Nelson Dellis is a memory athlete. Yeah, that's right...athlete.
The 26-year-old University of Miami grad practices every day and competes internationally. In fact, this year Dellis set a U.S. record for most digits memorized in 5 minutes with 178.
He can also memorize a list of 80 random words in 5 minutes and a deck of cards, in order, in 45 seconds, and recently he returned to campus in Coral Gables to teach current UM students his tricks.
"When he did it backwards, that really impressed me," said UM Junior Priyanka Surio. "We were like 'wow'."
So how does he do it? Dellis' method involves association. For numbers, he designates different people, places or things with each pair of digits. For instance, the sequence 244231 looks like 6 numbers to you and me. But for Dellis, those numbers represent the phrase "Kobe Bryant smoking a banjo."
"It's crazy I enjoy memorizing," explained Dellis, "because I like to anticipate the movie I'm going to see in my head."
Dellis works as a computer programmer in Boston. He doesn't use his memory-skills for his job, but what about Vegas?
Local
"I've thought about it. But that seems like the bad way out."
