Evel Knievel Dies Denying Gold, Gambling & Easy Women

As a child, Evel Knievel was a hero of mine. At the age of 3, I had an Evel Knievel lunch box and the Evel Knievel toy motorycyle kit. Next to Mickey Mantle and Abraham Lincoln, in my eyes he was a giant American icon.

Evel died today, at the age of 69, having suffered from diabetes and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.

I loved what Evel represented, even though I had never seen him perform a single stunt. Evel Knievel's invincible name was an invention of clever marketing. In truth, this man's real name was Robert Craig Knievel, Jr. Not until I was older, and in elementary school, that I realize that most of his great feats of stuntsmanship were grand-scale disasters. I remember watching a stunt on television in the early 1970's in which Evel was taking on the challenge of jumping over a huge swimming pool filled with sharp-fanged sharks with his little dirtbike. He missed. He landed in the water. Fortunately, before the sharks converged, he was fished out of the water by his helpers.

His biggest debacle was his jump over (or rather, "into") Snake River Canyon on September 8, 1974. Evel prepared for this jump for more than 2 years before he was finally ready for the day of the big event, so his fans were eager to see something special. Unfortunately, tiny problems botched the whole jump, and even though Evel reached the other side of the canyon with his skycycle, he eventually plunged into the chasm, and once again had to be saved from nearly drowning. A picture from this great debacle was later memorialized on the tin of my lunchbox, encouraging my classmates to both admire Evel and (if they were more informed) laugh at him.

Evel was said to have broken every bone in his body, and that always sounded tough to me. He certainly broke more than most people on this planet.