"Anyone can jump a motorcycle. The trouble begins when you try to land it" Robert Craig Knievel Certified American Hero. Most of you know this cat for trying to jump stuff on his motorcycle. But, before he was the idol of all of us kids with big wheels and bikes in the 70's, he accomplished the following: -1959 Ski Jumping Champion (Class A, Montana) -Soldier in the U.S. Army. While in, he was on the track team, where he pole vaulted -Semi-pro ice hockey player. Started with my hometown team, the Charlotte Checkers. Later, he became the Star center for the Butte Bombers. Oh yeah, he was also the owner and coach. At 19. -Proficient hunter and fisherman. After his hockey career, he became a professional elk guide. His business name? Sur-Kill Guide Service. -Hitchhiked from Montana to Washington DC with 54" elk antlers. In DC, he met with government officials in an effort to stop the culling of elk in Yellowstone so that hunters could have more of a chance. -Next career? Very successful insurance salesman. -Motorcycle dealership owner in Washington state. -1/3/66 he performed his first motorcycle stunt: success. -2/10/66 he performed his second motorcycle stunt: unsuccessful. Apparently, the idea was that a speeding motorcycle would ride straight toward him and he would jump over it. He was a little slow on the jump and the thing went full force into his nuts. He was hospitalized for awhile, but got out and went right back to it. The rest, as they say, is history. He was successful in large part due to unsuccessfulness, ironically. People came to see how bad he would crash and/or what he would break. That is not to say, he was a failure. He set many records. Both for jumps and for number of tickets sold. And bones broken. Estimates on the number of bones broken are sort of all over the place, but probably the most accurate is in the 30-50. Although reports of over 400 are common. Guinness puts it at 37. Evel was a man of his word and demanded the same of others. He valued his reputation above all. When some reporter wrote a book about him, demeaning his character, Evel got on a plane, flew to California, and with both arms in casts, he beat the crap out of the reporter with a baseball bat. He certainly did a lot of things in his life, but not everything he wanted. He once said, "The other thing I wanted but never got to do had something to do with Liz Taylor but she's getting a little old and a little fat." He died November 30, 2007. Matthew McConaughey gave the funeral eulogy. By the way, who else had one of these as a kid?
I had one of those -- and Topeka, Ks has the official Evel Knievel museum attached to the Harley shop -- they had to build an addition to hold all the stuff.
I had one of those. Plus the Evel Knevel lunch box. Also had the huffy bicycle. Cant wait to see Travis Pastrana try to jump ceasars palace fountain on july 8th.
I had one. Used to launch it from the top of the stairs, sometimes going for height, sometimes for distance. Mom put a stop to it once I started hitting the tile floor at the bottom.
It would help if Pastrana wears a cape and bell bottoms. And if I'm eating a fine meal of Humburger Helper and creamed corn on a TV tray, followed by an Otter Pop. Like the good 'ol days...
And if there wasn't enough money to hire an army of engineers to figure out exactly how to do it with virtually no risk. And he has to tune the carburetor himself cause he doesn't have a 50 person crew with millions of dollars in sponsorship.
I had dinner with some friends in a local Italian restaurant here in the mid 90s after dinner we went into the bar for a drink or two. I started talking to a familiar looking guy sitting at the bar and after a few minutes I introduced myself hoping I could figure out where I recognized him from. Imagine my surprise when he responded "you would probably know me as Evel Knievel" he joined us at the table and we had a lot of laughs, he had a reputation around here as being a little hard to be around but we had a great time shooting the sh.. With him!!
