Holy Sh*t, Three Legged Alligators Are Terrorizing The Zurich Classic

Written by Brandon Stroud / 04.26.13

I am going to say this one more time, calmly: holy shit you guys, three legged alligators are terrorizing the Zurich Classic.

Regular gators, too, but STUMPY (!) is especially dangerous. He lost a leg at some point in his long, alligator life and is still not afraid to face down a guy in a golf cart head-on. If I am a golfer, the number one goal in my life should be “avoid alligators at all costs.” It’s even more important than golf.

I hope Sterling Archer isn’t watching this.

The announcer’s delivery of “that’s a real hazard right there” should win him a Golf Emmy, if those are a thing.

[h/t to Tony Blogs]

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Meet Jacob Rainey, High School Football’s Amputee Quarterback

Written by Brandon Stroud / 08.31.12

amputee quarterback

Last December, Woodberry Forest School quarterback and college prospect Jacob Rainey made the news when his career was (we assumed) tragically cut short by a mishap on the playing field.

Well, “mishap” is a pretty light way to put it. He got tackled and lost his leg. Here’s the most psychologically terrifying description of events possible from a recent profile in the New York Times:

Rainey went left and cut back to his right. A tackler dived and grabbed his legs. Rainey tried to shed him, fighting for more yardage, and then he went blank. “I feel like I blacked out for a second,” he told me. “I just heard a pop, and the next thing I knew I was on the ground.”

Jeff Johnson, Woodberry’s athletic trainer, knew it was bad even before he laid eyes on Rainey. “The screams were just overwhelming,” Johnson told me, recalling the moment months later. “I still hear them.”

Rushing to Rainey’s side, Johnson quickly realized that the injury was unlike any he’d seen. Rainey’s lower right leg was dislocated at the knee and cocked at an impossible angle — “an obvious deformity,” in Johnson’s words.

He asked the quarterback not to look at it. Rainey didn’t listen. He asked him to take deep breaths. Rainey was inconsolable. “My season,” he kept saying. “My season.”

The upside to the story is that Rainey got outfitted with a prosthetic and chose to keep playing high school football instead of becoming a Paralympics athlete, a move that inspired everyone (including Tim Tebow, who I guess just goes around getting inspired by things). With football season starting back up, the next chapter of Jacob’s story begins, and a full piece on his story in the Times isn’t a bad way to start it. I definitely recommend giving it a read, because not only is it inspirational, it features wonderful out-of-context quotes like this:

“Maybe my skin’s just not ready,” Rainey suggested.

My girlfriend works at an orthotics and prosthetics company that makes a lot of the artificial limbs you see on athletes like Jacob (and Winter, the real-life dolphin from the movie Dolphin Tale), so stories like this have really been brought into perspective for me. If you need more of a reason to check out the article, take a look at some of the awesome photos that go along with it …

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The Amputee Soccer Championships Are Inspiring, But Not On The Internet

Written by Brandon Stroud / 12.29.11

SOCCER-AMPUTEESThis is a video of Africa’s Amputee Soccer Championships, set to music a family in an early-90s comedy might hear while enjoying the first part of their vacation. These guys are amazingly skilled and deserve a ton of your respect, and if you’ve been looking for a competition to simultaneously symbolize the indomitable nature of the human spirit and “trying not to think about why these people are missing legs”, the Amputee Soccer Championships are for you.

If you don’t want to be inspired, you can always go to Reddit, where commenters have already made a bunch of Skyrim jokes, suggested the team be sponsored by a company that makes landmines and pointed out that since able-bodied soccer players only get two legs, it’s unfair for the amputees to have more than one crutch. Also, more than one reference to Yakety Sax. It’s good to know that no matter how inspiring a video is, you can just scroll down to the comments and remember how awful everybody is.

p.s. I have two functioning legs and these guys would f**king destroy me.

[h/t Buzzfeed Sports]

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MMA: GIVE THE MAN A HAND – UPDATED

Written by JOSH Z / 04.27.09

We’ll get to the NFL draft shortly, but first we need to recap the weekend of one Kyle Maynard, that congenital amputee and former high school wrestler that made his amateur MMA debut last weekend at some horse barn in Auburn, Alabama. Maynard’s opponent, Brian Fry of Wisconsin, used his obvious advantage in striking range to keep Maynard from executing his ground game, but seemed content to not beat the life from Maynard’s body. From AJC:

By the second round, Maynard was visibly frustrated, and growing tired, while each time he put his head down and charged on all fours he was turned away or sidestepped. He was physically unable to grab and had no other answer for chopping down Fry. Maynard was the bowling ball, but the pin was always moving.

“I was … amazed. I didn’t know he was that quick,” Fry said. Still, he was able to stick to his strategy, even as the crowd, estimated at just less than 1,000, began chanting at him, “Wrestle, wrestle, wrestle.”

It sounds rather obvious that Fry had no intention of taking a real fight to Maynard, and yet it will certainly take a beatdown that savage for Maynard to pull himself out of the MMA game. It’s too bad Maynard didn’t want to be a swimmer; at least that way if he died, all you could blame is the guy that filled the pool.

|as first seen on Deadspin| SEXY UPDATE: Watch video of the match (via Cage Potato) after the jump.

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ONE-LEGGED LITTLE LEAGUER HOPS TO IT

Written by Matt / 06.05.08

Adam Bender is the Kentucky 8-year-old who doesn't let his disability get in the way of him playing sports.  Born with a tumor on his left leg, he underwent surgery to have the limb amputated on his first birthday, which — when you think about it — is the best gift a parent can give.

Obviously, this story's been making the rounds for the last couple days, but I felt With Leather should address it because amputee sports stories simply don't get enough attention.  Kind of like amputee porn that way.  Do you have any idea what a stump can do?  I've never wanted to lose my hand so badly.  Anyone got a thresher?

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DO NOT TAUNT THE ONE-ARMED KICKBOXER

Written by Matt / 12.20.06

Listen, I'm just as fired up for Rocky VI as everyone else, but — wait. No, that's incorrect. I'm a great deal less fired up for it than everybody else. However, if some girl were to drag me to it, I suppose I'd go. There are lots of ladies who want to see Rocky Balboa, right? Um, hello? Anyone? …Mom?

Anyway, here's a real fighter you can get behind: Baxter Humby, a muay thai kickboxer in who had his arm amputated at the elbow at birth after his umbilical cord got wrapped around it. As Foul Balls noted, he recently won an appeal against the California State Athletic Commission that was trying to implement rules to keep him from fighting.

Oh, and it turns out he's pretty good at what he does, too:

Wow, a one-armed man named Baxter. Do you think he gets more Anchorman or Fugitive quotes from random people? You should ask him. No, you ask him. I'll be watching from around the corner.

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