They rose up by the dozens from across Florida, caricatured competitors in tank tops and cutoff shorts, for a showdown that treats evading police and wrestling over beer like Olympic sports.
Promoted as โthe most insane athletic showdown on Earth,โ the Florida Man Games poke fun at the stateโs reputation for bizarre stories that involve brawling, drinking, gunfire, reptile wrangling and other antics carrying a risk of time in jail or intensive care.
Several thousand people paid real money to come cheer a dozen teams at the debut event set for Saturday in St. Augustine, with contests and sideshows inspired by real events from Americaโs most surreal state.
โI have an absolute disregard for self-preservation. I will do anything,โ said Larry Donnelly, 42, who owns a St. Augustine pressure-washing business and serves as captain of the five-man team Hanky Spanky. โWhen I was in the military, I did a little alligator wrestling.โ
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To train for the games, Donnelly rode a bicycle around his neighborhood with a second bike strapped to his back. His event Saturday: a race requiring competitors to switch between bikes while toting a catalytic converter and a handful of copper pipes, common items in Florida theft stories.
Other events involve contenders wrestling sumo-style while holding pitchers of beer, or running from actual sheriffโs deputies while jumping fences and avoiding obstacles. Some signed up to duel with pool noodles over a mud-filled pool, while others faced a scramble to grab cash flying in simulated hurricane winds.
Florida Man Games organizer Pete Melfi said he was stunned to find nobody else had beaten him to the ripped-from-headlines idea for a spoof sporting event. He expected more than 5,000 spectators paying $45 or more per ticket to join the fun at the cityโs Francis Field.
โWe kind of give a person an opportunity to live a day in the life of Florida man without ending up in a cop car,โ said Melfi, who runs the St. Augustine media outlet The 904 Now. But he had to tone down some racier aspects of the Florida Man mythos to obtain a permit.
โThereโs typically drugs and nudity,โ he said. โBut the city frowned on it when I asked for drugs and nudity.โ
The โFlorida Manโ phenomenon seeped into the nationโs conscience thanks in part to a Twitter account that started in 2013 with the handle @_FloridaMan. The account touted โreal-life stories of the worldโs worst superhero,โ sharing news headlines such as โFlorida Man Bites Dog to โEstablish Dominanceโโ and โFlorida Man Tried to Pay for McDonaldโs With Weed.โ
Floridaโs claim to being the strangest state goes back much further, said Craig Pittman, a Florida journalist who wrote the book โOh, Florida! How Americaโs Weirdest State Influences the Rest of the Country.โ He noted that the first flag to fly over its state Capitol in 1845 bore the motto โLet Us Alone.โ
Apparently nobody listened. Florida today has 22 million residents, the third largest population of any U.S. state. And they all share roads, beaches and timeshares with more than 130 million tourists per year.
โYou cram that many people together, theyโre bound to start running into each othersโ cars and chasing each other with machetes,โ Pittman said.
Leading up to Saturdayโs games, Joshua Barr and his Cooter Commandos teammates spent time whipping up fan support on Facebook with posts showing the trio chugging Pabst Blue Ribbon beer and jogging in jean shorts and mirrored sunglasses. Their team name comes from a turtle species celebrated by their hometown of Inverness.
The Commandos didnโt stop with online promotion and trash-talking of rival teams. Barr, a 37-year-old movie reviewer and podcaster, said they also printed T-shirts, temporary tattoos and a large custom flag to wave on the field.
โWe might be taking it more seriously than most people,โ Barr said. โYou kind of just have to be a part of the joke at this point.โ
ย ย Sports
