“I got sort of spoiled by the charter flights,” says O.J. Simpson about his college and professional football traveling experiences, “because a bus takes you to the plane and you rarely go through terminals.”
Going through terminals-running through them, specifically-is one of the activities for which Simpson is famous, apart from his incredible football career that included winning the Heisman Trophy at the University of Southern California and being named College Athlete of the Year by United Press International and Associated Press in 1968 and his inductions into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1983, the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1985 the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame in 1993.
As spokesman for Hertz Rent A Car since 1975, Simpson often is shown in commercials dashing through airport terminals. He says that in real life he often does exactly that.
Simpson was in junior college the first time he flew, traveling to a game in Los Angeles. In the years since, he has made up for lost time. He now keeps a grueling flying schedule (especially during the football season, when he is co-host with Bob Costas of “NFL Live” on NBC) that keeps him in an airplane seat or terminal more hours a week than many people spend at work. He has developed some coping strategies.
“The only time I don’t fly First Class is when they don’t have it,” he says. “I’m a big guy, so I need the room.”
Other than the space, though, Simpson says he doesn’t benefit much from First Class. He never drinks more than an occasional beer and rarely eats during flights.
“I don’t normally eat the food,” he says. Sometimes American Airlines will mix that salad in front of you and I’ll get that from time to time. I fly American a lot because they have those reclining chairs with a lot of room, plus they now have those individual screen monitors right at your seat and you have a choice of five or 10 different movies and golf videos. I kind of like that.”
Simpson’s schedule during the football season is forbidding. His typical week, starting on Sundays, involves rushing to the airport after he goes off the air at 7 p.m. in New York to catch a 9:30 flight to Los Angeles, reaching L.A. a little after midnight, working all day there, starting at 6 or 7 a.m., then flying back to New York Monday night on the red-eye, or on Tuesday flying to some other city where he’ll do a short feature on an NFL coach, player or team. Then after a day or two it’s back to L.A. (his primary residence) to work on a movie (currently he’s filming “Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult”) or one of his other projects and a return to New York on the Friday night red-eye to start editing the feature and preparing for the Sunday television show.
This is his routine September through January. During the rest of the year, he’s almost as busy with television and film projects, commercials and speaking engagements, charity involvement and running his two corporations, O.J. Simpson Enterprises (whose subsidiaries include hotels, restaurants and real estate holdings) and Orenthal Productions (which has produced television programs since 1979).
Simpson says he keeps from burning out by trying to exercise in hotels, even for only half an hour. “But you have to work up a sweat for it to do any good. I’m spending an awful lot of time just sitting in planes, terminals and, of course, rental cars.”
He also avoids snacking or taking alcohol on planes or in airports.
“The easiest thing to do when you’re sitting in an airport is have a couple of beers,” he says. “You’re constantly getting into conversations with people. Years ago, I all-of-a-sudden found I was about 13 pounds overweight.”
That’s when he put a stop to it by turning to reading.
“I’m an endless reader,” he says. “I’ve read just about anything that’s out. Sometimes I’m so involved in the book I’m sorry to see the plane land.”
Simpson tries not to check luggage. “I’m one of these guys (who) when you see me running through the airport I’ve got luggage hanging all over me,” he says.
Now that he’s a golf fanatic, though, he says he takes his clubs when he’s going to spend more than 24 hours in a place where the weather is warm. The clubs have to be checked through.
He never has lost the golf clubs, but he did lose luggage once on a trip from L.A. to Pittsburgh. Because he’s always on such a tight schedule he has had several instances when he made the plane but his suitcase didn’t.
Simpson, who has two grown children and an 8-year-old daughter and a 5-year-old son, just returned from a trip to Hawaii with his family. Not surprisingly, he doesn’t relish long airplane trips for fun but does like to visit new places with his children.
“That was a 10-day trip, so it was worth the five-hour flight. I wouldn’t want to sit on a plane that long for a two-day trip.”
Recently he started liking train travel.
“Every time I’ve ever taken a train I’ve enjoyed it,” he says. “When I was a kid, every summer we’d go to Louisiana by train to visit my grandparents, and it would be about a 2 1/2- or three-day train ride from San Francisco. I remember it was always a great experience. Once I took the Orient-Express from Venice to London, and recently I’ve been taking the train from New York to Philly and back instead of flying. It’s a nice way to travel.”
He makes sure his rental cars are equipped with phones. He considers car travel a waste of time unless he can accomplish some business while he’s stuck in traffic, he says.
Meeting people is the best part of traveling, but it’s also the worst part, Simpson says. He often meets people when he’s reading golf magazines, they get to talking and he winds up playing golf with them the next day. That’s always fun, but when he’s really tired it’s a problem, he says.
“I don’t have the kind of face that can just sit on a chair at an airport and wait for the flight. If I’m tired I have to find some nook and cranny to go and sit where I’m out of the way. Otherwise I have a constant stream of people coming up to me. I’m always nice to them, but it’s work, especially when I’m worn out. And those Red Carpet and Horizon and Ambassador (airline club) rooms are sometimes so crowded it’s like being at a rock concert.”
Simpson’s advice to travelers:
“Drink a lot of water and not much alcohol. Especially when I’m traveling a lot and I have to be `on’ everywhere I land, I make sure, even if I’m not thirsty, even if I’m bustin’ at the seams, that I drink at least an eight-ounce glass of water for every hour that I’m in the air.”
And when you run into a snag at the ticket counter or luggage pickup, “just keep a happy face,” he advises. “It’s tough enough out there. There’s not a person in that airport who hasn’t had a travel problem at one time or another, and a lot of them might be going through it while you’re going through it-they’re just handling it better.”
Simpson says he never gets “negative stuff” from people, that the public always has looked at him as a friend.
“People find it very funny to see me in an airport. And I’m always running because I’m always late, and they really find that funny.”
