By Kristen Watson

Bright-eyed and full of wonder, a group of eager University of North Texas hopefuls slowly walked slowly through the winding paths of campus.

A tall, young man with a planted pot balanced perfectly on his head almost passed them when one hopeful's father stopped the man to ask what he was doing.

The man in question spun around with a friendly grin on his face and spoke with cheer in his voice.

“I'm just your friendly university pothead.”

Wholehearted, gut laughter erupted from the father, as the grin on Max Quimby’s face grew as large as his face would hold.

Max Quimby, your friendly university pothead, is a 21-year-old biology junior who started balancing things on his head when he was a kid.

During the ample downtime between his swim meets as a child, Quimby started with coke cans and now can balance almost anything. Among the list of items he’s attempted include: pizzas, books, pumpkins and even a bowling ball on top of another bowling ball. 

Other than a combination of a “mildly-flat head” and the classic marching band roll-step technique, walking without moving your upper-body, Quimby swears there’s no special trick to his talent.

Many have speculated Quimby’s reasoning behind the pots, or pumpkin, depending on the holiday. His reasons are far more levelheaded than the rumors would lead one to believe.

 

Max Quimby, Biology junior, poses with his perfectly balanced pumpkin in front of the Biology complex on October 31, 2014.

“When I got to college, I'm also a big fan of puns, so I thought being your friendly university pot-head would be pretty good,” Quimby said. “I did it to kind of put myself out there and to meet new people…it makes people happy and I like that."

Quimby keeps a list on his phone of all the people who have stopped to get to know him. Quimby estimates there are over 150 names on the list and admitted he hasn’t maintained it very well in the past months.

Quimby’s pots and quirkiness sparked a multitude of rumors. He is doing it for a charity and people can pledge money to his cause. His brother went to UNT and balanced pots and Quimby is just carrying on family tradition. He’s a hardcore marijuana activist and that is his statement to the world. And the latest, found on the new anonymous chat app Yik Yak: he has scoliosis and he started balancing pots as a way to help correct it.

 

Example of the outlandish rumors surrounding Quimby's pot balancing. Screenshot courtesy of Max Quimby's Facebook page.

“There are all kind of rumors about me,” Quimby said. “I've never caught them written down until now. I can't for the life of me understand why scoliosis and they talked with such authority. They talked with authority like they knew me."

Besides the rumors, Quimby has also experienced a few physical and cyber threats.

“One time I got assassinated,” Quimby said. “That was funny. Okay, it wasn't very funny. It was pretty tragic actually.”

After pausing to check his cell phone, Quimby felt a swift smack to his perfectly perched pot and watched it crash to the concrete.

As it turns out, Quimby said a fraternity had placed a “bounty” on his head and as he later found out, the whole stunt was filmed.

But in Quimby’s naturally positive nature, he chose to focus on the new relationships he made during the experience. After his pot fell, several people came over to help pick up the pieces.

“There was even one girl named Destiny,” said Quimby. “And I thought that was pretty funny. She came and helped me pick up my pot. It was destiny.”

Despite all of the excitement, Quimby says he has no plans to stop balancing pots, or anything for that matter.

"It kind of reminds me to always be kind to everybody," Quimby said. "Because you don't really know what they're about. There are a lot of people who think that I'm just doing it for attention or just being stupid, but I just do it because it's something I enjoy."