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Viva Knievel
Published: 11/25/2006 7:21 PM
Last Modified: 11/25/2006 7:21 PM


Evel's not as strong as he used to be.
Lara Cooper/Tulsa World


A Bedlam football game which went down to the final play was pretty compelling viewing, but the most interesting thing I saw Saturday was a documentary about a fellow who made a living out of not dying.
One of the ESPN channels (who can keep up with all of them?) broadcast a show Saturday morning about the life of Evel Knievel. For those of you who were born too late, Knievel was a stunt cyclist who broke nearly every bone in his body during the 1970s because he occasionally crashed while jumping cars, buses, Snake River Canyon and even a pool full of sharks.
What does this have to do with sports? The proliferation of sports on TV had not yet arrived in the 1970s. You took what you could get and and ABC's Wide World of Sports was must-see TV. You could see all kinds of good stuff on Wide World of Sports, including the Harlem Globetrotters and the equally red, white and blue-clad Knievel.
In the documentary, ABC's Frank Gifford said he talked to Evel Knievel before Knievel was scheduled to jump a fleet of buses in England. Knievel looked at the buses, told Gifford there was no way he could jump that far and tried it nonetheless because he said he had given his word. What does it say about a man when he values his word more than his life? It says he's either kooky or he's way more interesting than the rest of us.
I volunteered to interview Knievel when he made an appearance at a Miami, Okla., casino a couple of years ago and he will always be one of my all-time favorite interview subjects. Many interviews are incredibly bland nowadays in this age of political correctness, but Knievel said things so outlandish that some of it didn't make its way into print. I wish I could have talked to him all day.
I kill most of the stories and interview notes out of my laptop computer soon after publication. I saved the Knievel notes. When he passes away, I might write something in remembrance. But he's cheated death so many times that I wouldn't be surprised if he's still popping wheelies and thumbing his nose at the grim reaper for years to come.





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Tulsa World sports writer Jimmie Tramel is a former class president at Locust Grove High School. He graduated magna cum laude from Northeastern State University with a journalism degree and, while attending college, was sports editor of the Pryor Daily Times. He joined the Tulsa World on Oct. 17, 1989, the same day an earthquake struck the World Series. He is the OSU basketball beat writer and a columnist and feature writer during football season. In 2007, he wrote a book about Oklahoma State football with former Cowboy coach Pat Jones.

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