the old beat-up Brougham back for his own use. I ended up walking home from school all winter while Dean drove right past me with a different girl each time. I was never close with Dean after that.
I figured I’d make the best of being stuck in school for an extra half-year by playing senior football, but Coach Parsons kicked me off the team at the first practice. My dad went to straighten things out with him, but unfortunately Parsons disliked Stu even more than me.
But Parsons couldn’t stop me from wrestling. Our team had no real coach; the teacher in charge didn’t know the ins and outs. Then I found out that in the city championships I would have to wrestle a blind teammate named Larry Rinke, who was loved by the media even though he’d already been eliminated. Some coaches decided that Larry should wrestle me so that if he won and I lost, one of their wrestlers could go to the provincials instead of me. This was decided even though the mats had already been rolled up and parents, students, coaches and wrestlers were milling about waiting for the medals to be handed out. For our match, one mat was unrolled, and a lone spotlight shone down on it, reminding me of the ring at the pavilion. For the first time, I strode out like a heel pro wrestler, to a chorus of boos. Of course Larry got a thunderous babyface ovation. I came to life and beat him in forty seconds.
The following week, on the bus ride to Camrose, Alberta, for the provincials, I took considerable razzing from the entire Calgary contingent about how phony pro wrestling is. I redeemed myself by beating two good wrestlers from Edmonton in the best amateur wrestling matches I ever had. But my coveted gold medal was a disappointment to me, a flimsy coin from the tourist bureau that said nothing about wrestling. Then Coach Parsons excluded the wrestling team from the school sports dinner because it was only a club, not a sport. Amateur wrestling, I concluded, was a pursuit with little appreciation and even less reward.
3
LEARNING THE ART
IN FEBRUARY 1976, I finally got my English credits, grabbed my diploma and got the hell out of high school. With all my older brothers now involved in Stampede Wrestling, it would have been the most natural thing in the world for me to work for my dad, but I didn’t want that life. I always had quite an imagination, and the little wheels in my head never stopped turning. I thought the only wheels that turned for my dad were the ones on the road.
Dean hung around the business but was too small. Wayne was a ref, and became famous as a great wheelman who could drive through the most godawful weather and get the wrestlers to the shows, alive and on time. Bruce was taught the art by an old Mexican hand; despite being too small and light, he had a fever for wrestling, and at that time, he may well have been the Hart who wanted most to succeed in the ring. As hard as he tried, Bruce just was not a good worker. When he broke his shoulder, Keith, who was bigger than Bruce and an amateur on the University of Saskatchewan wrestling team, stepped into Bruce’s spot until he recovered. Keith turned out to be a decent worker, with a better sense of the business than Bruce, and ended up taking a year off from university to wrestle fulltime. Keith ran things for Stu, while Bruce tagged up with Smith, who, in many ways, had more natural ability as a worker than either Keith or Bruce. But Smith lacked the drive to put in a real effort and squandered every chance my parents gave him. I didn’t want to follow in any of their footsteps.
Having unloaded Clearwater Beach, my dad now had to sell the prime acreage in front of Hart house, out of necessity, for $1.5 million. We took the news with mixed emotions; our childhood surroundings would be changing, but it was one more chance for the Harts to get out of the poor house.
By April I was working at Occidental Petroleum, and I had a plan. My friend Jim Cummings and I wanted to go to film
I figured I’d make the best of being stuck in school for an extra half-year by playing senior football, but Coach Parsons kicked me off the team at the first practice. My dad went to straighten things out with him, but unfortunately Parsons disliked Stu even more than me.
But Parsons couldn’t stop me from wrestling. Our team had no real coach; the teacher in charge didn’t know the ins and outs. Then I found out that in the city championships I would have to wrestle a blind teammate named Larry Rinke, who was loved by the media even though he’d already been eliminated. Some coaches decided that Larry should wrestle me so that if he won and I lost, one of their wrestlers could go to the provincials instead of me. This was decided even though the mats had already been rolled up and parents, students, coaches and wrestlers were milling about waiting for the medals to be handed out. For our match, one mat was unrolled, and a lone spotlight shone down on it, reminding me of the ring at the pavilion. For the first time, I strode out like a heel pro wrestler, to a chorus of boos. Of course Larry got a thunderous babyface ovation. I came to life and beat him in forty seconds.
The following week, on the bus ride to Camrose, Alberta, for the provincials, I took considerable razzing from the entire Calgary contingent about how phony pro wrestling is. I redeemed myself by beating two good wrestlers from Edmonton in the best amateur wrestling matches I ever had. But my coveted gold medal was a disappointment to me, a flimsy coin from the tourist bureau that said nothing about wrestling. Then Coach Parsons excluded the wrestling team from the school sports dinner because it was only a club, not a sport. Amateur wrestling, I concluded, was a pursuit with little appreciation and even less reward.
3
LEARNING THE ART
IN FEBRUARY 1976, I finally got my English credits, grabbed my diploma and got the hell out of high school. With all my older brothers now involved in Stampede Wrestling, it would have been the most natural thing in the world for me to work for my dad, but I didn’t want that life. I always had quite an imagination, and the little wheels in my head never stopped turning. I thought the only wheels that turned for my dad were the ones on the road.
Dean hung around the business but was too small. Wayne was a ref, and became famous as a great wheelman who could drive through the most godawful weather and get the wrestlers to the shows, alive and on time. Bruce was taught the art by an old Mexican hand; despite being too small and light, he had a fever for wrestling, and at that time, he may well have been the Hart who wanted most to succeed in the ring. As hard as he tried, Bruce just was not a good worker. When he broke his shoulder, Keith, who was bigger than Bruce and an amateur on the University of Saskatchewan wrestling team, stepped into Bruce’s spot until he recovered. Keith turned out to be a decent worker, with a better sense of the business than Bruce, and ended up taking a year off from university to wrestle fulltime. Keith ran things for Stu, while Bruce tagged up with Smith, who, in many ways, had more natural ability as a worker than either Keith or Bruce. But Smith lacked the drive to put in a real effort and squandered every chance my parents gave him. I didn’t want to follow in any of their footsteps.
Having unloaded Clearwater Beach, my dad now had to sell the prime acreage in front of Hart house, out of necessity, for $1.5 million. We took the news with mixed emotions; our childhood surroundings would be changing, but it was one more chance for the Harts to get out of the poor house.
By April I was working at Occidental Petroleum, and I had a plan. My friend Jim Cummings and I wanted to go to film
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