How being on the cover of a national sports magazine helped me overcome my fear of heights

On NASCAR, helicopters, burpees and the stunt that started it all.

I have three assignments in the next three months that fall under the stunt, participatory and/or quest theme—two gnarly hikes and an adventure weekend with teen-agers that sounded (as all stunts do) like a better idea before the editor said yes and now I actually have to do it and not die or worse, embarrass myself.

All of which has me reflecting on my first major stunt story. It was for Sporting News, and it landed me on the cover 18 years ago this week. (Moment of silence for that late, great, and sorely missed print version of Sporting News … thank you.) I covered NASCAR, and the stunt was that I tried to live my entire life using nothing but products associated with the sport.

This happened in 2005, at the absolute apex of the sport’s white-hot popularity. The cover line (written by the brilliant Bob Hille)—“how one sport touches everything”—summed it up perfectly. For an entire race weekend, the only thing I touched/ate/wore/used that was not connected to NASCAR was my wedding ring. I stayed at the official hotel, drove the official pickup truck (and filled it up with the official gas), ate the official pizza, etc. Before you ask, Fruit of the Loom was a sponsor on Robby Gordon’s car.

The idea was borrowed from the movie Supersize Me, in which Morgan Spurlock ate nothing but McDonald’s for a month. We borrowed the cover idea from the movie, too. He had fries coming out of his mouth. I had a diecast car coming out of mine— “NASCARize Me!” the cover screamed.

That car fit so perfectly in my mouth that even though I know it was in there, it still looks photoshopped to me. The photographer, Albert Dickson, and I joke that it was the fastest cover shoot in Sporting News history … and it probably literally was.

I shoved the car in my mouth.

He took a picture or two.

He looked at the screen on his camera.

“Open your eyes wider,” he said.

 I did.

He took another picture or two.

He looked at the screen on his camera again.

“I got it,” he said. “We’re done.”

The whole thing took 30 seconds, if that.

Months later, the staff gathered to review covers and how they sold. NASCAR covers typically did not sell well. Concept covers didn’t sell well either. So a NASCAR concept cover was doomed. But yikes, the powers that be went on and on and FREAKING ON about how nobody bought it except maybe my parents, and even they were doubtful. “Guys, I’m sitting RIGHT HERE,” I said.

That cover came out 18 years ago this week, and it helped launch a long string of stunt, participatory and quest stories. I linked to a bunch below. Editors (apparently) like such ideas, and I am willing to try just about anything (unless it involves helicopters, see below).

I got into this business to right wrongs, to speak truth to power, comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable and somehow I wound up eating diecast cars, but I wouldn’t trade it.

This newsletter, in fact, was born of a stunt. MABA—Make America Burpee Again—is an annual event in which participants do 100 burpees per day every day in January. 2023 was our third year, and 848 men, women and children on five continents did 1,942,169 million burpees. (I’m doing MABA all year this year. Accountability report: I’m at 12,766 burpees.)

None that would have happened if I never shoved a plastic car in my mouth.

I don’t like to admit this, but it’s much easier for me to show the discipline and courage necessary to pull off a stunt story than it is for me to show discipline and courage in the rest of my life. I’m wrestling with fear in advance of a life-stunt right now, and I’m trying, without a whole hell of a lot of success, to apply what I’ve learned stunting—in particular, in how I overcame (or mostly overcame) my fear of heights.

For much of my life, I’ve hated bridges, flying and pretty much anything heights-related. As I shared a few weeks ago, I froze while on a tree-climbing assignment. But I didn’t tell you what happened after that.

Start with the fact the guide, Guy Mott, had an incredibly calm presence. I thought about his reassurance long after that assignment ended. I hope I treat people who are hurting or afraid like he treated me. I subsequently had a few more assignments that required facing that fear of heights. Each one went a little better.

I had a breakthrough while ice climbing in Colorado. The problem, I realized, was not that I was afraid of heights. The problem was that I didn’t understand or trust how the carabiners and ropes worked.

The ice-climbing guide’s name was Zach. Something about the way he described the carabiners and ropes allowed me to trust them more than I ever had before.

Zach tied me in and pointed me to an ice wall. With crampons like talons on my feet and ice picks like claws in my hands, I marched forward with confidence I had not earned. I smashed the right claw into the ice. Chips broke off and flew everywhere, and the claw bounced out. I smashed it again, and it found purchase. I smashed the left one into the ice; it bounced out. I smashed it again, and it held. I kicked the spikes of the crampons into the wall, took a deep breath, and pulled myself up.

Pushing my body against the ice, I swung with my right arm and — smack! — ice scattered everywhere, again. I aimed for a divot, as Zach had taught me, found one, and soon I was a few feet higher. I didn’t look down — not because I was afraid but because I was concentrating on where I was putting my hands and feet, and I trusted the carabiners and ropes to catch me if I fell. I was halfway to the top before I realized I’m climbing this freaking frozen waterfall.

I’m trying to remember what that felt like. But right now I’m stuck on the tree like I was with Mott.

I need someone to convince me to trust the (metaphorical) carabiners and ropes like Zach did. So far at least, my own voice ain’t cutting it. But I’m working on it.

Stunt stories

My three favorites

I spent a summer trying to get my first hole in one.

I flew to Italy to look for long-lost relatives.

I played with duolingo for three months to try to relearn enough of my high school German to speak German in Germany with Germans.

The worst, by far

I agreed to get up at 4:30 a.m. every day for a month to work on something I’d always wanted to accomplish but never had time for. The assignment “required*” me to do it every day (bad idea) and not cheat by napping (worse idea). My body never adjusted. I got sick in the middle of it and kept going anyway (worst idea).

(*I’m marginally sure the editor would not have cared if I slept in a day or two or napped a few times. But I’m a stickler that if I’m going to do a stunt, I’m going to do it.)

Ouch

I’ve gotten assorted bumps and bruises and nicks and cuts—I cut my nose while ice climbing, for example. My ego gets pummeled fairly regularly, but if I cared about looking like a fool, I wouldn’t pitch these stories. The worst injury I have suffered was when I trained to try to become an average high school athlete at 48. I was unsuccessful in the attempt, no surprise considering that even when I was in high school I was not an average high school athlete. The irony of badly pulling my hamstring the first time I ran the 40-yard dash on that assignment was delish.

Stunts on my to-do list

Hang-gliding

Wilderness survival camp

Visit all the continents

Hell no, I ain’t doing that

Anything to do with helicopters. I’ve had recurring nightmares about helicopter crashes for my whole life, including one so horrible I can’t persuade my fingers to type it.

Once I embedded with National Guard soldiers for arctic military training in Alaska. Part of their training involved a helicopter flight to assault a mountaintop. An editor went on the assignment with me, and she told me to fly with them. I extremely, extremely reluctantly agreed.

At the last minute, my seat got taken by someone else. We drove to where the helicopter was supposed to land and waited, waited, waited.

The helicopter had to turn around because it flew into a blizzard. Dear reader, if my first helicopter flight had been forced to turn around because it flew into a blizzard this newsletter would not exist because they would have had to pry me out of my seat with a spatula.

That’s me in a Humvee and the Alaskan wilderness outside the window.