The Hail Mary A Football Dad's Wonky Wisdom
Words by Kurt Gensheimer | Photos by Victor Brousseaud
It was October 1992 in western Pennsylvania, and autumn was in the air—brisk temperatures, leaves sporting hues of yellow, orange, and red, and the Pittsburgh Steelers getting walloped every weekend. October also signified the annual running of God’s Country Classic, a 30-mile race out in the middle of, well, you know.
Seeing as though I was only 15 years old, my parents wouldn’t let me drive the family truckster—a green Ford Explorer wagon with wood paneling—200 miles from Pittsburgh to north-central Pennsylvania by myself. So, my dad Klaus and I made the five-hour trip together, a terrific father-son bonding opportunity.
To make the 10 a.m. start, we left the house at 4 a.m. My dad—who preferred watching the Steelers get pummeled by every team in the National Football League over attending one of my bike races—bitched and moaned the entire drive. The thermos coffee was too cold. The family truckster was out of alignment. He couldn’t see out the back window because of my stupid bike. Where’s the goddamn road map? Just where the hell were we? The complaints went on and on, but his constant bellyaching was drowned out by the comparatively relaxing voice of Kurt Cobain serenading me on my Walkman portable CD player.
Half-asleep, I gazed out the window of the truckster just as daylight was breaking over the amber northern Pennsylvania hilltops. My eyes fell heavy to Cobain’s screeching as my dad nagged about man-eating potholes. Suddenly, I found myself in the bike race on a fire road, jockeying for the singletrack holeshot. The buzz of tires sounded like a hornet’s nest. The roost of dirt was thicker than a haboob. I inched ahead of my adversaries and squeezed in to be first into the woods. Behind me, a hail of squealing brakes and skidding tires echoed through the forest in capitulation of my bold maneuver. But just before I hit singletrack, my rear tire burst like an over-inflated balloon, sending me careening toward a gigantic maple tree. I jerked violently in my seat to avoid it, opened my eyes, and found myself back in the truckster in a full-blown sweat while my dad listened to a Steelers pre-game radio show.
A minute turned into 10, and my dad never showed. It bothered me at first, but as soon as the whistle sounded and we tore out of the gates, I forgot about it.
“You OK?” asked Klaus.
“Yeah, just a bad dream, I guess,” I responded.
“Well, you’re sweating all over the damn seat, Jesus! Here, wipe off your filth.” Klaus threw me his bright yellow Pittsburgh Steelers Terrible Towel that he swung over his head at every game while the radio sportscaster commented on the Steelers quarterback, Bubby Brister.
“You know what I love about Bubby?” asked my dad. “No matter how badly the Steelers are getting beaten, Bubby never gives up. He isn’t a quitter and always gives 110 percent effort.”
To my dad, football was everything. Every reference, analogy, moral, everything was somehow tied back to football. But then he said something that took me by surprise.
“When you’re out there racing today, if things get so hard that you just want to quit, stop and ask yourself, what would Bubby do?”
Although it was in a football frame of reference, Klaus was offering up heartfelt fatherly advice. It made me feel really good.
“Thanks, dad. I will.”
“Now, will you clean up that mess? It smells like a sweaty jock strap in here. Jesus!”
After three more wrong turns paired with three curse-laden tirades by the old man, we finally arrived at the racecourse. I got dressed and registered while Klaus disappeared into the ski lodge to find a television. I ran into the lodge and interrupted him.
“Hey, my race starts in a few minutes. You coming?”
My dad put out his arm to stop me without breaking eye contact with the television.
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be... Oooh! Oh, man! Did you see that? Brister got sacked like a bag of potatoes!”
Bubby immediately jumped up and ran around as if he had never hit the grass.
“Look at that. See what I mean, Kurt? The guy never gives in.”
“Dad, I gotta go.”
“Oh yeah, right. Good luck! Be safe.”
“You’re not gonna come watch me start?”
“I’ll be there in a minute.”
A minute turned into 10, and my dad never
showed. It bothered me at first, but as soon as the whistle sounded and we tore out of the gates, I forgot about it.
The course was a downhiller’s delight with gigantic whoops every hundred feet that launched riders into the mesosphere. We also had to cross a freezing cold raging river up to our waists on a day when the high was only 40 degrees.
I put the hammer down during the first 15 miles with thoughts of Klaus in the back of my mind. I couldn’t make this five-hour drive a waste. I had to do well so Klaus wouldn’t complain the whole way home about what a useless trip it was. The nagging reminder of my dad had actually worked—out of more than 100 starters, I was sitting in the top 10 overall and was first in my age group. I had the best race of my young career until my entire knobby tire world came crashing down with 10 miles to go.
Just like in my dream, as I was passing two riders, the rear tire blew out with a thunderous explosion. Considering I was a novice and had never experienced a flat in a race, I panicked. One buzzing set of knobby tires passed me, then another, then another, then five more. A sinking feeling hit the pit of my stomach. I frantically ripped my inner tube and tools out of the bike bag and went to work. I changed the tube quickly without any issues, but the same couldn’t be said for my handheld Zéfal pump; it was broken.
Like a pea-brained primate, I took the pump and beat it on the ground in a futile attempt to revive it. Meanwhile, one after another, neon-clad racers passed me by without offering assistance. I beat the pump some more, but it still didn’t work. My fate was too much to bear. The race was over. I cried like a two-year-old who dropped his ice cream cone. My dad was going to be so angry the entire trip home.
But then I remembered what Klaus told me in the car. I dried the tears of self-pity and asked, “What would Bubby do?” Bubby Brister would finish this damn race. Bruised, bloodied, broken bones and all, Bubby would finish. I pulled the tire and inner tube off the rear wheel, wrapped them in a figure-eight around my shoulders, and proceeded to pound out the last 10 miles of the race on my rim. Along the way, a few passing racers offered a pump and an inner tube but, by that point, I was committed. I was going to finish the race on the rim because that’s what Bubby would do. Klaus was going to be proud of me, and so would Bubby.
The ride was brutal. Unbearable. I couldn’t go fast. I couldn’t even go slow. The wheel made boisterous clanging sounds every time it hit a rock and, before long, the rim got so chewed up it started to have traction. Alas, I got used to the sensation of rim riding and even managed to pass back a few racers.
With a half-mile to go, I saw the finish line. The sight jolted me out of the saddle in exhil- arated acceleration, but an enormous KAAA-RUNCH came from the rear end of the bike. It slumped to the ground, the wheel detonated into bent spokes and shrapnel. Another junior racer rapidly approached. With only 200 meters before the finish, I threw the bombed-out bike on my shoulder and sprinted like a mad- man with “Chariots of Fire” blasting through my head.
My size 10 Shimano shoes crossed the line be- fore his white Onza Porcupine tire, securing me 60th place. Just like Bubby Brister, I got whooped something fierce, but I didn’t quit. I fought to the finish. Bystanders saw my shattered wheel and rattled off questions about what had happened. I felt like a hardman. Of course, my version of what happened was heavily embellished. Right at the point in the story where I fought off a ravenous deranged bear with the rear wheel, my dad came strolling out of the lodge.
“Hey Kurt, the Steelers won! Can you be- lieve it? How did... Hey, what happened to your bike?”
I smiled and puffed out my chest in triumph, telling Klaus the whole story.
“Why in the hell did you do that?” responded Klaus. “Why didn’t you just quit? Do you know how much that’s going to cost to fix? I’m sure as hell not paying for it. What a waste of a trip! We come all the way out here for you to destroy your beautiful bike.”
I was mortified.
“But what about Bu... Bu... Bubby?” “Bubby? What about him? You think he’s going to pay for it?” my dad asked incredulously. “I could have watched the Steeler game from home, but no, I had to drive to God’s Country to watch you destroy your bike. Thanks. Thanks a lot!”
It took a few years to figure out the lesson Klaus taught me that day, but I think it went something along the lines of “never throw in the Terrible Towel, unless it’s going to cost you a bunch of money.”
