Several weeks ago Sports Pickle asked, “What should the Denver Broncos name their new Tim Tebow offense?” One of the choices was “rugby.”
Since Tebow took over for Kyle Orton as Denver’s starting quarterback, the Broncos have won 6 of 7 games. But, as any person who has cable or Internet access knows by now, Tebow is not an ordinary NFL quarterback.
In a league dominated by pocket passers, Tebow often wins with his feet. In Denver’s win over the Raiders on November 6, Tebow passed for 124 yards and ran for 118. The following week, in a victory over the Chiefs, Tebow completed only 2 passes on 8 attempts. He is 33rd in the league in passing yards; and 35th in rushing yards. (Granted, in the Broncos’ latest win, against the Vikings, Tebow threw for 202 yards—and looked good doing it—and only carried the ball 4 times.)
It will be interesting to see where Tebow’s career goes from here.
Will he go the way of so many other feet-first, college-style quarterbacks in the NFL and 1) flame out when defensive coordinators figure him out, 2) lose much of his career to injury, or 3) evolve into a traditional pocket passer?
Or will Tebow, through some combination of attitude, work-ethic, and superior conditioning prove that non-traditional quarterbacks can succeed in the NFL and that some version of the spread-option is a viable offense at the professional level?
Plenty of other athletes have been successful with unconventional styles and techniques. Some are known now as innovators, others as novelty acts, and others as athletes who found creative ways to play to their strengths but whose styles are best not imitated.
Here are 9 examples:
Adrian Carambula, beach volleyball
In most cases, the difference between serving a volleyball overhand and serving a volleyball underhand is the difference between being a real volleyball player and being someone who just wants to get a passing grade in gym class. (For the record, I serve underhand.) I mean, you would never see a world-class pro volleyball player serve underhand, right?
Not exactly. Uruguayan beach volleyball player Adrian Carambula uses a type of underhand serve called the sky ball serve in which the server launches the ball 50 or 60 feet into the air. A ball that goes 60 feet up and only about 40 feet forward will be falling in nearly a straight line as it approaches players on the other side of the net.
I used my knowledge of parabolas and Microsoft Excel to approximate the difference between a standard jump serve (orange) and a sky ball serve (purple).
The sky ball serve was popular among Brazilian players in the 1980s but fell out of style shortly thereafter. Carambula is one of the few players who still favors it. (My research suggests that only a single paragraph ever has been written about the sky ball serve, and it has been cut and pasted to several hundred websites. It may have originated on Wikipedia.)
At the moment Carambula is ranked only 178 in the world and his career earnings are only $18,450. But he is only 23 and has four AVP Young Guns tournaments, each with a different partner. Here he is in action:
Monica Seles, tennis
In 1990 Monica Seles became the youngest player to win the French Open. The following year, at age 18, she became the world’s top-ranked player. Seles won 9 Grand Slam singles titles during her career. She ranks among the great women’s tennis players of all time. Had she not been stabbed by a deranged fan in 1993, she might be the conversation for greatest of all time.
But unlike other tennis greats, Seles hits with a two-handed forehand. There is nothing unusual about a two-handed backhand, but elite players who grip the racket with two hands on both sides of the ball are rare. The two-handed grip shortens a player’s reach. But in Seles’s case, according to OnTennis.com, “[She] manages to compensate for the shorter reach by being able to hit balls much harder, with more top-spin, allowing her to hit sharper angles.”
Seles learned her technique from her father and coach, Károly Szeles. While it hasn’t been widely imitated, France’s Marion Bartoli also adopted the style at the urging of her father-coach. Bartoli, who has a funky-looking serve to complement her funky forehand, two-handed her way to the 2007 Wimbledon final and the 2011 semis at Roland-Garros.
Here’s Seles against Steffi Graf in the 1990 French Open:
Shunsuke Watanabe, baseball
The “submarine” style of pitching, in which a pitcher releases the ball underhand and low to the ground, has been around for decades, perhaps originating with 1960s journeyman pitcher Ted Abernathy. But Shunsuke Watanabe, who plays for the Chiba Lotte Marines in the Japanese Pacific League, has taken submarine pitching to another, even lower, level.
Watanabe gets so low that he has a knee pad sewn into his right pant leg. He nearly drags his knuckles through the dirt on each pitch and releases the ball only a couple inches off the ground.
Watanabe adopted the extreme submarine style when he was in middle school because it suited his slight, limber build and because he lacked the size and arm strength to make the team as a traditional pitcher. Perfecting the low-release pitch not only earned Watanabe a spot on his middle school baseball team; it also earned him a place on Japan’s 2006 World Baseball Classic roster.
Jim Furyk, golf
Jim Furyk is known for his 16 PGA tour wins, including a victory at the 2003 U.S. Open. He’s also known for his unusual looping swing. Rather than embarrass myself by trying to write about golf, I’ll let Furyk explain his swing in his own words:
Mike Barrowman and Amanda Beard, breaststroke
In the mid 1980s FINA (that’s Fédération Internationale de Natation, international swimming’s governing body) changed the rules for the breaststroke, allowing body parts other than the head to break the surface of the water and allowing the head to sink beneath the surface. American Mike Barrowman took advantage of the rule changes, eschewing the traditional “flat style” of breaststroke, and pioneering the “wave style” of breaststroke. With the wave style, a swimmer throws his or her arms and upper body forward, over the water, then kicks with his or her head submerged, reducing resistance.
Barrowman set the 200 breaststroke world record in 1989 using the wave style. By the time he won the event at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, everyone was doing it (though not all were doing it well):
Amanda Beard—who has won gold (2004), silver (1996), and bronze (2000) medals in the 200 breaststroke, along with a silver in the 100 (1996)—swims neither the wave style nor the flat style. She swims the “undulating style,” which appears to mimic the movements of snake-like sea creatures.
While many athletes adopt unconventional styles to conceal their weaknesses, Beard was playing to her strengths. Only flexible (and usually young) female swimmers are capable of swimming the undulating style.
Rick Barry, basketball
Rick Barry was named to 5 All-NBA First Teams and 4 All-ABA First Teams. He won a title in both leagues. He was selected to the NBA’s 50th Anniversary Team. And he shoots his free throws granny-style, like Ollie from Hoosiers.
Barry argues that, when shooting underhand, the body is in a more natural, relaxed posture. This gives the underhanded free-throw shooter an advantage late in games when fatigue sets in.
Though Barry continues to be an advocate for the underhand foul shot, the style never caught on, not even among the Barry sons, Jon, Brent, and Drew (and Scooter, who never played in the NBA). But the shot worked for Rick, who hit 90 percent of his free throws and ranks 3rd all-time in free-throw percentage.
Jason Belmonte, bowling
Most people stop bowling with two hands when they are strong enough to roll the ball with one. And the overwhelming number of two-handed bowlers in the world today also use bumpers.
Australian Jason Belmonte started bowling as a toddler. And he never stopped bowling with two hands. But Belmonte’s form is much more sophisticated than that of the 4-year-old who can hardly lift an 8-point ball. His two-handed shovel technique puts more spin on the ball than more traditional styles, which is good for pin-action.
Belmonte was the 2008-09 PBA Rookie of the Year and claimed the 2010 Korea Cup title. In this segment from E:60, Jeremy Schaap makes Belmonte’s story seem much more dramatic than it actually is.
Dick Fosbury, high jump
In early high jump competitions, which date back to the 19th century, jumpers used the scissors technique, clearing the bar first with their inside leg then swinging the other leg over the bar. In time jumpers learned to turn their bodies sideways, rolling over the bar.
Dick Fosbury had a style all his own. He turned, going over the bar back first and flopping onto the mat. Fosbury developed the style, which earned the derogatory name “the Fosbury Flop,” in high school and finished second in the Oregon state meet his senior year. But many in the track-and-field world mocked Fosbury’s technique or dismissed it as a gimmick, and colleges weren’t interested in the young innovator. Only Oregon State, a program desperate for a high jumper, took a chance on Fosbury. In 1968, as a junior, he flopped his way to an NCAA title.
Fosbury achieved worldwide celebrity when he used his flop to set an Olympic record and win a gold medal at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City. Within a decade, the once derided Fosbury Flop had become the dominant high-jumping technique.
About Josh Tinley
