By now, you likely know that Kevin VanDam accomplished the following feats by winning last week's Bassmaster Classic in Pittsburgh: He becomes just the fifth pro to win multiple Classic crowns; he joins Roland Martin as one of just two anglers to win three consecutive BASS tournaments; and his BASS career earnings total is just $33,500 from overtaking 18-time Classic contender and 1998 champion Denny Brauer's $1.9 million lead.
But here are 10 things about the Kalamazoo Kid you may not know:
- A 22-year-old VanDam burst onto the BASS scene with an impact matched previously by only Martin. Working in his dad's construction business and his brother's sporting goods store, VanDam saved $23,000. "I knew I could fish for a year with that," VanDam recalled. "Pay my entry fees and expenses and all that, and not have to sleep in my truck or cut any corners. That's when I figured I'd give my life savings a whirl at it." He has never had to worry about cutting corners. Finishing third in his first professional tournament in 1990, VanDam won a boat valued at $20,000. From there, he went on to finish in the money in the next 22 BASS tournaments he entered.
- Other anglers saw something special in VanDam. A few years after VanDam's debut, four-time Classic champion Rick Clunn said: "I think he's the ultimate student of the sport. He's had a total commitment from a very early age. I think that's his strongest point. He's got youth on his side. He's intelligent. He's confident. "He's yet to meet his greatest tests. But a lot of people never get to that stage. He will get to that. And that is when you've accomplished all of your goals - and I think Kevin has - and there's nothing else to shoot at, but yourself, can you shoot at yourself? When you first get started, you're shooting at other things, like the Classic, Angler of the Year, you're shooting at Roland Martin or Rick Clunn. But once you've shot all of those down and you become the target, then it's a little bit harder."
- VanDam is one of just four anglers to win three or more Bassmaster Angler of the Year titles (joining Martin, Mark Davis of Arkansas and Tennessee's Bill Dance).
- VanDam has a taste for the culinary arts. "I absolutely love to cook," he said. "In my family I'm known as the grill master. I love to grill. I'm not a full-course meal cooker. I cook the meat or the main course. I take pride in that."
- There is another passion in his life that rivals bass fishing. "Most people probably know that I love to deer hunt. But I am a very serious trophy deer hunter to the point to where it drives my wife crazy. About mid-November in the peak of the rut, my neck swells up. I start banging into trees and things like that. I get hard to be around. VanDam laments that he has never killed a buck the meets the minimum requirements to be recognized by the Boone & Crockett Club. "That's a real goal of mine," he said.
- On tournament mornings, VanDam sets the tone for his mindset by listening to heavy metal and hard rock music, including Metallica, Kid Rock, Limp Bizkit, POD and AC/DC. "That's one of the things that gets me hyped up and prepared. I'm pretty high strung in the mornings."
- VanDam lacks business skills. "People don't know what a bad business person I would be without my wife," he said. "Sherry does so many things to make me look good, from my clothes to the way that I speak to the way I deal with the media to preparing all of my business materials to handling sponsors. What that really does is allow me to concentrate on fishing."
- His best trait: "Probably that I don't get too wound up about anything. I learned a long time ago to not make knee-jerk reactions to anything. Like bad situations, when you lose a fish, or to anything. I wasn't always that way. But that is something that has come to me with age - to really sit back and think and listen before I make a comment or make a decision."
- His worst trait: "All my friends and all of the other anglers will tell you this, that everything I do or have is the best. I'm very confident in that. I can cook better. My tackle is better. My line is better. My lures are better. Everything that I've got or the way that I do it is the only way. My wife is on me about that - that I shouldn't be that way."
- You should never expect VanDam to master a time-consuming technique like drop-shotting. That is just not his style. "He can out-cast the rest of us," Davis said. "What I mean by that is, he will make enough casts to productive water, figure out what the fish are doing, and he will just out-cast you. It's a casting contest as far as Kevin's concerned."
WEDDING BELLS
A pair of Classic contenders have had matrimony on their minds lately.
On May 28, Virginia pro John Crews married Sonja Larson Beckley on the shores of Smith Mountain Lake. Although most couples leave the reception in a car or limousine, the Crewses left in his boat. They later went to the Bahamas where they enjoyed deep-sea fishing, snorkeling and jet skiing.
Oklahoma's Edwin Evers is getting married Oct. 28. He has been dating Tuesday Briggs since last spring. She is the sister of Tour pro Terry Butcher. "We're getting married in a place that overlooks this huge, 100-acre private lake," he said. "And it's nothing but laydowns and cedar trees. We had to schedule the wedding around the Bassmaster Open because my best men (which include Tour pros Matt Reed and Butcher) are all fishing in that tournament."
TWO OTHER CLASSIC WINNERS
Yes, Kevin VanDam took top honors at the 2005 Classic, but two fans who attended the festivities consider themselves winners as well.
Steve Hunter of Monroeville, Pa., won a 2005 Toyota Tundra SR5 V8 double cab truck while Beverly A. Parsons of Venetia, Pa., took home a 2005 Triton TR21 DCX dual console bass boat.
Parson's husband Howard originally had to talk his wife into attending the ESPN Outdoors Expo, where she submitted her name into the drawing.
"I've never, ever won anything," she said. "I never dreamed I would win."
WEIRDEST CATCH
"The weirdest thing I ever caught was when I was fishing on Lake Dardanelle and teaching another lady how to fish," said Penny Berryman, who plans to fish the Bassmaster Women's Tour. "I had made a long cast with a crankbait to the outside of a weed bed.
"I hooked something that gave and I thought it was a fish. I set the hook, and about that time this gloved hand started coming out of the water. I saw a finger, two fingers, three fingers, a wrist. I was panicked because I thought it was a drowned person. But it was just a mannequin arm that somebody had put a glove on. I fell to the deck of the boat in tears nearly. It made my sick."