The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 114: A Manly Man, A Gold Medal, and A Really Big Sea

Episode Date: October 16, 2018

How to wave goodbye to your current career. 

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Terms apply. This is the way I heard it. Long before he was awarded the gold medal, the manly man stood in the sand at the tip of Balboa Peninsula, smoking a cigarette, and staring at the biggest waves he'd ever seen. God Almighty, he said, this is a really big sea. Next to him, the Olympic champion, smiled and nodded. Monstrous breakers, blown to towering heights by an offshore breeze,

were being forced together at the last possible moment by a series of jetties that guarded the Newport Harbor. Local surfers called it the wedge. Sensible people called it a death trap. Wally O'Connor called it a challenge. You're right, said Wally. This is a very big sea. Isn't it fantastic?

The manly man, who had yet to win a gold medal, felt the adrenaline coursing through his body. This was the way he felt every week on the gridiron, moments before the bone-jarring impact at the line of scrimmage would determine who remained standing and who got knocked down to the ground. He was addicted to this feeling, which is why he was drawn to a dangerous new fad called body-surfing. I'll take the first pass, said Wally. You watch and learn. The manly man, who had yet to win a gold medal, stepped back into the crowd, lit another camel,

and watched Wally O'Connor glide through the water. It was easy to see why he'd won the gold in Paris. He ducked under one wave, then under another, swimming hard against the riptide with long, powerful strokes. A hundred yards out, the water was only four feet deep, but the waves were at least eight. Treacherous, to say the least. While he waited for the wave he wanted, dove into its base, pushed hard off the shallow bottom, and burst out of the crest. Then he began to fly. Or at least, that's how it looked to everyone watching. partially embedded in the curl of the surge, Wally eased himself into the pipeline while extending

one hand in a stop gesture. His upturned palm carved into the great rumbling wall of water while his other arm remained tucked behind him. With white foam shooting off his chest and green water breaking over his head, Wally flew toward the shore like Superman. No one had ever seen anything like it. Pipeline surfing without the board. Then, as the mighty wave began to crash in around him while he stroked hard,

staying just in front of the crash that sent him flying toward the beach like a human missile in a sea of foam, skimming across the surface before sliding gracefully onto the sand, where the locals greeted him with wild applause. While he stood, took a modest bow, and turned to the manly man who had yet to win a gold medal. You're up, champ. Ready? The big man nodded, I am. And that was that. With just two words, the die was cast,

a simple answer to a simple question that would change the course of his life. The manly man, who had yet to win a gold medal, confronted the Big Sea with manly confidence, imitating everything he'd seen Wally do. He swam hard against the riptide for a hundred yards. He waited for a wave as big as Wally's, and when it came, he'd don't.

into its base, pushed off the shallow bottom, and burst out of the white water, at which point he began to fly, just like Wally. But here's the thing. If you're going to go toe to toe with a really big sea, you'll need more than manly confidence. You'll need perfect timing. And when the wall of water began to fall apart all around him, the manly man was out of position. Thus his manly body was propelled with great velocity, not toward the beach, but rather straight toward the shallow bottom. Even over the crashing roar of the surf and the muted sounds of his own screams, he could hear the sounds of his future vanishing before him, the snap of his collarbone, the crack of his arm, the crunch of his shoulder as it popped out of its socket.

These were the sounds of a football scholarship coming to an end, along with the college education at USC and the law degree he had hoped to graduate with all of it gone, taken away by a really big sea. Later, in the back of the ambulance, broken and lucky to be alive, the manly man who had yet to win a gold medal, lit another camel. Did he imagine the only job he'd be able to find that year would be in the props department, a 20th century fox? Did he imagine that schlepping those props back and forth between sets would lead to an audition that would ultimately require him to change his name to something more masculine? Probably not. But one thing's for sure. The manly man could have never imagined the press conference that he would hold in his living room 35 years later. The one conducted

just four days after his surgery. There, in his Encino home, the manly man, who had yet to win a gold medal, but who now had a manly name, gave an Oscar-worthy performance, smiling bravely through unspeakable pain, and talking with great confidence to the Hollywood press, assuring them he was ready to get back in the saddle. He didn't show them the giant purple scar around his left side. He didn't discuss the lung they had removed or the four ribs. He didn't mention the sutures that kept breaking open every time he called, or the bucket of phlegm and sputum upstairs by his bed. As for the disease itself, he didn't even mention it by name.

I've licked the Big Sea before, he told the reporters, and I'll lick it again. Trust me, fellas, when I go out, it'll be on both feet. The reporters were delighted. No one had ever called it the Big Sea before, or dismissed it as a mere nuisance. But surely if anyone could beat cancer, it would be the manly man who reduced it to a nickname. And sure enough, he did, completing two dozen feature films over the next 12 years, including the one that finally won him an Oscar. But here's the thing. If you're going to go toe to toe with the really big C, you'll need more than manly confidence.

you'll need to actually stop smoking. And that, unfortunately, was simply too much to ask. And so, the man who beat the Japanese, the Mexicans, the Nazis, the Viet Cong, the Mongols, and too many Indians to count in too many Westerns to recall, was ultimately vanquished by a deadly horde of unfiltered camels, specifically five packs a day for more than 40 years. In the end, the man who shot Liberty Valance didn't possess enough true grit to actually quit smoking.

Today, there's a cancer foundation that bears his manly name, along with a park in Newport Beach, an airport, in Orange County, and the credits of over 200 films. It's the same name on the back of the gold medal he finally received in the hospital a month before he died in 1979. The Congressional Gold Medal embossed, with the name we all know today, thanks to a run-in

with a big sea that changed his life and a really big sea that ended it. A shame, but all in all, not a bad run for the kid who was born Marion Morrison and died a manly man named John Wayne.

Anyway, that's the way I heard it. The story you just heard is true, at least the way I heard it. Thank you, Chuck Klausmeyer, for producing this podcast, Matthew Zipkin. Thank you for hitting the buttons over here at One Union Recording Studios. Thank you, gentle listener, for listening. And if you haven't subscribed and you would prefer not to miss a new episode, consider yourself officially invited to do that very thing.

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