Ferdie Adoboe

Ferdie Ato Adoboe (born 1964) is an athlete who set a Guinness World Record in 1983 for running backwards. He is also a practitioner of speed juggling, the act of kicking a soccer ball in the air as many times as possible in a short period of time.

Adoboe lobbied Guinness World Records to establish a world record for speed juggling and in 1999, he set the first record at the Ft Lowell Shootout in Tucson, Arizona, by recording 136 touches in 30 seconds and 262 in one minute. He would later speed juggle a soccer ball 141 times in 30 seconds on The Today Show on Aug. 27, 2003.

Adoboe, a native of Ghana, has held four speed-related world records including running the 100-yard dash backwards in 12.7 seconds when he was 19 years old in 1983.

Adoboe acts as a coach at his Soccer-Magic Skills Training Program & Academy, based in Amherst, Massachusetts. He has also served as a soccer and track and field coach at schools including Mt. Holyoke College, University of Massachusetts Amherst, and South Hadley High School (Massachusetts), and in the US Youth Soccer Olympic Development Program.

Players who have worked with Adoboe have gone on to play for US Regional and National teams, NCAA Division I College teams, Major League Soccer, European professional teams, and the UEFA Champions League. Notable alumni include: Robbie Russell, Jay Heaps, and Edson Buddle.

Adoboe was a Sports Illustrated Faces in the Crowd in 1983, and he is also an answer in the 1984 version of the popular trivia game Trivial Pursuit.