afternoon to give me a ride home, he didn’t hide his surprise that I’d won. On the way, we spotted Stu filling up at the usual gas station for the weekly Saturday drive to the show in Edmonton. We stopped, and when I got out of the car, he asked, looking ready to be disappointed, “How’d you do?” I opened my hand, showed him my gold medal and said, “I won.” His face lit up like I’d never seen it before. He may even have had tears in his eyes. And maybe I did too.
One week later I competed for the provincial championships. While collapsing on top of my opponent in a double-leg takedown, I managed to break my collarbone on his jaw. My season ended with no provincial medal. I don’t know who was more disappointed, me or my dad.
Ellie, Georgia and I had all just got our driver’s licences. Georgia’s boy-friend had a car, so that left Ellie and me vying for the use of Stu’s old gold Brougham. As a reward for winning the city championships, my dad gave me full use of it, which infuriated Ellie to no end.
I remember the first day I ever saw that car, parked in the backyard, shiny and new. Eight years and hundreds of thousands of miles later, Stu handed me the keys and said, “Go ahead, but don’t drive it like Smith!” Smith was responsible for the death of far too many of the Cadillacs scattered like tombstones in the yard. If only those cars could talk, they’d tell horrific stories of Stampede Wrestling’s giants and midgets, strongmen and freaks, packed in like sardines, racing down western highways in what was usually a hellish ride. It didn’t matter to me that the Brougham now shuddered at what it’d been through. I was seventeen, and the car got me to the movies with my first serious girlfriend, Sue McClelland, who had long blond hair and blue eyes, was an honors student and also one of the best athletes in the city. Just having her on my arm gave me all the confidence in the world.
In the fall of 1974, I was doing fine playing varsity football until the new coach, Dale Parsons, learned that I was Stu Hart’s kid. Parsons despised pro wrestling and from that point on he never played me again. Even in the last game of the season, when it looked unlikely that we would make the playoffs, Parsons played everyone but me.
Despite being undefeated all season in amateur wrestling, I had a less than stellar performance in both the city and the provincial championships and was soundly outpointed by Bob Eklund. A lousy school year was capped off when my English teacher failed me by 1 percent because she didn’t think I was doing my own work. I was, but she’d had Dean in her class, and she knew that he’d got an older brother to do his assignments, so she assumed I was doing the same thing. Failing English meant I would have to go back to school for another semester in the fall.
That summer, Sue and I broke up, basically because her mother felt I wasn’t worthy of her. All I could do was accept it and move on. I got a summer job bending rebar at Russell Steel. It was hard work, but I was saving up to buy a car of my own: Dean had offered to sell me his Eldorado convertible.
Dean had decided he was a rock music promoter and had brought some bands out to Clearwater Beach, but it had rained nearly every weekend. He couldn’t afford to pay the musicians, so he wrote bad checks. One of the many pissed-off bands that never got paid burned the place to the ground.
Stu couldn’t afford to rebuild it, and had no choice but to sell the beach for a fraction of what it was worth: He had to pay his wrestlers. (Today that land is worth well over $125 million, and is the site of pricey estate homes.)
I gave Dean $1,500 for the Eldorado, but he never gave me the car, and my dad never did anything about it. When I confronted Dean, he burst out laughing and told me not to worry, he’d pay me back. He never did. It broke my heart. What made it even worse was that times were hard enough for my dad that he needed
One week later I competed for the provincial championships. While collapsing on top of my opponent in a double-leg takedown, I managed to break my collarbone on his jaw. My season ended with no provincial medal. I don’t know who was more disappointed, me or my dad.
Ellie, Georgia and I had all just got our driver’s licences. Georgia’s boy-friend had a car, so that left Ellie and me vying for the use of Stu’s old gold Brougham. As a reward for winning the city championships, my dad gave me full use of it, which infuriated Ellie to no end.
I remember the first day I ever saw that car, parked in the backyard, shiny and new. Eight years and hundreds of thousands of miles later, Stu handed me the keys and said, “Go ahead, but don’t drive it like Smith!” Smith was responsible for the death of far too many of the Cadillacs scattered like tombstones in the yard. If only those cars could talk, they’d tell horrific stories of Stampede Wrestling’s giants and midgets, strongmen and freaks, packed in like sardines, racing down western highways in what was usually a hellish ride. It didn’t matter to me that the Brougham now shuddered at what it’d been through. I was seventeen, and the car got me to the movies with my first serious girlfriend, Sue McClelland, who had long blond hair and blue eyes, was an honors student and also one of the best athletes in the city. Just having her on my arm gave me all the confidence in the world.
In the fall of 1974, I was doing fine playing varsity football until the new coach, Dale Parsons, learned that I was Stu Hart’s kid. Parsons despised pro wrestling and from that point on he never played me again. Even in the last game of the season, when it looked unlikely that we would make the playoffs, Parsons played everyone but me.
Despite being undefeated all season in amateur wrestling, I had a less than stellar performance in both the city and the provincial championships and was soundly outpointed by Bob Eklund. A lousy school year was capped off when my English teacher failed me by 1 percent because she didn’t think I was doing my own work. I was, but she’d had Dean in her class, and she knew that he’d got an older brother to do his assignments, so she assumed I was doing the same thing. Failing English meant I would have to go back to school for another semester in the fall.
That summer, Sue and I broke up, basically because her mother felt I wasn’t worthy of her. All I could do was accept it and move on. I got a summer job bending rebar at Russell Steel. It was hard work, but I was saving up to buy a car of my own: Dean had offered to sell me his Eldorado convertible.
Dean had decided he was a rock music promoter and had brought some bands out to Clearwater Beach, but it had rained nearly every weekend. He couldn’t afford to pay the musicians, so he wrote bad checks. One of the many pissed-off bands that never got paid burned the place to the ground.
Stu couldn’t afford to rebuild it, and had no choice but to sell the beach for a fraction of what it was worth: He had to pay his wrestlers. (Today that land is worth well over $125 million, and is the site of pricey estate homes.)
I gave Dean $1,500 for the Eldorado, but he never gave me the car, and my dad never did anything about it. When I confronted Dean, he burst out laughing and told me not to worry, he’d pay me back. He never did. It broke my heart. What made it even worse was that times were hard enough for my dad that he needed
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