Covering sports, I’ve written about people who’ve jumped off towers, skied off mountains and walked across high wires. Some call these “extreme sports,” although I gather the term is not entirely acceptable.
Once upon a time we called these people “daredevils,” and when I was a kid, there was no greater daredevil than Robert Craig Knievel, better known as Evel Knievel, who was famed for his motorcycle and rocket jumps on ABC’s Wide World of Sports.
About 10 years ago, I was writing a story about a guy named Pierre who carved wooden sculptures of stunt drivers and daredevils in homage. Along the way, he divulged that his dad had once fixed bikes for Evel. Hmmm, I thought. Maybe I should double-check this.
So I contacted the Evel empire and quickly received an email from Knievel’s wife, who was concerned this was some kind of copyright infringement. When I was a kid there had been Evel action figures and lots of other goodies, so I guess there was still demand for Evel paraphernalia. I imagined poor Pierre opening his door to an army of lawyers.
I assured her that Pierre was a well-meaning fan and that these sculptures were one of a kind, intended as homages, which he’d donate to fundraising events. I assumed this would be the end of it. I even called and was prompted to leave a message on the machine by a tiny little voice telling me her “Grandpa Evel is not in right now….”
The next work day, I went to cover a council meeting and when I returned, I had a phone message: “Mike Chouinard, this is Evel Knievel….” Safe to say, these were words I’d never expected to hear in my life.
I did end up talking to him on the phone from his house in Montana, and he did sound like a man who’d broken every bone in his body, but he was gracious and helpful, and confirmed Pierre’s dad did in fact work on his bikes back in the 1970s, adding that I should say hello to Pierre for him.
I realize Evel wasn’t the first daredevil, but he was perhaps the biggest, and when I think of the “extreme sport” practitioners of today, he was clearly a man ahead of his time.
