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The following article was pulled from a small collection of essays published in the obscure sports publication, “Competitive Eating Illustrated.” The piece tells the story of Bronson Roberts, who abruptly resigned as the head of the Communications Department at the College of Georgia at age 35, in order to begin a remarkable comeback attempt with the hopes of making the International Federation of Competitive Eating pro tour.
It was discovered by our staff researchers that Roberts held several age group records before being forced out of the sport 21 years ago. No one in attendance will ever be able to forget the image of a youthful Roberts smashing a Texas State record by an unthinkable 5.4 bowls. In a Sport Illustrated article published in 1984, Peter McMaxills described Roberts, “As maybe the greatest eating champion this nation has ever seen.”
For more than two decades Roberts claims he was “hiding in academia.” Now for the first time ever, in his own words, he describes his miraculous turnaround and dramatic transformation.
“How I Rediscovered My Soul In The World of Competitive Bean Eating.”
by Bronson “Beaner” Roberts
Four more spoonfuls...
I remember it like it was yesterday. Beads of sweat were slowly dripping off my forehead, my vision was blurred, my speech slurred, my heart could barely pump, lungs could hardly breath and I was on the verge of passing out. Yet I had never felt more alive.
I had soiled myself hours before. I was clinging onto consciousness by a thread. Every second represented a herculean struggle not to give into the darkness. Every ounce of concentration, every sense, feeling, thought and living fiber in my body was united in order to accomplish one single purpose.
three more spoonfuls...
I couldn’t stop my hands from shaking. I looked out at my fans who had assembled from miles around, the crazed groupies, the core “Beanerites” as they were known, working themselves into a frenzy, the desperate gamblers who couldn’t afford to lose, the cameras, the lights, the reporters, young children cringing, covering their eyes...
Opponents gagging, vomiting on their shoes, getting disqualified and being carried away. Competitors having heart attacks, passing out, becoming incapacitated, falling over, nothing was out of the ordinary. There is no sport more unforgiving.
Two more...
It took me just over six and a half minutes to swallow the next spoonful. Only one more separated me from the Texas State Bean eating championship. Never had one spoonful seemed like so much. That one spoon seemed to carry the weight of the world.
One more. Why won’t my hands stop shaking?
My eating had worked the crowd into an state bordering on shear insanity. In an effort to spur me onto greatness, they began chanting my nickname, “Beaner!” “Beaner!” The name had originated as a comment on my ethnic features by a drunk and politically incorrect crowd in El Paso when I was eight and never went away. It never bothered me and as my legend and my ability to eat beans better than anyone else on the planet grew, it became a term of endearment.
Half a spoonful left...
I wasn’t too far off the national record and I was three months shy of 14th birthday. I searched the crowd for my Father. When I found him, he only looked away.
I glanced over at my nemesis: Donald “Duckhead” Lerman, who was shaking badly. It was at that point when he turned to me, as if to ask for help, and fell face first into his plate.
I finished the spoonful and the place erupted, after that everything went black and though I can’t remember what happened, it is the stuff of legend...
I was a master just entering into my prime, but that day would prove to be the end of an era. When I awoke in the hospital, everything was taken away...
When I look back on my youth, I consider it a time of surprising focus and clarity. I don’t know if I will every see things so clearly again. There was no second guessing, theories, arguing, doubt, defending -only truth through action. Things were never that black and white again.
To understand what happened to me, I have to tell a story that is really about sons and fathers...
Growing up almost every young boy reaches a certain age when he feels the need to rebel against his father. You still love them to a certain degree, but you have to forge your own ground and consequently must reject nearly everything they stand for in order to find yourself. A generation before, my own father had turned his back on my granddad Jacob.
Jacob Roberts was a midlevel eating champion in the early years of the IFOC. Although he was revered in the State of Texas, he would never succeed in winning a title, trapped beneath a glass ceiling of mediocrity.
When my father was born, Jacob saw an opportunity through him to do something that, for him, would have been impossible: winning the intercontinental title.
Growing up, Jacob forced my Father into summer competitive eating camps, year round programs and age-group clinics that my Father gradually grew to despise.
A growing divide opened up between them as Jacob’s own career begin to decline and he begin to invest more and more of himself into his son’s development.
As much as Jacob taught, and my Dad practiced, deep down he just didn’t have -what you can’t teach to become a champion. He was an intellectual, not a warrior.
Things got more and more intense, until my dad walked out of the 13-14 State Bread Eating Semifinals, opening up a near permanent rift with his father. They could barely look at each other.
From that day forth, my father vowed to make his mark through the pen, which he felt was mightier than the hot-dog or industrial size pork chop.
Jacob became the laughing stock of the eating world, whose son was known as a sissy. The two would not speak for eight years...
My Father was a brilliant man who would often read to me as a small boy in an effort to strengthen my mind.
As much as my Dad bought me books, blocks and educational toys, my interest was always in sheer physicality: running, wrestling, brute force and competition.
Try as he could, this was in my blood. I was born a warrior, not an intellectual.
I think my Dad tolerated my interest to some extent because he saw how happy I was. And my marks were impeccable throughout grade school. But as I climbed through the ranks, my prowess growing with every contest, I could sense a subtle shift in attitude from my Dad. Little things: not giving me that extra side of potatoes, not letting me have a fourth dessert, stares of disapproval, an aura of disgust, a look, a glance, it all happened so slowly, but his attitude was changing.
When I was ten, Jacob suffered a massive heart attack after a senior tour mayonnaise eating tournament. My dad never spoke to me about what happened during their last night together in the hospital.
After that, the youth competitions and meets was all but too much for him to take. He said he used to see the same deleriously glazed over expression in Jacob’s eyes and blamed the competitions on his premature death.
I always thought that Jacob’s death was to be honored. He went out with his boots on. My Dad failed to understand that -that was the price of glory. Greatness cannot be achieved without some degree of suffering. Maybe my dad really was a sissy...
Just as a generation before, tensions grew.
Despite my great success and fame in 1984, my trip to the hospital was the last straw for my Dad.
I was immediately shipped off to a small boarding school in Massachusetts and no one from the Federation ever heard from me again.
For awhile I kept the dream alive. I would amass as much food as I could, sneak into the bathroom or gymnasium in the middle of the night and gorge myself on cabbage and water to stretch my stomach.
But little by little the intense sessions of hypnosis and therapy took its toll.
Through the years, all memories of my former glories were erased. I completely forgot what it was like to hear the crowds chant my name. The flame of the warrior that had once burned clear and bright inside my soul was all but extinguished.
A large part of me hated everything that academia stood for.
We weren’t out there, fighting, struggling or living life. Instead we were hiding behind ivory towers, with books, letters and theories to shield us from ever having to face the real pain or pleasure of reality.
How could I ever test myself or discover truth?
The years continued to pass by. The only moments of peace I had were with a few old trophies that I had buried in the back yard to hide from my Dad. I would take them out and remember- remember back to a simpler time when I was living life and not simply writing about it from inside an office.
I dreamed of a day when I might regain the fortitude to make a comeback and reclaim my throne as the champion I knew I could be.
I would track down Don “Duckhead” Lerman, who was now the world record holder, and challenge him to a steel cage eat-off. I would let him, the federation and the public know that “The Beaner” has returned and would not rest until I captured the Intercontinental Title.
They said it had been too long. They said I was scared and had lost the courage I once had. They said I would fail and the masses would laugh and mock my failures. I would be forced to return disgraced and ashamed back to my office and books.
But they were wrong.
Although it was far from being easy, like riding a bike, everything slowly returned. Starting from scratch at local fairs, backyards, restaurants, facing county champions, bar heroes, honing my skills in parking lots, buffets and dark pool rooms, I worked my way back into the light. Oddly enough, my years out of competition spent developing my mind had given me an ability to focus that greatly complimented the physicality of my stomach.
I hadn’t felt this alive since I was 13.
My Father recently had a stroke. I was in the hospital when he woke up. Things were pretty bad and I wasn’t sure whether he was going to make it.
All the tensions from all the years melted away. We talked simply as father and son. For the first time we had reached an understanding.
He cherished the discipline and toughness that he learned from Jacob, just as I valued the wisdom and perspective I had taken from him.
Later in the night, I asked him what Jacob had said to him before he died so many years ago. After looking me in the eye for some time he slowly began, “Son, I’m sorry for what I did. I only wanted the best for you. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me, because you’re a better son than a man like me could ever deserve to have. I love you.”
The other day I was at a midlevel tournament in Lodi. Just as I began my last bowl, I looked into the crowd. I saw my Dad in the last row. He was smiling.
In last week’s USA Today, Roberts had moved up the ranks to number 45 in the Kosher Bean and Hot-dog division.
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| "We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide, then question the manner in which I provide it." |
- Jack Nicholson
A Few Good Men
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Distributed Beers
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| 5 |
Sierra Nevada Bigfoot |
| 4 |
Guinness Draught |
| 3 |
Newcastle Brown Ale |
| 2 |
Bass Pale Ale |
| 1 |
Samuel Adams Boston Lager |
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