The Greatest Athelte Ever?

First appeared on July 16th, 2008
in The Lebanon Reporter

The debate over the greatest athlete ever is as old as sports itself. It seems the same names surface anytime the topic arises. Michael Jordan, Jesse Owens, Bo Jackson, Jim Brown- no surprises here. But one name is noticeably missing most days. A superstar from the unglamorous world of such obscurely spectacular sports as competitive eating and whatever you call it when those crazy guys fish for catfish barehanded.
Billed as the “World Record Maker”, Jim “the Mouth” Purol holds 23 different titles. Infamous for testing the limits of human strength and athletic ability, perhaps Purol’s most admirable achievement is in the arena of long distance crawling (25 miles). No doubt Momma Purol dotes on her boy Jimmy for smoking the most cigarettes simultaneously (159). “The Mouth” also once put 280 straws, 18 hot dogs and 180 McDonalds French fries into his pie hole at one time too, though I’m guessing each were on separate occasions.
Just last week Purol was at it again in southern California’s famed Rose Bowl when he broke the Guinness Record for “Most Seats Sat in 48 Hours” with 39,250. Sporting a Chinese coolie hat and blue jeans reinforced with what one can only assume were several pairs of Depends undergarments, Purol and an assistant painstakingly inchwormed their way around the stadium one seat at a time until they had hit all 92,542 in a blindingly quick five days.
Purol’s Rose Bowl feat is not his first foray into what is described best as musical chairs on steroids. In the 80’s he parked it in every one of Michigan Stadium’s 101,701 seats ruining a total of four pairs of Levis. Suggesting Rough Riders over the Levis now I’m sure is just useless hindsight.
When it comes to ridiculous accomplishments however it seems the English are the gold standard. The fastest piece of furniture (a 90 mph sofa), heaviest car balanced on a human head (352 pounds), largest gathering of persons in Gorilla costumes (687), fastest circumnavigation of Earth by bicycle (194 days), largest sausage ever made (41,000 pounds) and the fastest turkey ever plucked (1 minute and 20 seconds) are all records owned by the English.
As the English dominate the world of obscure sports with style, American competitors like Purol are sitting, smoking and eating their way into the record books in typical American fashion. This is probably the reason why we are the heaviest nation on Earth. Technically speaking China should weigh more since they outnumber us almost 4 to 1, but the sad reality is that as a nation we’ve evidently had one too many McDonalds extra value meals in our day. Supersized, please.
While Purol’s place in the debate of “greatest athlete in history” is most definitely nonexistent, his generosity isn’t. Every time he attempts to shatter another dubious record he does so by raising money for a good cause. In fact Purol once raised over $30,000 for charity by driving 500 miles in reverse. No matter how obscure and inconsequential his accomplishments may seem to fans of legitimate sports, it’s hard to mock a guy who’s trying to make a difference.
As far as the knucklehead who owns the fastest 100 meter dash barefoot across ice (17 seconds) or the odd man who boasts the largest airplane sick bag collection (5,180), well feel free to insert your joke here or, better still since they’re both Europeans, dedicate yourself now to besting their records. USA! USA! You can check out Jim Purol at the URL below.
http://jimmouth.com/tv04_body.html