in order to ensure that his players are mentally and physically prepared for the demands of the Eagles’ system.

2Early Morning Concert Performances

World Cup qualifying is taken very seriously by athletes and fans alike. In many cases, helping a team to victory becomes something of a national effort. Such was the case when the Swedish national team faced off against Portugal, and the home side attempted to find every advantage it could.

They first tried to leave the roof of the arena open despite freezing temperatures and the very high likelihood of snowfall. But while keeping the arena roof open only provides a small advantage to the home team, having a concert held outside of the opposing team’s hotel and scheduled for 7:15 AM does provide a decided edge. Markoolio, a singer/songwriter, scheduled the concert in order to keep Portugal from a solid night’s rest, rapping insults in a language unfamiliar to them.

This was not the first time a stunt like this was attempted, as Algerian fans also disrupted the sleep patterns of the Burkina Faso team by blowing car horns, setting off fireworks, and using the most infernal of all noisemakers, the vuvuzela.

1Total Lack Of Hospitality

The Boston Celtics were one of the best teams of the 1980s, and Red Auerbach was one of the most innovative executives in the history of basketball. So it comes as little surprise that Auerbach ensured that the visiting locker room was as hot as a sauna and its showers were freezing cold. It got so bad that, during the 1984 NBA Finals, the Lakers furiously demanded that their locker room include an air conditioner. So Auerbach gave them one, still in its package and on the floor.

The tactic worked for the Celtics, and Game Five in Boston saw the Boston Garden reach a temperature of 36 degrees Celsius (97 °F). Larry Bird excelled, scoring 34 points and collecting 17 rebounds, all while the Lakers’ players—including all-time scoring leader Kareem Abdul Jabbar—struggled, some needing oxygen just to make it through the game. Boston won the game and the series in seven games to earn their second championship of the 1980s.

J. Francis Wolfe is a freelance writer whose work can be seen daily at Dodgers Today. When he’s not writing, he is most likely waiting for “just one more wave,” or quietly reading under a shady tree.

Jackie Robinson famously broke baseball’s color barrier as a member of the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. But he’s not alone in having an impact on the civil rights movement through his position as an athlete, and many lesser-known figures played sports while positively affecting society through civil rights advocacy.

10Peter Norman

This Australian sprinter surprised many observers of the 1968 Olympics by taking the silver in the 200-meter dash. Norman finished second to American Tommie Smith and ahead of Smith’s teammate, John Carlos, setting the stage for what may be the most recognizable piece of sports photography ever. Smith and Carlos each wore black gloves and raised their fists in the air in the Black Power Salute. While Norman stands somewhat anonymously to the side, he actually played a significant role in the photo. He suggested that Smith, who was wearing both gloves before the ceremony, give the other glove to Carlos so that both men could join in the salute.

Many who see the photo do not immediately notice that all three men—Smith, Carlos, and Norman—wear pins reading “Olympic Project for Human Rights,” representing a group opposing racism in sports. This act of solidarity caused Norman a great deal of trouble in his home country of Australia (he was not selected for the 1972 team despite holding the fifth-fastest time in the world), but it served as a powerful and enduring image of unity in the fight for equality.

9Dock Ellis

Dock Ellis was quite a character and likely is best known for the no-hitter he threw while high on LSD. That notoriety is unfortunate given how much he accomplished as a civil rights advocate during his playing days and as a drug and alcohol counselor once his career ended. He never wavered in standing up to the injustices of inequality, and he took action as far back as his high school career, once refusing to play in game as a protest against the coach’s racism.

Ellis was very outspoken, and he was never one to let someone get away with an injustice. He challenged manager Sparky Anderson to start him in the All-Star Game so that he could face Vida Blue, saying that Anderson “wouldn’t pitch two brothers against each other.” Despite some of his on-field antics—which include tying the MLB record for being hit by pitches, an act he admitted was intentional—Ellis worked diligently in charitable endeavors, most notably helping to found the Black Athletes Foundation for Sickle Cell Research in 1971.

Among the many men who appreciated Ellis’s efforts in civil rights was Jackie Robinson, who wrote a moving letter praising Ellis and advising him on some of the difficulties he would encounter. Footage from a recently released documentary on Ellis shows him reading the letter, which moved him to tears even several decades after it was received.

8The Boston Celtics & Bill Russell

Boston—owing perhaps to protests and riots in the 1970s after Boston public schools were desegregated by a court order—has had to endure a stigma as a racist town. But the city’s hometown basketball team, the Boston Celtics, was among the most progressive when it came to matters of race. The team was the first in professional basketball to draft an African-American player in Chuck Cooper, whom they selected in 1950. The Celtics were also the first in North American sports to hire an African-American coach when Bill Russell took over the team from the legendary Red Auerbach in 1966, a time of significant unrest throughout the country.

Russell is known as one of the most successful professional athletes in history, but he has also been an outspoken advocate of civil rights, and he has recently spoken out in support of gay athletes as they endure what Russell sees as issues black athletes encountered when he played. In 2010, Russell was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, for his work as “an impassioned advocate of human rights.”

7The Starting Five At Texas Western In 1966

Texas Western’s role in the civil rights movement was something of a surprise to them, as many did not realize that they were members of the first collegiate basketball team to field an all-African-American starting lineup—and, ultimately, the first to win an NCAA Championship. In recollecting the game, most of the Texas Western players recall not understanding its importance until years later, when strangers would approach them to thank them for opening doors that had previously been shut.

That championship game, played against Kentucky, took on greater significance after famous Kentucky coach Adolph Rupp reportedly declared that no all-black team could defeat his all-white squad. Pat Riley, then a member of the Kentucky squad, recalled how motivated Texas Western was after learning of Rupp’s comments, saying, “It was a violent game. I don’t mean there were any fights—but they were desperate and they were committed and they were more motivated than we were.”

Ultimately, Texas Western’s coach, Don Haskins, did not choose his starting five because of their race but rather in spite of it. He simply wanted to win, and those five gave him the best opportunity to do so. His assistant, Moe Iba, confirmed this, saying, “The fact that he was doing something historic by playing five blacks, that probably never crossed Don’s mind. Hell, he’d have played five kids from Mars if they were his best five players.”

6Stewart Udall, Secretary Of The Interior

Udall, the Secretary of the Interior to both John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1960s, became involved in the civil rights movement through his intervention with a Washington Redskins football franchise that refused to integrate. The Redskins had been adamant in this refusal, with its team owner, George Marshall, once saying that the team would “start signing Negroes when the Harlem Globetrotters start signing whites.” Marshall’s position on the matter was assailed by many, with one columnist referring to him as “an anachronism, as out-of-date as the drop kick.”

Despite the pleading of the press and fans, not until Udall stepped in and threatened retribution on the federal level did the Washington Redskins become the last team in the NFL to integrate. Since the Redskins’ new stadium was on federal land, Udall informed Marshall that if he continued to refuse to be integrated, the team would not be allowed to use it. In 1962, Marshall heeded Udall’s ultimatum, and the Redskins were finally integrated.

5Don Barksdale And His US Olympic Teammates

Barksdale was the first African American to represent the US on the Olympic basketball team, and his role in the civil rights movement was in a Kentucky arena in 1948, the year after Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Barksdale’s moment was during an exhibition game when his teammates passed a water bottle down the bench, with each man taking a sip. After Barksdale took his, he passed it to a teammate—“Shorty” Carpenter of Arkansas—who drank from the bottle without hesitation.

While this moment seems like nothing more than a minor detail today, the water bottle drew the attention of all those in attendance, many of whom felt that Carpenter could have made a statement by refusing to drink. This was especially true given that whites and blacks in the South rarely, if ever, drank from the same glass or from the same water fountain at the time. He didn’t refuse, and the game went on. Barksdale would later go on to become the first African-American All-Star in the NBA, playing for the Boston Celtics alongside Chuck Cooper.

4Kathrine Switzer & Roberta Gibb

Before 1967, no woman had officially run in the Boston Marathon, and the Boston Athletic Association (BAA) did not willingly issue bib numbers to women who applied. The Amateur Athletic Association (AAU) did not formally accept women as participants in distance running, fearing that their bodies could not handle the rigors of long distances. Roberta Gibb ran the Boston Marathon in three consecutive years (1966–1968) but did so without a bib number, having to hide in the bushes at the race’s starting line to avoid being spotted.

Switzer, however, was issued a bib number but not with the full blessing of the BAA—according to the BAA, she did not clearly identify herself as a female entrant and signed her entry form as “K.V. Switzer.” She started the race unnoticed, but around the fourth mile, the press bus caught sight of her, causing a stir. Once race officials were notified, one of them even tried to rip off her bib number and physically remove her from the race before another runner—“Big” Tom Miller, a nationally ranked hammer thrower and former All-American football player—pushed him aside. Switzer officially finished the race and helped to clear the path for female participation in distance running events.

3Francois Pienaar & Nelson Mandela

Francois Pienaar grew up under apartheid in South Africa, when it was common to hear Nelson Mandela referred to as a terrorist who deserved to have been imprisoned for all of those years. As a rugby player, Pienaar was a part of the 1995 Rugby World Cup that came to symbolize the changing of South Africa, and Mandela supported the South African team and dismissed the notion that the springbok—the team’s emblem and a notorious symbol of apartheid—should be tossed aside. Instead, Mandela used the Rugby World Cup as an opportunity to unite the nation once again under the banner of sports.

Upon South Africa’s victory, Mandela, who wore a South Africa rugby shirt that prominently featured the springbok, presented the cup to Pienaar, the white South African team captain. The image was an important one, as it came to be recognized as a moment of reconciliation for a formerly divided nation. Pienaar and Mandela became quite close thereafter, and the man known as Madiba ended up attending Pienaar’s wedding and becoming godfather to one of the Rugby captain’s children.

2Al Davis

Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis saw his football legacy somewhat tarnished during the last decade of his life, as the Raiders endured an extended period of futility that has continued to the present day. The team has not made the playoffs since its Super Bowl run of 2002, and many observers blame Davis for being out of touch with the game. Too many forget that Davis was an innovator of the highest order throughout the overwhelming majority of his life in football, and that included his attitude toward issues of civil rights.

In 1963, just a year after the Washington Redskins had to be forced to integrate its team, Davis was refusing to play a preseason game in Mobile, Alabama as a protest against the state’s laws on segregation. Davis, again protesting the inherent unfairness of segregation, also implemented a policy stating that the Raiders would not play in cities in which players would have to stay in different hotels due to race.

Davis was also responsible for hiring the second African-American head coach in the NFL in Art Shell and also the first female front-office executive in Amy Trask. Shell, a former offensive tackle with the Raiders, played under the league’s second Latino head coach, Tom Flores, who was also hired by Davis.

1Willie O’Ree

O’Ree didn’t even realize that he had broken the color barrier in the NHL in 1958, saying, “It just didn’t dawn on me. I was just concerned about playing hockey.” O’Ree grew up in Canada, playing both hockey and baseball, and as a teenager, he had the opportunity to meet Jackie Robinson in Brooklyn after being invited to camp with the Milwaukee Braves. The two spoke briefly, and after Robinson told him that there were no black kids playing hockey, O’Ree corrected him, saying, “Yeah, there’s a few.” Less than 10 years later, O’Ree would be making his NHL debut for the Boston Bruins.

O’Ree had to endure taunts and insults while playing games on the road, but he was steadfast in his belief that those taunts deserved no response from him. There were even times when, while in the penalty box, O’Ree would be spit on and have objects thrown at him because of his race. O’Ree went on to work with the NHL after completing his professional hockey career, serving as the director of youth development for the NHL’s diversity program.

J. Francis Wolfe is a freelance writer whose work can be seen daily at Dodgers Today. When he’s not writing, he is most likely waiting for “just one more wave” or quietly reading under a shady tree.

Author Peter McAllister wrote a book called Manthropology: The Science of Why the Modern Male Is Not the Man He Used to Be. It’s a fact-based, humorous look at why modern men are inferior to their historical counterparts in almost every way possible.

Crispin Andrews talked to Peter McAllister to find out just who could beat whom in today’s sports scene. Here’s what he found out:

10Usain Bolt vs. Ancient Australians

Usain Bolt ran 100 meters (328 ft) in 9.69 seconds to break the world record at the Beijing Olympics. That’s 42 kilometers per hour (26 mph) for the world’s fastest man. But 20,000-year-old fossilized tracks from Australia show that, back then, ordinary people could manage 37 kilometers per hour (23 mph)—running in soft mud, barefoot. With spikes, a running track, and training, they’d have managed speeds of up to 45 kilometers per hour (28 mph).

These ancient Aussies had long limbs and robust leg bones that were 40 percent denser and stronger than those of modern humans. Being nomadic hunters who had to catch their own food, they had a need for speed. Kangaroos and emus were no slouches when running for their lives. Fossilized footprints are extremely rare, and the ones discovered are unlikely to have been left by prehistoric Australia’s fastest runner. The average modern human can run 24 kilometers per hour (15 mph), which is 18 kilometers per hour (11 mph) slower than Bolt. Let’s say that the ancient tracks were left by a runner of average speed. The Pleistocene Aussie equivalent of Usain Bolt would have reached speeds of 63 kilometers per hour (39 mph).

9Samuel Wanjiru vs. Native Americans

Kenyan runner Samuel Wanjiru broke the Olympic marathon record in Beijing in 2008, when he ran it in 2 hours, 6 minutes, and 32 seconds. Had a Mojave Native American from the late 19th century been in the field, Wanjiru would have most definitely been celebrating silver. Back then, the Mojave played a game called kickball. They’d run through the desert all day along the Colorado River, kicking a wooden ball in front of them.

By playing this game, an average Mojave expended 17,000 calories of effort in a single day, almost twice the amount lost by riders in the Tour de France. One Mojave man is said to have run 322 kilometers (200 mi) in 24 hours. Greek athlete Yiannis Kouros holds the world record for 24-hour running. In 1997, he managed only 304 kilometers (189 mi)—and he was running in spikes, on a track, and didn’t have to watch out for wolves and rattlesnakes.

8Kerri Walsh Jennings vs. Pleistocene Aborigines

The Pleistocene Aborigines would have also made great volleyball players. And not just for their Usain Bolt–like speed or their gangly physique that basketball players and fast cricket bowlers would have loved. No, these prehistoric Aussies would have had yet another advantage in a game of volleyball: long arms. On average, they had an extra 10 centimeters (4 in) at the wrist.

For a volleyball player, like Kerri Walsh Jennings, long arms are a must. Serve underhand, and those long arms create more speed to propel the ball over the net with power, accuracy, and grace. Longer arms place more force on the server’s elbow and shoulder joints. More force on the joints transfers to a faster serve. Serve overhand, and long arms produce faster speed, which reduces the amount of time the ball spends in the air. Long arms also mean a longer reach, which is crucial for returning opposition serves.

7Olympic Rowers vs. Athenian Oarsmen

If you think today’s Olympic rowers are the best there have ever been, think again. Olympic rowers might be able to move their boats through the water quicker than any previous Olympians. But 2,500 years ago, oarsmen who could beat any modern-day rower were a dime a dozen. In 427 B.C., an Athenian warship, called a “trireme,” managed the 340-kilometer (211 mi) voyage to Lesbos in 24 hours. When modern-day rowers had a go in a reconstructed trireme, they could only manage that speed for a few seconds. Over distance, their top speed was 9 kilometers per hour (5.6 mph).

According to one ancient writer, even a moderate Athenian crew could top that. At that time, Athens had 200 triremes and 34,000 oarsmen. After measuring their metabolic rates, scientists concluded that sustained speeds of 14 kilometers per hour (8.7 mph) were beyond the aerobic capacity of modern-day rowers. Athenian rowers, they deduced, must have had a greater built-in capacity for aerobic exercise.

6Wladimir Klitschko vs. Australopithecus

Wladimir Klitschko might look pretty mean—and he certainly is—but the multi-time world heavyweight boxing champion would have come out second best to our earliest ancestor. And that’s despite the fact that the tiny Australopithecus was, on average, a whole 60 centimeters (2’0″) shorter than Klitschko. It’s all about punch force. Chimpanzees have similar physiology to Australopithecus, and they have four times as much muscle strength as humans. They are known to deadlift 272 kilograms (600 lb), and one female chimp has been recorded pulling 572 kilograms (1,261 lb) with one hand. Get into the boxing ring with a chimp, and the chimp wouldn’t need to knock you out; it would just throw you over the top rope. Australopithecus were fast and agile, too. They would have gotten their best shots in while Marciano and Klitschko, lumbering heavyweights by comparison, staggered to defeat.

5Jan Zelezny vs. Ancient Greeks

Matthias de Zordo might sound like a B movie villain from the ’60s, but the 24-year-old German is, in fact, the former world javelin champion. Although his 86.27-meter (283 ft) throw was way short of Jan Zelezny’s 1996 world record of 98.48 meters (323.1 ft). But not even the great Czech, Zelezny, could have matched the ancient Greeks when it came to javelin throwing. The earliest Olympic champions threw over 150 meters (492 ft). Although, to be fair to their modern-day successors, they did use lighter javelins and had a leather throwing thong that added an extra 10–25 percent to the throw.

In the early 19th century, Australian aboriginal men of the Dalleburra tribe could throw their hardwood spears 110 meters (361 ft), unaided. British sports educator, Lieutenant Colonel F. A. M. Webster—himself a national championship–winning javelin thrower—reported that in the early 1900s, Turkana men of East Africa regularly outthrew him by meters using their traditional spears.

4Viktor Ruban vs. Mongol Archers

To win gold in Beijing, Ukrainian archer Viktor Ruban shot five of his 12 arrows into the bull’s-eye. And that’s from 70 meters (230 ft). Back when archery meant life or death, Genghis Khan’s warriors could hit a tiny red flag at 150 meters (492 ft). One of the Mongol horde’s best bowmen brought down a flying duck with a single arrow through its neck. Another is said to have been able to hit a target 536 meters (1,759 ft) away.

Carib archers of the 17th century could hit an English half crown coin at 76 meters (250 ft). Today, an average Olympic archer trains 40 hours a week. Mongol archers trained for 80 hours. They started at two years of age. It takes 10,000 hours of practice to reach elite level. By the time they turned 17, Mongol archers would have been practicing for 64,000 hours. Modern Olympic archers use high-tech, carbon-fiber recurve bows with sights and stabilizing weights. Mongol archers learned to shoot on horseback.

3Ilya Ilyin vs. Neanderthals

Kazakhstan isn’t just famous for inspiring British comedians to dress in dodgy green speedos and sing strange songs about potassium. Kazakh weightlifters are pretty good, too. Ilya Ilyin won gold in the 2014 World Championships. But no way would he have beaten a Neanderthal. With 20 percent more muscle mass than modern humans, male Neanderthals were 126–138 percent stronger than we are. Ilyin lifted 242 kilograms (534 lb) in the “clean and jerk.” His combined total was 432 kilograms (952 lb). With the same training, the strongest Neanderthal would have managed 309 kilograms (681 lb) and 554 kilograms (1,221 lb), respectively.

In the women’s competition, China’s Zhou Lulu broke the 75-kilogram (165 lb) world record with a combined score of 328 kilograms (723 lb). The strongest female Neanderthal would have lifted 475 kilograms (1,047 lb), beating the current world record in the heaviest men’s class. Neanderthal women were 145 percent stronger than today’s ladies and had 10 percent more body mass than the average European man. They had shorter arms, so they could have lifted even more.

2Javier Castellano vs. Mongol Riders

Javier Castellano has earned more money than any other jockey in 2014—over $25 million. In 2013, the Venezuelan earned over $26 million. Genghis Khan’s Mongol warriors didn’t earn that much, but they could have beaten any of today’s jockeys in a straight race. For the nomadic people who lived on the Mongolian steppes back then, riding was like walking. A fully fledged warrior could ride 130 kilometers (81 mi) in a single day, traveling over mountains and deserts. Genghis Khan used the riders to send messages around his empire. When his grandson, Khublai Khan, lost favor with the nomads, the Mongols lost their empire.

1Javier Sotomayor vs. Tutsi Men

High jumper Javier Sotomayor managed to clear a world record of 2.45 meters (8’0″) in 1993—pretty good for back then and too good for the world’s best since. But Sotomayor’s jump was nothing compared to the heights Rwandan Tutsi men were jumping daily during the 19th century. Olympic high jumpers battle for personal glory and team success. For the Tutsi, high jumping was more important than that.

In their culture, you were only considered a real man if you could jump your own height. And many of these guys were tall enough to make NBA scouts drool. Frequently, Tutsis jumped over 2 meters (6’7″). One is said to have managed 2.52 meters (8’3″)—and that’s without any training or technique coaching. Teach him the Fosbury Flop—the midair wiggle that’s supposed to add extra height to a jump—and he’d have managed over 3 meters (9’10”).

Crispin Andrews is a freelance writer from England. He writes about science, technology, popular culture history, sports, and the unexplained.

Sports have always been among mankind’s most treasured endeavors. It usually starts off as an accessible form of entertainment and, before you know it, it becomes part of a civilization’s culture. Nowadays, the international scene is dominated by a handful of the most popular sports, but that wasn’t always the case. There was a time when each town had its own local pastime. And this led to some bizarre games that are now mostly forgotten (although, in some cases, that’s a good thing).

10 Barking Off Squirrels

“Barking off” was a type of squirrel hunting popular in America in the late 18th century and early 19th century. It was created in the backwoods of Kentucky and popularized by renowned frontiersman Daniel Boone, who was famous for his marksmanship.

The goal of the contest was to hunt squirrels, but not by shooting them. Instead, the hunters would shoot the bark right below the squirrels. The impact was strong enough to shatter the bark and create a concussion blast powerful enough to kill the squirrels. For trophy hunters, this type of shooting had the added bonus of leaving the squirrels’ skin intact.

The practice of barking off squirrels occurred at a time when the woods of Kentucky were filled with these unlucky woodland critters. Regular squirrel hunts were so frequent that it wasn’t uncommon for hunting parties to kill thousands of them in a single day. The most successful hunter often was not the best shot but the guy who could reload the fastest. That was why a new test of skill was welcomed by both hunters and spectators, who would often gamble on the outcome of the sport.

9 Equestrian Long Jump

Many sports are created by combining two concepts that already existed. While some ideas have been successful, not all of them are winners. Take equestrian long jump, for example. This sport took the human long jump and combined it with horse racing to create a sport that was less exciting than either.

There was a lot of interest in this concept in its early days. It was even featured as a sport at the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris as part of a double equestrian event that also featured the horse high jump.

If you are wondering why the equestrian long jump is not popular today, it’s because it failed to make an impression. In fact, it was downright anticlimactic. The gold medal was won by Belgian racer Constant van Langhendonck and his horse, Extra-Dry. Their winning leap measured 6.1 meters (20.0 ft). Although it was significantly better than any other horse jump that day—second place came in at 5.7 meters (18.7 ft)—it was still lackluster as people were expecting an inhuman display of athletic prowess. For comparison, the current world record for a human long jump is 8.95 meters (29.4 ft).

8 Turtle Racing

You might think that turtle racing doesn’t count as a forgotten sport because it is still practiced today, but there are few similarities between the old and current versions aside from the name. Nowadays, turtle racing is a fun activity for kids you can find at county fairs. All the participants huddle up in the center of a circle and let their turtles loose. The creatures wander around aimlessly until one eventually makes it out of the circle and is declared the winner.

That was not the case 100 years ago. Back then, giant turtles were used in a genuine straight-line race. Crowds of excited spectators watched impatiently from the sides just like they would at a horse race. The turtles even had small children riding them like jockeys.

As bizarre as that image might be, there are even stranger claims about the origin of the sport. According to an article in the Miami News, turtle racing first became popular in the Bahamas, where it was a favorite local pastime. However, there were a few key differences. For starters, the races took place in water instead of on land, so giant sea turtles were used, typically loggerhead turtles. These turtles had men riding them as jockeys, and they weren’t just for show. They were there to make sure the animals followed the course, which was usually more complex than a simple straight line.

7 Quintain

Jousting is an essential part of medieval lore. There was no better way for a knight to prove his valor than to enter a jousting tournament and perform in front of the king and his royal court. However, jousting champions are made, not born. In order to perfect their skills, knights would need to train—and that’s quintain. Instead of two knights charging at each other, one knight would charge at a stationary target (also known as a quintain) in order to improve his skill.

Typically, the target was a shield balanced on a pole with a counterweight at the other end. The weight served multiple purposes as the quintain would spin when hit. An accurate shot would cause the maximum spin, and this was considered a good indicator of a knight’s skill. However, a slow or incorrect hit could spin the weight (usually a sandbag) in time to hit the rider from behind and knock him off his horse.

Since quintain was merely a form of training, there was very little pomp and circumstance associated with it. Everyone was free to watch and even participate. Eventually, this turned quintain into a sport of its own, accessible to all the classes. Even those without a horse could participate by using a wooden horse or a boat in some areas. They could even simply run toward the target.

6 Eel Pulling

It shouldn’t be surprising to find out that human beings weren’t always concerned with the welfare of animals. We certainly would not have let it get in the way of a good time. Such was the case with eel pulling, a practice that was popular in the Netherlands in the 19th century. There were two basic forms of this sport. One was a classic tug-of-war battle, but the rope was replaced with a live eel. The eel was soaped up to make it more slippery, and two teams would pull ferociously at each end of the doomed animal.

The other version of eel pulling involved hanging the eel from a line dangling over a canal. Players had to jump and take down the eel while passing through the canal in a boat. This version of the sport, which was more popular, was more entertainment than sport. Spectators would laugh at the participants, who often ended up in the canal.

The biggest eel pulling hot spot was Amsterdam. The game was so popular that people kept playing it even after it was outlawed. Trying to stop the Dutch from enjoying their eel pulling had dire consequences, as the people of Amsterdam found out on July 25, 1886. A police officer ended a game in progress by cutting the line. This triggered the Eel Riot of 1886, which resulted in 26 deaths, 100 injuries, and countless arrests.

5 Cock Shying

Cock-shying, also known as “cock throwing,” was a blood sport practiced throughout most of England up until the 18th century. If you’re looking at the name and thinking this was a cruel game wherein people threw a rooster as far as they could . . . relax, it’s not that.

Actually, people threw things at the rooster until they killed it. Specifically, they threw weighted sticks called “coksteles.” Lacking a cokstele, regular cudgels would do.

This tradition was associated for centuries with Shrove Tuesday (aka Pancake Day, the last day before Lent). However, cock-shying was frequently practiced at pubs just for the fun of it—and for the chance of winning a rooster. The bird would be taken outside and tied to a post with a few feet of freedom so it could evade incoming sticks. Players would throw their coksteles at the rooster, and spectators would bet on the outcome. If a player hit the rooster without killing it, he was allowed to try to grab the dazed bird before it recovered. If he succeeded, he could take it home.

As with eel pulling, there was an attempt to ban cock-shying that also went poorly. In 1660, on the day before Shrove Tuesday, the practice was banned in Bristol. The next day, a riot broke out. The rioters threw dogs and cats at the mayor’s house in protest.

4 Stoolball

Unlike most other entries on this list, stoolball is a sport that is still occasionally played in small areas of southeast England. Its origins trace back to the 14th century in Sussex. Some historians see it as an ancestor of both cricket and baseball while others point out that stoolball was the first bat-and-ball game played in North America in Plymouth, 1621.

The modern game of stoolball is only a best-guess version of the ancient game. There is no definitive historical evidence of how it was played in the past. Also, being a folk game that was open to both men and women, it is likely that the rules were changed from region to region.

Players hit a ball using a bat and then run between stools to score. The bat is a wooden paddle with a short handle and an oval shape, and the stools play the role of wickets in cricket.
There was a time when stoolball was popular enough to make its way into Shakespeare’s The Two Noble Kinsmen. In 1927, there were over 1,000 stoolball clubs around the world.

In his account of his experiences as a prisoner of war during World War II, Pat Reid described a game called stoolball being played by the prisoners at Colditz. However, the name was purely coincidental and had nothing to do with the historical sport.

3 Episkyros

Episkyros was a simple ball game played by the ancient Greeks. However, it was not intended for serious athletes. The Greeks considered athletic pursuits among the most worthwhile and held all sportsmen in high regard. Episkyros was a game meant for everybody else. Old people, women, and children were all free to enjoy this game.

Two teams of equal members stood opposite each other, and a line—the skuros—was drawn between. Two more lines were drawn behind each team. One team then threw the ball over the other and tried to advance as their opponents recovered. The second team grabbed the ball and threw it back, trying to make up any lost ground and push the other players back. The winners were the first team to completely push the other side over the line that was originally behind them.

Basically, a few agile players would attempt to catch the ball while the rest of the team worked together to push the opponents back, so it was similar to modern rugby or American football. Episkyros was particularly popular in Sparta, where it was expected for children and women to take part in athletic displays. It later inspired a more physical Roman game called harpastum.

2 Fox Tossing

Back during the 17th and 18th centuries, when Europe’s aristocracy wasn’t busy hunting foxes, they were flinging them into the air in a game known simply as “fox tossing.” It was typically reserved for the upper classes and was usually performed at big events because fox tossing required a lot of preparation, a large enclosed area, and dozens if not hundreds of animals.

The game was played in pairs. Each member of a team would hold the end of a sling lying on the ground. Foxes would be let loose in the enclosure. When one ran over the sling, both players pulled hard in order to throw the fox into the air. The winner was the team that achieved the greatest height. The reported record for this practice was 7.5 meters (25 ft).

Don’t let the name fool you. Foxes were not the only unwilling participants in this game. Other critters were happily used when foxes were not available. In fact, at a famous fox tossing event held in Dresden, almost 700 foxes were used along with over 500 hares, 34 badgers, 34 wild boars, 21 wild cats, and three wolves. The sport was often dangerous for all involved because the scared animals would attack the players.

1 Dwile Flonking

Like stoolball, dwile flonking is still practiced in remote areas of the English countryside. The origins of dwile flonking are a bit murky. Flonking enthusiasts proudly claim this practice dates back to medieval times, originating during the Suffolk harvests 400 years ago, but that seems very unlikely. Others claim it is a far more recent invention of the 1960s and a matter of town pride.

Its future is looking just as murky. This traditional pub sport has been banned in several areas for violating health and safety regulations.

As you would expect with any pub game, dwile flonking involves drinking . . . a lot of drinking. It also involves two teams trying to fling a beer-soaked cloth, or “dwile,” at each other’s heads. After a sugar beet is tossed to see who goes first, one player holds a pole with the dwile on it, or “driveller,” while the other team dances in a circle around him, which they call “girting.” He must hit one of the players with the dwile. If he misses, the player is called a “swodger.” While the opposing team forms a straight line, he must then down a pot of beer before the dwile gets passed from player to player down the line. There’s also a point system, but most participants are too drunk by the end of the game to care who won.

Radu is a history/science buff with an interest in all things bizarre and obscure. Say hi on Twitter or check out his website.

Everyone craves excitement. Some people find their thrills in little things like having a second glass of wine. Other people get their dopamine buzzing with adventurous activities. As far back as we can look, humans have been pursuing adrenaline rushes. Here are ten extreme sports from history that show our ancestors were willing to risk life and limb for a little pleasure.

10 Land diving

Pentecost is one of the islands which make up the nation of Vanuatu in the South Pacific. Men of the island perform a ritual, which, to outsiders, looks like madness. Land Divers climb a 75 foot (25 meters) tall platform made from roughly hewn logs. At the top they tie a vine to each foot. Then they leap off the tower.

This ritual is said to be around 1,500 years old, though its origin is not exactly known. One of the legends is that a wife, upset by her husband’s constant sexual demands, fled into the jungle. He chased her as she climbed a tree to escape. To save herself she tied vines to her feet and jumped off. Her husband neglected to attach vines and so died when he hit the ground. Now men perform the ritual remind them not to fall for the same trick again. Land Diving is also associated with the yam crop. Those who dive from the highest height will have the best harvest.

Despite the apparent danger of the activity, injuries from Land Diving are surprisingly rare. The vines have good elasticity, and the soil beneath the tower is tilled to make it soft in case of a hard landing.

9Ancient Polo

Polo is one of the world’s oldest team sports. In the ancient world, cavalry often played the decisive role in battles. To be able to turn your mount and direct it towards gaps could turn the course of a fight. The game of polo probably developed out of cavalry practice. You would think that a game would take the danger out, but a quick glance at polo’s history reveals a bloody list of accidents.

Polo developed in the ancient Persian Empire some time before the sixth century B.C. It was a popular game among warriors. When Alexander the Great was about to invade Persia, the Persian King Darius sent him a polo mallet and ball, suggesting the young man should go back to playing games.

The game spread across Europe and Asia. The polo court of Tamerlane the Great can still be seen in Samarkand. The Byzantine Empire also took up a type of polo using nets on poles rather than mallets.

Ramming horses together at high speed, using long sticks that can get tangled in their legs, and poor safety equipment made for dangerous play. The Byzantine Emperor Manuel suffered a concussion in one game, but he got off lightly. The Emperors Alexander and John of Trebizond died while playing polo.

8Anastenaria

In various towns throughout Greece and Bulgaria, a ritual takes place each year which may be thousands of years old. In its current form, the Anastenaria is a Christian veneration of the Saints Constantine and Athanasius. Worshippers hold the icons of the saints and then walk across a pile of burning wood.

Legend has it that when a church in Bulgaria caught fire, the nearby villagers heard the voices of the saints inside calling for help. Protected by the blessings of the saints, the villagers were able to bring the icons and relics of the saints safely out of the blaze. Now they repeat the same feat and believe that it is divine grace which brings them safely over the embers.

Not everyone supports the Anastenaria. The act of firewalking has been linked to the ancient worship of the god Dionysus, and some think that this ritual is of pagan origin and therefore should not be performed by devout Christians.

7Calcio Fiorentino

The Ancient Romans had a ball game called Harpastum which was apparently similar to Rugby. A small ball was passed between players and snatched from the air without letting it touch the ground. Roman commentators thought it was the ideal exercise for young men. The Calcio Fiorentino, a game which is said to have descended from Harpastum, takes all the physical contact of Rugby and discards all of those pesky rules.

Calcio Fiorentino, or Calcio Storico—Historic Football, was played in the central square of Florence in the 16th century. Teams of 27 face each other down and try, by any means possible, to get their ball over a fence at either end of the pitch. Players can wrestle, punch, and kick to get control of the ball. To add to the martial feel of the event, each time a goal is scored a cannon is fired.

The winning team in former years used to receive a cow. Now the winners get a free meal, and the losers get to go home to tend their injuries.

6Knattleikr

Knattleikr was a Viking game—and that should be enough of a clue that things are about to get brutal. Little is known for definite about Knattleikr, but there are clues in the Viking sagas which have allowed a tentative reconstruction of the game to be made.

Two teams of burly Vikings would meet carrying bats. The bat used may have been shaped in some way to allow a ball to be caught by it, and it was, the sagas say, sometimes broken in anger. The ball the teams used was small and hard enough to draw blood or knock a man down if thrown hard enough. Where the game was played is contested. Most records suggest a frozen pond or flat plain in winter, but this does not seem to have been a requirement.

Matches could last days, like a modern day Cricket match. Less like a Cricket match, players could be tackled and knocked about while the ball was in motion.

5Chariot racing

The wealthiest sportsman to ever live was Gaius Appuleius Diocles, who, in his career as a charioteer, amassed a fortune equivalent to billions of dollars today. As we shall see, given the risks he faced, perhaps he deserved it.

The Romans loved chariot racing. Images of races appeared everywhere in the city. Fortunes were gambled. A vast track, the Circus Maximus, was constructed in Rome. It could seat over 150,000 spectators. Chariots pulled by two or four horses would race seven laps of the circus. The key to victory was seizing the inside track. Accidents were common, and a study of charioteer graves has suggested an average age of death of just 22.

Chariot racing is so dangerous that even filming recreations can be deadly. The 1926 film Ben Hur featured a chariot race which cost the lives of five horses and one stuntman.

4Water Jousting

Jousting was hilariously dangerous. You took sharp sticks and charged at other people on horseback, with the intention of knocking them off with your sharp stick. At some point, people decided this sport was not dangerous enough and decided to add the excitement of potential drowning.

In Southern France in the 17th-century, teams of young men jousted on water. A team of bachelors in a blue boat attacked married men in a red boat. It was a chivalrous combat. The two boats rowed at each other at full speed, propelled by ten oarsmen, while the champions, with a shield and armor, stood on boards attempting to knock their opponents off.

On the Ancient Nile, water combats were a contest with real world results. Fishermen on the Nile would joust for access to waters. Combat between boats of fisherman are attested to in reliefs, and they did not have dainty rules. While most of the crew controlled the boat, the fighters would have at it with poles, trying to knock the other down. Once in the water, the combatant would be at the mercy of hippos and crocodiles.

3Pankration

In Ancient Greece, Pankration was an Olympic sport in which two men faced each other in a brutal fight with hardly any rules. The only rules were that the fighters could not bite, gouge, or attack each other’s genitals. Anything else was fair game if it brought the opposition down. Loss came when you declared your submission.

Arrhichion won the Pankration contest in the ancient Olympics in an unusual way. He was being held in a chokehold by his competitor while reaching for the other’s leg. Arrhichion managed to break the other fighter’s ankle. This, understandably, made the other submit. It was then that the judges found that Arrhichion had been suffocated. Nonetheless, Arrhichion’s corpse was given the victor’s crown and paraded through the streets.

2 Mob Football

In England from the 14th century onwards, Shrove Tuesday became a popular day for youths to gather and play with a ball. These games were the genesis of not only modern soccer but also football hooliganism. An inflated pig bladder was produced with the aim of returning it to your team’s village. It was essentially a riot with a goal. Broken limbs were common, and deaths not unknown.

It was common for hundreds of men to compete in Mob Football when whole villages were competing. In large cities, it could be a competition between groups of apprentices which ran through the narrow lanes and streets. In 1365, King Edward III banned football because it was causing a nuisance and distracting able-bodied men from practicing their archery. Football trained men in fighting, just not the right sort.

In one Mob Football match in Pont-l’Abbé, France, 40 men are said to have drowned in a pond when the ball strayed into the water.

1Cretan Bull Leaping

In 1400 B.C. on Crete, at the Minoan palace a Knossos, a mural was painted showing a leaping youth back-flipping over a charging bull. Such images are not unique. Paintings and sculptures of figures grasping the horns of a bull have been found at numerous Minoan sites.

Some researchers say that such images do not display a real event but rather a mythical one. Many Cretan images show men using a bull’s horns to spring over the back of the beast, which does seem hugely risky. Others point to modern bullfighting events where young men regularly leap over bulls. It seems likely that bull-leaping was a ritual which actually took place on Crete.

It should be remembered that Ancient Crete was home to the legendary Minotaur—a half-bull, half-human monster requiring human sacrifices. Is it possible that the bull-leaping ritual, which no doubt took many young lives, lived on through the legend of the Minotaur?

The history of the balls used in various sports is rather gruesome. Players used pretty much whatever was available, including simple stitched-together cloth, inflated animal bladders, human heads, and animal and human skulls.^[1]

Materials and technology have come a long way since ancient times, and the sports balls in use today reflect these changes. Compared to what we have now, the original balls used in sports are apt to strike us as nothing less than bizarre. Read on to see your favorite sports in a whole different light.

10 Baseball

The baseball owes its origins to the efforts of a variety of enterprising individuals, including shoemakers, or cobblers, who made the balls from pieces of rubber shoes. In some cases, the first baseballs also had rubber cores. Wrapped in yarn, they were covered in leather. Other early baseballs were made of sturgeon eyes, rather than melted rubber. In the mid-1800s, pitchers sometimes made their own baseballs.

Regardless of who made them and of what they were made, early baseballs varied in size and weight. One of the most prominent “cover designs” for early baseballs was the “lemon peel,” in which “a single piece of leather [was] tied off with four distinct lines of stitching,” producing a lighter, softer ball that was two-thirds smaller than today’s standardized ball, which is 23 centimeters (9 in) in circumference. The early balls could be hit a greater distance and would bounce higher than their counterparts today.^[2]

9 Basketball

Originally, basketball was played with a soccer ball. It wasn’t until 1896, two years after the sport’s origin, that a bigger ball began to be used as the official ball for the game. It was made by the Overman Wheel Company, a bicycle manufacturer in Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts.

The circumference of the ball was established as 76 centimeters (30 in) minimum and 81 centimeters (32 in) maximum. In 1898, the weight of the ball was set at between 18 and 22 ounces. Except for slight changes in size and weight, the ball remains much the same today as it was in the late 19th century.^[3]

8 Billiard Ball

Early billiard balls were made of the tusks of elephants killed for their ivory. Although of organic origin, ivory improves, rather than decays, with age. “Hard ivory” comes from long-dead elephants. Thousands of elephants were being slaughtered annually to provide the ivory needed to make the millions of billiard balls manufactured every year, and the animals soon become scarce, driving ivory prices up. The production of ivory billiard balls also presented challenges. The balls had to be stored at an “even temperature” for a week or so to prevent temperature fluctuations from cracking them. A search was undertaken to find a substitute material. A nut found in South America had less elasticity than ivory but otherwise had similar characteristics. However, it didn’t catch on as an ivory substitute.

To encourage inventors, a contest was held in 1863. Five years later, John Wesley Hyatt perfected celluloid, a material invented in 1851 by Alexander Parkes. Hyatt entered a celluloid billiard ball into the contest but failed to win the $10,000 prize. His ball bounced, but not high enough.

There was another problem with celluloid billiard balls. Sometimes, they exploded. Hyatt coated his billiard balls with a compound called collodion and sent them to billiard parlors to be tested, warning that the treated balls could catch fire if a “lighted cigar [were] applied to” them, since collodion was a flammable substance. Worse yet, the balls could actually explode if “any violent contact” occurred between them. A Colorado saloonkeeper who tested the collodion balls said he didn’t mind the mild explosions produced every time the balls hit each other, but they agitated his customers, causing every man present to draw his gun.^[4]

7 Bowling Ball

Although ancient Egyptians bowled as far back as 3200 BC, modern bowling started as a lawn game around 1840. Known as ninepins, it was a favorite among gamblers. By the time Connecticut banned ninepins in 1841 in an attempt to curb the vice, the game had moved indoors, and a tenth pin was added to get around the law against ninepins. During the early years of the 19th century, bowling balls were made of wood, a material later replaced by hard rubber.^[5]

The first rubber ball, called “Evertrue,” was introduced in 1905, and in 1914, Brunswick Corporation made the Mineralite ball from a “mysterious rubber compound.” As a promotional gimmick, Mineralite balls were dispatched on a nationwide YMCA tour. Rubber balls emitted a nasty smell when drilled and lacked a “core design,” but, like polyester balls, they were widely used during the 1970s.

6 Dodgeball

The origin of dodgeball is uncertain. Although several sources claim the sport originated in Africa, where it was played over 200 years ago as a vicious blood sport, skeptics doubt the veracity of such claims, finding even more specious the assertion that, instead of the ball now used in the game, tribes originally threw rocks or “putrefied matter” at their opponents to injure or incapacitate them.

Once a player was injured, his opponents would throw more rocks or other missiles at him in a concerted effort to finish him, while the members of the injured player’s team would seek to protect him, fending off their opponents with their own rocks. Allegedly, the blood sport had a serious purpose: It was a training exercise designed to promote teamwork and hone fighting skills that would be used in intertribal skirmishes in which each side would seek to “take out the weak and protect their own.”

A missionary, Dr. James H. Carlisle, is said to have sought to introduce dodgeball to his European students, but they lacked the agility to dodge and the accuracy of aim needed to excel at the sport. It was only after his return to St. Mary’s College in Norfolk, England, that he succeeded in introducing the tamer version of the brutal blood sport known to us today, a leather ball replacing the rocks and putrefied matter that were originally used as the sport’s “balls.” Whether or not dodgeball originated as these sources indicate remains questionable, but it’s possible. If true, the original version of the sport makes football and soccer look tame, indeed.^[6]

5 Football

Among the first footballs (aka soccer balls) were pigs’ heads and the skulls of English soldiers’ vanquished enemies, but the first “properly made ball” was an inflated pig’s bladder tied off at the end and enveloped in leather to make it more durable. The bladder football was more nearly round than a rugby ball, but it was by no means spherical. In England’s humid climate, the balls soon became waterlogged, doubling in weight, despite having been generously daubed with dubbin (a grease used to treat leather). Ramming such a ball could result in severe neck injuries.^[7]

Charles Goodyear invented vulcanized rubber in 1836 and designed and manufactured the first vulcanized soccer balls in 1855. Seven years later, after his wife died of lung disease “reportedly from blowing up many hundreds of pigs’ bladders,” H.L. Lindon engineered one of the first inflatable rubber bladders for sports balls. In 1872, the English Football Association established the size and weight of soccer balls.

4 Golf Ball

During its first four centuries, golf was played with as many as five types of balls: the wooden, the hairy, the feathery, the gutty, and the Haskell.

No hard evidence supports the use of wooden golf balls, although wooden balls were used in other games such as Colf, Crosse, and Mail, which are similar to golf. Such balls lacked “good handling properties” due to their smoothness and traveled only about 75 meters (246 ft).

The hairy, or common, ball originated in the Netherlands, from whence it was imported to Scotland from 1486 to 1618. Beginning in 1554, it began to be made in Scotland, and a dispute arose between Cannongate’s cordiners (leather workers and cobblers) in Edinburgh and the cordiners and gouff ball makers from North Leith. Hairies might be fashioned of straw or cow hair and manufactured in the same way, generally, as the feathery ball was made. Hairy golf balls were fairly expensive. From the 16th to the early 18th century, they sold for two to five shillings each, although they cost the earl of Montrose five shillings each in the early 17th century.

Cordiners used bird feathers swept from bird coops to make feathery, or featherie, golf balls, although no one knows when the practice, which may have originated in Scotland, first began. The feathery was made by stitching together “three pieces of [wet] leather,” turning the stitched pieces “inside out [and] leaving a ¼ inch slit through which [wet] feathers were pushed with the ‘brogue’ [a shoe of untanned leather] using the chest.” As they dried, “the feathers expanded and the leather shrank, creating a two way pressure and a tight ball with characteristics only recently matched by modern balls.” One source states two or three could be made per day, while another source claims as many as 50 to 60 per week could be made. The task was arduous, and those who performed it often died young. Depending on their quality, featheries sold between 2.5 and five shillings each. Since featheries were more firmly packed than hairies, they could be hit farther, up to 176 meters (579 ft), according to a “controlled test” conducted in Glasgow in 1786.

Starting in 1848, gutties (balls made of gutta-percha gum) began to replace featheries. The origin of gutties is unknown. Originally, it was smooth, but a St. Andrews saddlemaker added “regular grooves” to the ball’s exterior after golfers saw that nicked and blemished balls performed better. Gutties were cheaper and “more robust” than featheries, but they didn’t replace featheries until 1860, when they were regarded as of high enough quality and sufficient popularity to replace the feathery. The production of gutties accelerated after William Dunn of Musselburgh invented a mold for manufacturing them, and they began to sell for one shilling each, undercutting the price of the feathery they replaced. The gutty was replaced, in turn, by the Haskell.

In 1898, Coburn Haskell, an American, came up a “wound core ball.” The winding of the rubber threads that made up the ball’s core was mechanized. Around 1912, the bramble pattern of the ball’s covering was replaced with the dimple patterns that are familiar today. Since the Haskell, refinements to golf ball design have continued to be introduced.^[8]

3 Ping-Pong Ball

Ping-pong began as a miniaturized version of tennis, as middle-class Victorians used their dining room tables as miniature tennis courts. Books formed “nets.” Cigar box lids became “rackets,” later to be replaced by “parchment paper stretched around a frame.” Various items served as balls, including balls of string, champagne corks, and rubber balls.

Celluloid balls were adopted after James Good saw them in use in the United States during a trip there in 1901. Other innovations, such as paddles in lieu of cigar box lids, also improved the new game.^[9]

2 Tennis Ball

Tennis dates to 12th-century Europe, if not to ancient Egypt. Before the familiar fuzzy rubber balls in use today, tennis balls were made of a variety of materials, including leather, chalk, moss, human hair, metal, sand, wool, or sheep guts.^[10]

Hair and wool were the first officially sanctioned tennis ball fillers. In 1480, by decree of France’s King Louis XI, tennis balls had to consist of a leather cover stuffed with hair or wool. These fillers ensured the balls would bounce. Today, inflated rubber imparts more bounce to the ounce, but the “hair” still remains by virtue of the felted wool cover.

1 Volleyball

Created in 1895 by William G. Morgan of Massachusetts, volleyball combined aspects of baseball, basketball, tennis, and handball.^[11] It required a new type of ball that could be kept in the air as it was batted over a net higher than those used in tennis or other sports. This meant the ball had to be light but also heavy enough to move fast.

Bladders adopted from basketball didn’t work, so Morgan turned to the A.G. Spaulding & Bros. factory near Chicopee, Massachusetts. Their response was a triple-layer ball: a latex bladder surrounded by cheesecloth inside an outer layer of leather. The ball worked well, and to this day, the basic design remains largely unchanged.

Leigh Paul enjoys reading and writing, but she’s not crazy about arithmetic.

We all have our heroes in the sporting world, whether they’re football players from our favorite local teams or Olympic champions. We look up to them, and our children learn from them. We may even want to learn everything we can about our favorite sports idols, from their origins to their training methods to their favorite cereal.

Successful athletes are still only human, though, and can make the same terrible choices as any of us. A number of sports stars over the years have ruined their careers through their horrible decisions. Here are ten such fallen idols.

10 Ryan Lochte

Ryan Lochte, from Daytona Beach, Florida, grew up loving the water and eventually became known for his title as a 12-time Olympic medalist. His winnings include six gold medals, three silver medals, and three bronze medals, certainly qualifying him as an Olympic champion. On top of this, he holds the world record in the 200-meter individual medley as well as having been named both World and American swimmer of the year for the years 2010 and 2011. He holds a whopping total of 70 international competition medals, 45 of which are first place, and he has a huge social media following. So, what is it that made him make the horrible decision that almost ruined his career?

In 2016, Lochte was scheduled for the Rio Olympics, in which he would maintain his award-winning title and maybe even add a few more medals to the collection. This, however, ended when he was charged with making a false statement to police regarding him and a mate being held at gunpoint and robbed. Once caught out in his lie, he was summoned to court, where he revealed that he and his friends were not robbed and fabricated the story to cover the fact that they had been caught by security vandalizing a gas station bathroom. Lochte’s story had left Brazil embarrassed, and upon the revelation of the truth, famous sponsors Speedo and Ralph Lauren dropped him as a client. Lochte ended up avoiding all charges after his lawyer argued that he did not break any laws by exaggerating the details of the events of that night.^[1]

9 Lance Armstrong

Lance Armstrong was one of the world’s most favored cyclists, having overcome cancer and made a full comeback to the sport despite the doubt thrown at him from doctors and the public. He had his first victory on the Tour de France in 1999 and trained ever harder to gain more and more titles across the Olympics and the Tour. He focused most of his time on the Tour de France up until he retired for two years and returned for two more races in 2009 and 2010. In 2009, he managed to place third, and in 2010, he fell back into the pack before announcing a second retirement. In addition to struggling with illness throughout his career, he was constantly accused of using illicit drugs to enhance his performance. Were the rumors true?

Despite never testing positive, Lance Armstrong admitted on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 2012 to doping throughout his cycling career. The world was shocked as the details of his scandal were finally revealed. As a result of this, he was stripped of all seven of his Tour de France wins and banned from cycling to set an example of what will happen to athletes using banned substances. While Armstrong believes that he should be forgiven, he also assured ABC in a 2015 interview that if he was put back in 1995, when “[doping] was pervasive,” he would do it again. He says that the lying and dishonesty is his biggest regret. Apparently, doping to drive his career was worth losing all his dignity over.^[2]

8 Tonya Harding

Born in Portland, Oregon, in 1970, Tonya Harding began ice-skating at the age of three. During her sophomore year, she dropped out of school in order to focus all her time on the sport to try and make a career out of it. In 1991, despite the critics along the way, she won her first national title and also became the first American woman to successfully land a triple axel in competition. From there, she continued winning medals, including silver at the World Championships, fourth in the French Winter Olympics in 1992, and eventually another gold at the 1994 US Championships. Her main rival was Nancy Kerrigan. Just how far would Harding go to get ahead of her competition?

During the buildup to the 1994 Winter Olympics, the competition got fierce between Harding and Kerrigan. It reached the point where the pressure got so heavy for Harding that she resorted to criminal acts in order to get ahead. In addition to the competition, Harding was constantly facing media attacks for being on from the “wrong side of the rink.” Articles stated that she didn’t have as much a chance as Kerrigan because she wasn’t as beautiful or graceful, further incensing her. Finally, Harding’s then-husband and her bodyguard devised a plan to break Kerrigan’s leg right before the qualifiers in order to destroy her Olympic chances. The attack was poorly planned, and the hired hit man ended up missing Kerrigan’s knee, dealing her only a bad bruise before making a dramatic exit.

Kerrigan went on to make the Olympic selection, and both she and Harding were thrown into a media circus speaking of conspiracies and hatred between the two. Harding’s husband spent time behind bars for the attack while Harding initially walked free but later pleaded guilty to hindering prosecution, landing her three years’ probation, 500 hours of community service, and a $100,000 fine. She was also banned from the sport for life.^[3]

7 Lamar Odom

Lamar Odom was born in Queens in 1979 and lost his mother at the age of 12, leaving him in his grandmother’s care. To cope with his grief, he threw himself into basketball and was named Player of the Year in his high school years by Parade magazine. He managed to start off his professional career with the Los Angeles Clippers, who were renowned for their losing record, before being offered a better contract with the Miami Heat. Here, he trained with the likes of superstar Dwayne Wade and hugely improved his game. After that season, he was invited to represent the United States in the Olympics, where he worked with the team to win bronze, which he personally stated was the greatest honor of his entire career. Following this, he ended up contracted to the LA Lakers, where he would play the next seven NBA seasons. This would be the height of his career.

Although his life was seemingly perfect, Odom was struggling with drug abuse, which eventually led to the demise of his career. In the 2000–2001 season, he was suspended for violating the extremely strict NBA drug policy after receiving a charge for driving under the influence. He was ordered to attend three months of rehab for alcohol abuse. However, he began taking up drugs again after being traded off to a Dallas team in a deal he wasn’t happy with. In 2015, he was identified at a brothel after overdosing and passing out.^[4] Staff made a panicked emergency call, reporting that he had blood and a white substance coming from his mouth and nose after taking large amounts of what they thought was herbal Viagra. Following this near-fatal incident, he was forced back into rehab and no longer plays for any teams on the NBA.

6 Ray Rice

Ray Rice is an NFL legend who played as running back for the Baltimore Ravens for five seasons and one Super Bowl win. Unlike your average backfield player, Rice has a much shorter build, but he trained harder than any other to eventually become the best. His training to reach the NFL began in his freshman year of college, when he helped the Rutgers Scarlet Knights make their comeback after a 14-season losing streak. During his sophomore year, he broke a school record with 1,794 yards, which included a 225-yard push against Pitt. From there, he realized his dream by skipping his senior year and entering the NFL draft, where he was picked by the Ravens in the second round. So what could possibly have lead to Ray Rice’s demise after proving to be such a valuable player for the Ravens? What changed the words “plays for” into “once played for” at such a young age?

Despite needing his incredible skills as their running back, the Baltimore Ravens were left with no choice but to terminate Rice’s contract after footage was released showing Rice punching his fiancee in an elevator before dragging her body out into a hotel foyer. He was also suspended by the NFL commissioner for an indefinite time. While footage had previously been released showing Rice dragging his fiancee out of the elevator, no action had been taken, as there was not enough evidence to show that he had done anything wrong. Six months later, however, TMZ released the graphic video, which showed Rice knocking the woman unconscious. He was charged with felony aggravated assault but was able to avoid jail time and has since stated that the elevator incident was the biggest mistake of his life.^[5] It’s unknown if he will ever be able to return to the sport he loves so much.

5 Plaxico Burress

Plaxico Burress is another NFL legend who played as a wide receiver for the Pittsburgh Steelers, the New York Giants, and the New York Jets. His career began at Michigan State University, where he set a record for the most passes caught in a single season with a whopping 65 catches. He also came close to the records of most touchdown catches, receptions, and receiving yards and was ranked as the MVP of his team. In 2000, he was drafted into the Pittsburgh Steelers, but due to an injury, he only played 12 games in his first NFL season. Although he was a great player on the field, he gained a reputation of being a problem off the field, which meant that when he became a free agent in 2004, his options were limited, and the Steelers would not sign him again. He eventually ended up with a contract with the New York Giants, where he fought to repair his reputation by playing an amazing season. It was with the Giants that he helped secure a win at the 2008 Super Bowl against the New England Patriots. So where did he go wrong?

His second season with the Giants got off to a horrible start. He was suspended from a game for violating team rules. It wasn’t long after this that he made the mistake which would lead to his demise. At the end of 2008, Burress was admitted to a hospital after shooting himself in the leg at New York night club. He claimed that he was being lead upstairs with his friends by a security guard to get away from the crowd when he lost his footing, resulting in his gun being unhooked from his belt. In an attempt to catch it before it hit the floor, he accidentally pulled the trigger on his own leg. Surprisingly, it wasn’t the shot to the leg that ruined his career but rather the fact that he didn’t have a license to be carrying the gun. He ended up serving 20 months in jail for criminal possession of a firearm and paid a heavy fine.^[6]

After being released in 2011, he did attempt to make a comeback by signing with the New York Jets and then again with the Steelers, but it was too late. His career was already over.

4 Michael Vick

NFL quarterback Michael Vick drew attention from the NFL while he was playing for Virginia Tech in his sophomore year. He also drew the attention of the MLB, who attempted to draft him. However, he decided instead to skip his final years of college to play in the NFL. Upon this decision, he was quickly drafted as quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons. He signed onto a six-year contract, during which he would star as the team’s starting quarterback and lead them to victories, eventually landing him a ten-year contract extension. Everything seemed to be falling in place for Vick, as he was basically set for life with a career on an incredible team. So why did he throw it away?

Not long into his contract, it seemed that stardom had gotten to Vick’s head, and officials began to question whether he had the maturity levels to handle the amount of pressure that had been put on him at such a young age. The Falcons began to perform poorer and poorer, and although Vick was still putting up good numbers, he wasn’t supporting the team in the way he had when he was first signed. He bought a house in Georgia, which, in the long run, proved to be more of a playground for him and his friends than a place of living for a serious athlete.

In 2004, a truck owned by Vick was seized, and the two drivers were arrested after they were discovered to be transporting a large amount of marijuana. Vick, however, was never charged. A year later, he was sued for allegedly giving a woman a sexually transmitted disease, and then two years after that, things spiraled even more out of control. Authorities investigating a drug-related tip-off raided Vick’s property, which lead to the discovery of a dog fighting scene run by him and his friends.^[7] After authorities uncovered damning evidence linking Vick to the ring, he pleaded guilty and served 21 months in prison. He eventually returned to the NFL but is now retired.

3 Tiger Woods

Professional golfer Tiger Woods officially turned pro in 1996 and proved himself to be competitive and unrelenting while building his career. His achievements include 105 worldwide wins and 14 majors as well as a huge number of successful projects off the course. He is founder and CEO of TGR, an enterprise made of his companies and philanthropic projects. These include TGR Design, the TGR Foundation, TGR Live, and The Woods Jupiter. Among all his successes, he holds 79 PGA Tour wins, which is the second-highest for any one player in the world. In 2001, he became the first golfer ever to hold all major professional titles in one year, including the Masters Tournament, PGA Championship, US Open Championship, and the British Open Championship. Overall, he is ranked as one of the most outstanding players in his field of all time. So what happened?

“Scandal,” they called it. It all started in 2010 with Tiger’s wife chasing him out of the house wielding a golf club at him after learning that he had been unfaithful. She knew there was at least one other woman, perhaps maybe two, but this night would come to unveil the true ugly behind Tiger Woods. His then-wife, Elin Nordegren, went through his phone while it was unattended and called the girl he was having an affair with, leaving a voice mail. Upon realizing what had happened, Woods attempted to cover his tracks, but he was already too late. Nordegren continued to spy and found yet another affair her husband was having through his phone. She ambushed him while he was half-asleep with the golf club, resulting in him attempting a get away in his Escalade, only to crash.

After this incident made the news, there was an outpouring of truth from porn stars, strippers, escorts, and party girls, who all stepped forward to confess their affairs with Tiger Woods. After the confessions, there were 15 known mistresses, one of whom was underage. This was enough to ruin the reputation Woods had worked so hard to build up and temporarily pushed him into hiding. While it didn’t ruin his game, it did mar his sponsorship deals and his image in the public eye. Never again would his career be at the same level.^[8]

2 O.J. Simpson

O.J. Simpson, born in 1947, became a football superstar during his college years at the University of Southern California. Although he initially had trouble getting onto the team due to his poor grades, he eventually gained his fame playing for the USC Trojans, where he set NCAA records and won the Heisman Trophy in 1968. From here, he joined the Buffalo Bills, where he had a rocky start before excelling and becoming the first NFL player to successfully rush more than 2,000 yards in a single season. In 1979, he retired from professional football to pursue a career as a sportscaster and actor. Ironically, back in 1974, he played a man framed for murder by police in The Klansman. He also had a starring role in The Naked Gun series.

During his career, Simpson struggled with a poor marriage and divorce after losing his daughter when she drowned in the family swimming pool right before her second birthday. His second wife Nicole Brown, with whom he had two kids, also complained to friends about how he physically abused her. In 1989, the couple attended a New Year’s Eve party where Simpson was witnessed threatening to kill Brown. He, however, managed to brush off the incident in TV interview,s stating that it was just a fight and that both parties were in the wrong and spoke of how they had since moved on with their life together.

In 1994, however, the bodies of Brown and Ron Goldman, a close friend of hers, were discovered stabbed to death outside their Los Angeles home. It wasn’t long until police were on the hunt for Simpson as a major suspect in the crime and ordered him to surrender himself. Although he pleaded not guilty and was acquitted of all charges, he was later found liable for the wrongful deaths of Brown and Goldman. Unfortunately, the signs were there from an early age for Simpson, as he was once part of a gang called the Persian Warriors, which landed him in the San Francisco Youth Guidance Center in 1962.

Following the incident, Simpson was to publish a ghostwritten book called If I Did It, but the book’s rights ended up in the hands of the Goldman family, who edited the book to add commentary and published it under the edited title of If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer. Finally, in 2008, Simpson and a friend were convicted on 12 counts of armed robbery and kidnapping, which landed them with up to 33 years in prison.^[9] Simpson was granted parole and released in 2017, but he’d long since ruined any good reputation he’d built for himself during his NFL years.

1 Oscar Pistorius

Born in South Africa in 1986, Oscar Pistorius (aka the Blade Runner) overcame all odds when he became hugely active in the international sporting community despite having had both his legs amputated when he was an infant. He began running at the age of 16, and a mere few months later, he stood on the podium and received a gold medal at the Athens Paralympics. After this, Pistorius was able to compete in competition with able-bodied athletes, as his level of success among the Paralympians became too high. In 2012, he was the first amputee to ever compete in track events at the Olympics. After this success, however, everything turned south for Pistorius as he was thrown into trials over the murder of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp.

In 2013, Pistorius was arrested after shooting and killing his girlfriend through the bathroom door, allegedly believing she was an intruder. He was ultimately found guilty of culpable homicide and reckless endangerment and sentenced to five years in prison. After being freed just one year into his sentence, an appeals court overturned the original judge’s decision and upgraded his conviction to murder. He was sentenced to serve six years in prison.^[10] His sentence was later increased to 13 years, and he will be eligible for parole in 2023.

There is still to this day a lot of debate on social media as to whether Pistorious’s story is believable or not. If he thought the person in the bathroom was an intruder, where did he think his girlfriend was?

My name is Tarni Kirkpatrick and I am the author and editor of Life in Wonderland, an online travel blog. I started this when I began my journey around the world, and it has been growing ever since. Check it out at lifeinwonderland.net or add me on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.

Extreme sports are extremely scary.

Millions of people around the world live their daily lives without engaging in extreme sports, which either puts them on the right side of Darwinian evolution or demonstrates that they are simply too scared to push themselves to the limits of their nerve and endurance.

For those of us who don’t go outside when it is windy because tree branches are a hazard, the concept of dying while doing an extreme sport can seem like a waste of life. For extreme sport devotees, though, the thrill that they get from flying, falling, or hurtling is what makes this life worth living.

So with no further ado and a parachute that might not even open, let’s free-fall into this list of 10 people who died while participating in the extreme sports they loved more than life itself.

10 Uli Emanuele
2016

BASE (Building, Antenna, Span, and Earth) jumping is an extreme sport in which people with nerves of steel jump from objects like bridges using parachutes or wingsuits and then parachutes.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, BASE jumping has a high fatality rate and is illegal in many places.

One of the most widely known BASE jumping wingsuit deaths took place while it was being live-streamed on Facebook. Uli Emanuele was filming a wingsuit flight in the Italian Dolomite mountains when he crashed and died on impact.

Emanuele had previously performed amazing stunts, passing through tiny gaps in cliff faces in his wingsuit. He was certainly no amateur. His death shocked the wingsuit community because he was known for his precision and attention to detail when planning flights.^[1] Emanuele was 29.

9 Malik Joyeux
2005

Malik Joyeux was a big-wave surfer who grew up in Tahiti. An antidrug advocate and all-around good guy, Joyeux had won an award for surfing one of the biggest waves on his home break of Teahupo’o.

The French-born, goofy-foot surfer (which means that he led with his right foot on the board) was also a professional kite surfer and windsurfer who scraped by on sponsorship money and friendship. He was just starting to make a name for himself when he went for a surf on a seemingly uneventful day at the famous Oahu Pipeline on Hawaii’s notorious North Shore.^[2]

Joyeux’s last wave was a 2.5-meter (8 ft), thick one that crashed down on the young surfer. It pushed him under the water and destroyed his board, flinging it out of the water.

The wave was part of a set, so Joyeux was kept under the water while two other waves crashed. It took 15 minutes to find his body. Despite lifeguards and paramedics using CPR and a defibrillator, it was simply too late for the young surfer. Malik Joyeux was 25.

8 Dwain Weston
2003

Dwain Weston was a legendary Australian BASE jumper with loads of experience and air time. He was considered to be one of the top BASE jumpers of his time. However, with a sport that has an almost nonexistent margin for error, this does not guarantee safety.

Weston was a computer analyst who traveled the world, making well over 1,000 jumps. In 2002, he won the world BASE jumping title. Little did anyone know, he would not survive more than another year.

Weston’s final performance was a wingsuit jump from a plane with another person as part of a demonstration in the first year of the Go Fast Games in Colorado.

The flight plan was that both men would jump from the plane, with one flying over a bridge that spanned a railway track and the other flying under. Weston was meant to fly over the bridge. Instead, he slammed into it at 193 kilometers per hour (120 mph) and parachuted to the rocks below, his leg severed at the hip.

He died on impact with the bridge. However, this was not initially clear to the people watching from the bridge because his parachute deployed after the hit. Dwain Weston was 30 years old.^[3]

7 Jay Moriarity
2001

Jay Moriarity was an American professional surfer who received worldwide attention at only 16 when a photo of him wiping out on a big wave at Mavericks, a renowned surf break in Northern California, was published on the front cover of Surfer magazine. Mavericks is a famous ocean break that is 3 kilometers (2 mi) offshore and is known to produce waves up to 18 meters (60 ft) high.

Several top surfers have died at Mavericks dues to the heavy, pounding surf. Jay Moriarity was not one of them.

Instead, Jay died while he was training for big-wave riding. A serious surfer, Jay was intent on conditioning his body to withstand being deep underwater for long periods of time. This is important when you are riding waves the size of mountains.

Jay died free diving after climbing down a buoy rope to sit on the bottom of the ocean in the Maldives without scuba gear or flippers. Jay descended to a depth where he would usually need these things and may have blacked out while returning to the surface.^[4]

He never came up for air. Jay Moriarity was 22 years old.

6 Jimmy Hall
2007

Jimmy Hall was something of a celebrity in his home state of Hawaii. He wasn’t just involved in one extreme sport, though. He spent his life being involved in several.

Hall lived on the island of Oahu and owned a business called Hawaii Shark Encounters. Sharks are also something that millions of people successfully avoid. But Hall’s business catered to the demographic that wished to encounter them.

He was a shark expert who had swum with Hawaii’s only great white shark. After seeing footage of Hall’s experience, the Discovery Channel signed him to host Shark Week.

Hall had already booked a trip to Nunavut in Canada to participate in BASE jumping when he got the Discovery Channel contract. He was filming a documentary on Baffin Island when he died.^[5]

The documentary was to include footage of Hall BASE jumping off mountains on Baffin Island. It was during one of these parachuting jumps that Hall died. Jimmy Hall was 41 years old.

5 Erik Roner
2015

Erik Roner was a German extreme sports enthusiast who achieved a level of fame on the MTV show Nitro Circus. Sadly, he died doing an unremarkable jump with two other parachutists. The three were performing the skydiving stunt during the opening ceremony for a celebrity golf tournament in California when things went horribly wrong.^[6]

While the other two parachutists landed safely on the ground, Roner slammed into a tree and became entangled, hanging from the tree. Although onlookers and officials tried to rescue him, even going so far as to form a human ladder, the efforts were futile and Roner died in the tree. Erik Roner was 39 years old.

4 Mark Sutton
2013

When the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in London celebrated the book and movie character of James Bond, Mark Sutton was the experienced stunt double for Daniel Craig, who was playing 007.

A year later, Sutton was dead, another extreme sport victim of gravity and speed.

Sutton had jumped from a plane with fellow veteran wingsuiter Tony Uragallo. The pair had decided to follow a preplanned course. Their jump was part of a three-day wingsuiting event called HeliBASE 74, which was to be filmed by Epic TV. Sutton’s jump took place on the first day of the event.

Sutton was traveling at about 200 kilometers per hour (125 mph) when he veered off course and hit a ridge. He died on impact. A rescue helicopter immediately located his body, but there was nothing anyone could do. His parachute did not deploy. After his death, the event continued on in honor of Sutton.

Footage of the tragic flight was given to the local police. Mark Sutton was 42 when he died.^[7]

3 Caleb Moore
2013

The 2013 Winter X Games were in full swing when onlookers were horrified to see Colten Moore crash his snowmobile in an accident that separated his pelvis. At the time, Colten didn’t know that his brother, Caleb, had crashed his own snowmobile in the same spot moments earlier.

Caleb Moore had attempted a backflip off a jump. But he under-rotated, and the vehicle’s skis caught in the snow. Caleb ended up beneath the snowmobile. He walked away, but the damage was done. His heart had been injured, and he went into cardiac arrest before he was able to have surgery. Having sustained brain damage due to lack of oxygen, he died a few days later.^[8]

He was the first person to die at the Winter X games. Caleb Moore was 25 years old.

2 Dario Barrio Dominguez
2014

Dario Barrio was a popular Spanish TV chef. His successful television show had allowed him to travel all over the world and explore the culinary delights found in other countries. He was also a keen wingsuiter. Unfortunately, this led to his death.

Dominguez jumped with two other wingsuiters at the International Air Festival in the Sierra de Segura mountain range in Spain. Footage of the tragic event shows that the other two wingsuit flyers landed safely with parachutes. Dominguez has no such luck and smashed into the ground over a ridge, dying on impact. His parachute had simply not deployed.^[9]

Dario Barrio Dominguez was 41.

1 Kuraudo ‘Cloud’ Toda
2015

Kuraudo “Cloud” Toda was an inspirational young Japanese motocross rider who was involved in a serious accident while testing Suzuki bikes in 2008. This accident had left Toda paralyzed from the chest down, but the intrepid young man wanted to keep riding.

After he had healed as much as he could from his injuries, he began to ride again. Toda had a cage installed on his bike that allowed him to ride without using the lower half of his body. The cage effectively strapped him to the bike.

Toda was training for the X Games Best Whip competition when he landed in a foam pit that he had constructed with the help of his friends as a safety measure.

Tragically, the foam pit was ignited by his bike. He was unable to free himself from the bike due to the cage, so he burned to death in the pit. His helpless friends watched in horror as the flames were too hot to approach. Kuraudo “Cloud” Toda was 34 years old.^[10]

Christy Heather is an Australian novelist, lawyer, and professional writer who would never jump out of a perfectly good plane.