Friday, November 30, 2007

Evel Knievel Has Died.

No news stories have broke this yet, but we will have more information as it comes in. I was a big fan of him as a kid, even led me onto being a huge fan of one Super Dave Osborne. I had the honor of meeting Evel and even playing a round of golf with him. Back in high school, me and a friend worked at a golf course, some celebs would come by every now and then, like Alice Cooper, Charles Barkley, and a few other sports stars, but one of our off days we decided to play a round of golf, even though I had never golfed before, and I sucked ass, but went anyways just for shits and giggles. I figured why the hell not? We work there and it normally costs a lot of money for the public to golf there, since we're employees, we can go for free. It was there that we actually met Evel and he invited us to play with his group. Which was funny, because I sucked, and all they did was laugh at me, but it was still cool, as I was there golfing with Evel fucking Knievel. Immortalized in the Washington's Smithsonian Institution as “America's Legendary Daredevil,” Knievel was best known for a failed 1974 attempt to jump Snake River Canyon on a rocket-powered cycle and a spectacular crash at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. He suffered nearly 40 broken bones before he retired in 1980.

Although he dropped off the pop culture radar in the 80s, Knievel always had fans and enjoyed a resurgence in popularity in recent years. In later years he still made a good living selling his autographs and endorsing products.

Thousands came to Butte, Mont., every year as his legend was celebrated during the “Evel Knievel Days” festival.

“They started out watching me bust my ass, and I became part of their lives,” Knievel said. “People wanted to associate with a winner, not a loser. They wanted to associate with someone who kept trying to be a winner.”

His death came just two days after it was announced that he and rapper Kanye West had settled a federal lawsuit over the use of Knievel's trademarked image in a popular West music video.

We can now confirm that he died of liver failure. He had been ill for years due to contracting Hepatitis C from a blood transfusion 15 years ago. And his health recently took a turn for the worse.

Go to his official site for your confirmation here.


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