David O'Karma - Competitive Eating

Competitive Eating

He started competitive eating at age 15 in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, at Church's Chicken on Portage Trail. He ate 13 sweet potato pies in one minute to become the WCUE Sweet Potato Pie-eating Champion. From there he entered the Houlihan and Big Chuck Show's Pizza Fight of the Century and became the only other person (besides Robert "Wild Mouth" Tilk) to defeat champion eater Mariano "Mushmouth" Pacetti.

On July 4, 1974, Coondog set his first world record by eating 45 hard-boiled eggs in 8 minutes and 10 seconds, becoming the WCUE Egg-Sucking Champion. Later that summer, at the Cuyahoga Falls Kid's Carnival, Coondog broke another Guinness world record by consuming 25 Krispy Kreme glazed doughnuts in 15 minutes. After this feat, he retired.

In 2001, Coondog O'Karma came out of a self-imposed retirement of 27 years to win the Nathan's Famous Middletown, New York regional hotdog eating contest, qualifying him for the Nathan's Famous Coney Island 4th of July Hotdog Eating Contest in Coney Island where he finished poorly in 7th with only17 hotdogs,compared to a record breaking 50 hotdogs by the winner.

Over the course of his career, he has held world records in doughnut, hard-boiled egg, and corn on the cob consumption. In addition to American events, Coondog has also traveled to Japan for a Sushi eating competition and to meet with Takeru Kobayashi. He has been ranked as high as 14th in the world by the IFOCE.

In addition to these successes, however, there have been letdowns in his career. In 2002, he was disqualified from the 2002 Wing Bowl after vomiting. He had eaten over 100 wings by that point. He eventually retired from Competitive Eating due to his family's concerns about its effect on his health.

In April 2006 Jason Fagone's book on competitive eating, Horsemen of the Esophagus, featured Coondog as one of three competitive eaters profiled in the book.