When star athletes retire or are cut loose from their contracts, it’s anybody’s guess where they’ll end up.
For former quarterback Mark Brunell, 19 seasons in the NFL led him to a pretty predictable second career in coaching. But he’s been up to some other stuff, and this you won’t believe:
The Sun is reporting that Brunell has teamed up with an aviation engineer named Andy Currey and the duo are vying for a World Record of the longest flight… of a paper airplane.
The attempt will occur October 24th in London, and the number to beat is an insane 70 meters, or just under 230 feet – longer than Brunell ever threw a football in his career.
But he’s bringing his skills to the effort nonetheless, pairing his knowledge of “speed, strength and momentum” with Currey’s design acumen. Incidentally, Currey, an engineer with Virgin Atlantic, held the World Record once before though it’s currently in the hands of another engineer and quarterback duo: In 2012, the self-proclaimed “Paper Airplane Guy,” origami expert John Collins, teamed up with former Cal quarterback Joe Ayoob – Collins as the folder and Ayoob as the thrower.
This latest attempt by Brunell and Currey will be livestreamed on Facebook, and Currey says he’ll be using a standard A4 sheet of paper, transported to the undisclosed “launch site” in an airtight plastic bag to preserve its integrity.
Unfortunately for these two, even if they accomplish their feat, it won’t be officially recognized by the Guiness Book, as it won’t be verified by their standards. Instead, the event is more of a promotion for the NFL London Games, which Virgin Atlantic is sponsoring, and fans are being invited to submit a guess as to how far the airplane will travel in the live toss, with the winner receiving a trip to the Pro Bowl.
