At a mighty 104,gone while still going strong

Joe Rollino once lifted 475 pounds. He used neither his arms nor his legs but,reportedly,his teeth. With just one finger he raised up 635 pounds; with his back he moved 3,200....

Joe Rollino once lifted 475 pounds. He used neither his arms nor his legs but,reportedly,his teeth. With just one finger he raised up 635 pounds; with his back he moved 3,200. He bit down on quarters to bend them with his thumb.

People called him the Great Joe Rollino,the Mighty Joe Rollino and even the Worlds Strongest Man,and what did it matter if at least one of those people was Rollino himself.

On January 11 morning,Rollino went for a walk in his Brooklyn neighbourhood. It was part of the Great Joe Rollinos greatest feat,a display of physical dexterity and stamina so subtle that it revealed itself only if you happened to ask him his date of birth: March 19,1905. He was 104 years old and counting.

A few minutes before 7 am,as Rollino was crossing Bay Ridge Parkway at 13th Avenue,a 1999 Ford Windstar minivan struck him. The police said he suffered fractures to his pelvis,chest,ribs and face,as well as head trauma. Unconscious,he was taken to Lutheran Medical Center,where he later died.

New York is a city of extraordinary lives and events,and here,indisputably,was one of them one of the citys strongest and oldest,struck down on a Monday morning by a minivan in Brooklyn.

Pound for pound,in the feats that he practiced,he was one of the greatest performing strongmen weve ever had,if the lifts hes credited with are accurate, said Terry Todd,a co-director of the Stark Center for Physical Culture and Sports at the University of Texas,who knew Rollino for more than four decades. For his size,Joe was apparently one of the strongest men who ever lived.

Rollino stayed away from meat. And cigarettes. And alcohol. He said he walked five miles every morning,rain or shine. At the height of his career,he weighed between 125 and 150 pounds and stood about 5-foot-5.

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Among his many accomplishments,Rollino was proudest of one in particular. My finger strength, he told ESPN The Magazine. Six hundred thirty-five pounds. See the size of it. At 150 pounds,nobody ever beat me in this world.

On a 6-degree day in January 1974,Rollino and six other members of the Iceberg Athletic Club swam into the waters off Coney Island. The freezing Atlantic was like steel: It didnt intimidate him.

The driver of the minivan that struck Rollino,a 54-year-old woman in the neighbourhood,was not charged. Police said that neither speed nor alcohol was a factor.