My favorite Ken Stevens story came when he and I traveled to Park City, Utah, in 2001 to cover Muskegon’s own Mark Grimmette in a World Cup race one year before the Olympic Games. The practice/availability schedule of Mark and the rest of the U.S. team turned out to be completely different than we were told (of course), which meant the first day we were there was basically the only day we had much access.
But, in typical Kenny form, rather than complain he got busy shooting, and shooting and shooting – and it was FREEZING. Everyone knows Ken was a peach of a guy, but he was also a consummate professional. He must have stayed outside for 10 hours straight as I kept going in and out to warm up and eat (which he never did). Each time I talked to him, we would laugh about getting out of the cold and into the sketchy hot tub at our sketchier Best Western.
When we finally got back to the hotel, we made a beeline for the hot tub to thaw our frozen toes, but I will never forget his face as he rounded the corner ahead of me. His eyes got big and he ran his hand through the part in his hair (as he was known to do), and said: “It’s not looking good, Tommy K.” I caught up with him to see for myself what can only be described as a grisly scene – the entire Italian men’s luge team and coaches and team officials, each one more woolly and Carmine Ragusa-esque than the one before – dominating the tiny tub, complete with cigars and bottles of wine and more hair than the barbershop floor.
So we headed back to the room, cranked the wall heater, and enjoyed a cardboard pizza and 2-liter of Sprite as we watched the Utah Jazz play a meaningless NBA regular-season game. Kenny-Bob, enjoy that soothing Best Western hot tub in the sky, my friend, sans two-time Olympic Gold medalist Armin Zöggeler and his Italian teammates, of course …