PHILADELPHIA — A man turned heads as he ran a race in the city’s streets Sunday, dribbling a basketball and sporting an Allen Iverson Jersey for all 10 miles.
Video tweeted by WPVI reporter Bryanna Gallagher showed Rusty Burrell, decked out for the run in an Iverson jersey, pausing to dribble the ball before continuing the race.
This guy!! He’s the real MVP! 🏆🏀
— Bryanna Gallagher (@BGallagherTV) May 1, 2022
Not even from Philly, but an AI and Sixers fan that comes back to run the Broad Street every year! AND he does it with his basketball to hype up all the runners! @6abc pic.twitter.com/DCNAzuZcjc
Burrell told WPVI he runs the Broad Street Run in Philadelphia each year with a basketball. “Just to, like, pump up the crowd you know? And it works – everybody loved it,” Burrell told the station.
Burrell, who is from Richmond, Virginia, told The Philadelphia Inquirer that he had previously ran the race in 2019 dressed as a Stormtrooper from Star Wars, and ran a race in Virginia dressed as Juan Soto of the Washington Nationals.
As far as dribbling the ball, Burrell told the paper that he only stopped dribbling when he went through the course’s water stops, and was able to avoid bouncing the ball off the feet of any other runners.
“A lot of people were trying to call me for traveling and carrying,” Burrell told The Inquirer. “There were a lot of requests for crossovers so I tried to do that. … I was glad I didn’t trip anybody.”
©2022 Cox Media Group