Who is the Best Athlete you've ever played against?

Loy Vaught. 8th grade. He could dunk and I watched him do it several times. They beat us by what seemed like 100pts. I remember thinking that their 8th grade team could beat our varsity.

I was a Senior at Wayland he was a Junior at Hudsonville.  He played QB for them -- and of course LB.  Was not that hard to bring down -- but a sure tackler.  Enjoyed watching him at CMU!

Played against Joe Dumars' son Jordan when he was at Country Day.  He wasn't particularly good, but he destroyed our team of short, white jews

I've raced bikes with a few riders who caught on with pro teams, but they're not household names by any means. They were on a whole different level and made everyone else look like they were riding through sand.

Kelvin Grady. Way too many times as East GR was in the same conference. Never played football, but remember Kevin Grady going off for 200 yards in the second half. Incredible.

I played basketball against Mark Ingram...my crowning life-achievement was drawing a foul from him that was his fifth, allowing me to forever claim that I caused a Heisman trophy winner to foul out of a game.

The dude was absolutely ripped in 8th grade, when the rest of us were (for the most part) doughy white boys.

I guess youd could say it was again, seeing we were both  part of the original 10 that took the floor at the start of the game. However, I knew I would not be tasked with guarding him if we went to a man-to-man because even then I think he was a foot taller than me. He was always a foot taller.

Shelby was only about 10 miles away from the town I lived in and our first meetings, when I was in jr. high and he was in 6th grade shouldn't have taken place, not certain. I know you can play someone at any level when they  hit the 9th grade, the high school level. I don't know if you can bring a 6th graded up to  jr. high. We were not conference foes so that could have been why it was allowed.

But there was no doubting his greatness which was in still very much in its "awkard stage" when I firt met him due to the age. By time he had hit 9th grade, it was becoming evident the kid had a future. Of course later he was a teammate of Pistol Pete in New Orleans and the Ice Man at San Antonio. I was in Vietnam when I heard he had decided on W. MI. I thought, "Damn, I really thought he had a chance." It was quite a few years later when I learned he had said no to the wolverines, spartans, even Mr. Knight because he wanted to play on the w. side of the state.

There are a few others that come close like the Tatum brothers from Muskegon High, but there was something, even then, knowing who would come down with the bb every time there was a miss was more important than being a tremendous scorer.

Patrick Kane - (hands like you wouldn't believe)

Braylon Edwards - he joined us playing pick up at Elbel. Wasn't a great basketball player, but he was mainly just trying to dunk, he could leap pretty well, but so can I,  so I got up and blocked one, that's my vietnam.

Played against Dylan Larkin when I was 5 in a tournament championship game. Lost 4-3 in a shootout. Larkin had a hat trick and the only goal in the shootout.

Played some pick-up basketball against Billy Donovan at our health club in the late 80s when he was playing for Pitino on the Knicks. There's just no way for a normal human to guard someone like that.

My brother-in-law played pro baseball for 20 years, starting in the mid-1980s. He pretty much played against everyone you could name from that era (Canseco, Maddux, etc...), but says by far the best athlete he ever played against was Bo Jackson. He still talks about watching him go from a slow trot to full speed in two steps on a ground ball briefly bobbled by the second baseman. Says it doesn't sound like much, but seeing someone accelerate like that from close-up was just jaw-dropping.

Darell summers

Ran track in HS: competed against Paul Terek. Solid all-around athlete (pole vault). Also Jason Granger from Farmington Harrison was the fastest dude I've ever seen on a team I was competing against; like 10.6 100M or close to it (don't remember exactly.) I didn't run the 100M or pole vault so didn't individually compete against these people, but as a team sport.

I was a junior and he was a senior playing for Edsel Ford.

Here's how I fared:

First AB - 3 pitch strikeout

Second AB - 3 pitch strikeout

Third AB - he threw one insde and hit me.....and cracked my cup. Fortunately, it was a graze.

 

I saw him about 7 years later at Fenway and he surprisingly remembered it. Good guy with an unreal arm.

Played against everyones favorite Denard Robinson in football. He was a couple years older then me when I made varsity my freshman year so I only had a few plays on the field against him playing corner, but man was he fast (tackled him once). Patrick Peterson was a freaking freak athlete as well. 

Also played against the #11 espn ranked overall prospect ILB Jeff Luc who our coach made a huge deal out of and crushed me bones a couple times when I played QB my senior year which sucked a bunch when caught me.

 

 Travis Benjamin was also pretty damn good.

 

South Florida football had a lot a great talent.

My high school varsity team played against Tim Tebow the year before I made the team.

Easy. Bo Jackson in Tecmo Bowl.

Dude had like 200 yards against us in the first half on 3 carries.  The coach benched him.  We made a bit of a comeback in the second half, they put him in for one play, 80 yard touchdown to put the game away.  

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd4x6W520aQ

I well remember guarding Glen Rice in pickup ball at the CCRB. Like someone else posting here, I was terrified that in some freak accident of clumsiness, I would foul and injure Rice.

The other time I was way, way over my head was in a summer pickup game at the CCRB when it was almost empty one July afternoon. For some odd reason, I ended up making a 5th player on a team made up of some guys who while not superstars, were drafted by the NBA. There was a guy called Erich Santifer who played for Huron, then for Syracuse, drafted by the Pistons in the 3rd round. Tim McCormick was there. Another guy that was on the Knicks roster was in the gym. The team just ran, and ran, and ran. They couldn't lose, and I was dying of exhaustion. To top it off, they kept on telling me to shoot the ball. Being around athletes like that underscores what it is to be a mere mortal. No illusions of grandeur for me.

Jourdan Lewis is definitely the smoothest athlete I've competed against. Silky smooth and graceful, it was like no wasted motion when he moved around the field. Devin Smith ran me down once when I was a freshman in high school. Put my 10.9 to shame. All I seen was the back of a bobbing head.

Donald Winston. You don't know him because he went to Purdue and they tried to make him a WR slot guy, and it was a bad idea. He was only about 5'7" and a badass running back that my highschool in Indiana faced my Junior year. He had over 200 yards on us by halftime and was by far the fastest person I've ever seen. He was the reigning high jump champ in Indiana as well. By the time the third qtr came up I was pissed and we were getting smashed. (I played MLB) They ran a pass play and I was blitzing around the strong-side end. I saw Donald and was thinking I would just make him pay for all the damage he had done to my team. The contact was incredible, and I immediately saw two of him vibrating out in opposite directions. Neither of us fell, but to this day I've never been hit anything like that in my life. My whole football career was about big hits and fierce contact, and DW just stunned me in my tracks. He was an amazing athlete that just didn't work out in D1 football.

I competed in a swim meet in Orlando in 2011. Ryan Lochte and Pete Vanderkaay were both in attendance. While I wasn't fast enough to be in finals with either of them, it was awesome to watch swimming legends like that. 

Probably the coolest moment of the entire event was the mile final. You had Lochte, Vanderkaay and, at the time, Florida's best long distance swimmer and a junior national record-holder Nick Caldwell. Vanderkaay won by a couple body lengths (not unexpected), but it was great to see all three in the pool at the same time. I still have a picture of the final scoreboard.

My claim to faim is that Vanderkaay and I warmed down in the same lane after prelims for an event. Very down to earth guy who chatted for a while (he was as keen as not actually warming down as I was.) Lochte was also super chill and would talk to anyone and everyone behind the blocks. Both were willing to sign autographs and just seemed to enjoy the swimming culture. 

Best was Gardner, Ricardo Miller was also good. 

Of all the guys I played against that ended up having a successful D1 career, Drake Johnson was the most average. Granted it was a younger version of him, but he felt like a track kid that was trying to make football work. Like he didnt have the football mentality. Clearly he blossomed. 

We went to TC Central together and played on the FB team. He was a QB and I a RB/DB. While Dan went on to CMU and future NBA stardom, injuries and lack of size (4'8/105lbs) ended my playing days much sooner. I did however,beat him several times in 1 on 1 40s. Also, our IM BB team from Bursley played the SQ team. Gilvani Johnson and several other FB players dispatched our team 119-42.

I wonder why did

your formatting look much like

a crappy Haiku?

Football- Reggie Williams and Nate Burleson.

Basketball, Aaron Brooks, josh Smith( the one from UCLA and Georgetown). That's a big dude. Got dunked on. The best though was Michael Dickerson.

played on the same pop Warner team as Shane Battier. in HS my Jr year I played against Charlie Sanders jr, Nick Williams at FHH who went on to play at Miami and got drafted, and Aric Morris who was an all B1G safety for MSU. Williams was a beast, ran all over us in the state semis.

David Booth Lost 6-5. He had 5 goals. My coach told my team after the game we did a good job of containing David.