There were 137 people waiting in line when Dan Jansen arrived to sign autographs at an interior entrance to the Belk department store in the SouthPark Mall. One of them, 11-year-old Fallon Bollard, had also stood in line a few months earlier for autographs from NBA basketball stars Larry Johnson and Muggsy Bogues of the Charlotte Hornets.
“But I’ve never been to something as big as this. He won the gold medal,” Bollard said, pointing to Jansen.
This was mid-October. Just how big Dan Jansen became last Feb. 18, when he won that speedskating gold medal at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Hamar, Norway, was plain as he signed photos and magazine covers and T-shirts and a sweatshirt that would be raffled off in the Providence Day School annual auction. He posed for pictures with dozens of people, including Jansen Evan Coulter, 6 months, and Colin Jansen Neuwirth, 2 months, both named for him.
The night before, Jansen had been the featured speaker at the Baptist Medical Center Foundation breast cancer research benefit dinner in Columbia, S.C. He had returned to his in-laws’ house in Newberry, S.C., 60 miles away, at midnight. Tired after sleeping (not) in the same room as 17-month-old daughter Janie, who had been crying out in the night, he had driven two hours to Charlotte from Newberry. He wolfed down a calzone at a mall food court, asked Belk personnel for a pen and then sat down to sign, while his wife, Robin, took Janie to shop.
“I’m exhausted, and now I’ve got to put on my happy face,” Jansen admitted during the drive to Charlotte. “I’m nearing a period where I need a week at home real soon.”
His fatigue never showed. To a boy seeking a personalized autograph, Jansen asked, “Is that spelled `e-r’ or `o-r’?” If a camera malfunctioned, he smiled through another shot. When a man approached him with a hare-brained scheme, Jansen politely heard him out. He had a thank-you for each of an endless stream of compliments:
“It’s a real thrill to meet you.”
“You were the best thing in the Olympics.”
“I told all my 6th graders I was coming to see you.”
“I like your style, mate.”
“That was great when you skated around with your child.”
Over the past several months, he has heard this all before.
Seven thousand people gave him a raucous standing ovation at an Amway distributors convention.
Wal-Mart invited him to join Danny Manning, Joe Namath and Joe Montana for its annual shareholders meeting.
The Miss America contest had him as a judge.
People magazine chose Jansen as one of its “50 Most Beautiful People” for 1994. New Woman magazine chose him as one of “18 Men We Love.”
The Oakland A’s had him throw out the first ball on Opening Day. Letterman joked with him. Jimmy Connors played tennis with him in New York’s Grand Central Station. CBS signed him as a commentator.
“Am I a celebrity? Maybe I don’t realize it,” Jansen said. “I do at times, when I get wild responses from people. I still don’t see myself the way I see others, like a Michael Jordan. I’m certainly not in that class.”
– – –
Late in the afternoon of Feb. 18, after Jansen had won the gold medal that eluded him in seven previous races over four Olympics and a decade, someone put a hand-lettered sign in the snow on the side of the main road from Lillehammer to Hamar. The sign said simply, “Dan.” It spoke volumes about what the world thought about the man whose Olympic futility had finally ended in triumph.
Being Dan these days is a lot more complicated, even if he is not. Not long ago, after agreeing to a host’s suggestion to try dumplings at a Chinese restaurant in New York, Jansen asked, without a trace of self-consciousness, “What are dumplings?” Is it any surprise he is inclined to ask, with curiosity and disbelief, how did this all happen to a shy speedskater from suburban Milwaukee?
When he skated around with daughter Janie-that did it. No one could resist the sight of Jansen, gold medal around his neck, American flag in his hand and little girl in his arm, taking a victory lap after setting a world record in the 1,000-meter race at the Olympic Amphitheater.
When he stood on the awards stand and looked heavenward-that did it. Everyone could imagine what Jansen was feeling as he acknowledged his late sister, Jane, who died of leukemia hours before he was to skate his first race in the 1988 Olympics.
When he fell and got up after the first race in 1988 and the second race in 1988, that did it, and when he fell short and got up twice at the 1992 Olympics, that did it, and when he slipped and got up after the first race in 1994 and apologized to Milwaukee for his failure, that did it.
No one could help but admire the doggedness and perseverance that were finally rewarded in the final race of Dan Jansen’s Olympic career. Ronald Reagan sent him a FAX reading, “Nancy and I jumped off the couch when you crossed the (finish) line.”
“When I first got back from the Olympics and went to New York to do (promotional) stuff, I got my first sense of how my story affected people,” Jansen said.
Said Chuck Beamon, president of the Baptist Medical Center: “Dan may be one of the last American heroes.”
Many others who have the same impression of Jansen, 29, began throwing money at him to endorse their products, speak to their groups, play golf at their events. He will earn an estimated $5 million in 1994. Cadillac gives him use of a car. So does Jeep. He is flown first-class, put up in hotel suites.
“It’s hard to believe people pay me this kind of money,” Jansen said. “Do I motivate their workers?”
John Hancock thinks so.
“Everyone can relate to Dan’s story-dedication, hard work, love of family, disappointment and ultimately great success,” said Lisa Scannell, director of Olympic programs for John Hancock, which invited him to appear at a company sales convention. “That story is a powerful tool to motivate sales people.”
“To think that someone in speedskating could be this popular, I wouldn’t have imagined it,” said Frank Vuono, president of Integrated Sports International of New Jersey, which became Jansen’s management company three weeks before the Olympics.
The speed with which this happened was staggering. While Jansen had earned both the country’s sympathy and a measure of celebrity for how he handled family tragedy at the 1988 Olympics, he made barely two dozen appearances between then and 1992. One of the few endorsement deals he had prior to the 1994 Olympics was with the NFL Carolina Panthers, an expansion franchise owned by the family of Jansen’s brother-in-law, Mark Richardson.
“When we were awarded the franchise (last October in Rosemont), Dan and Robin were with us the whole night, and no one really recognized them,” Richardson said. “To see the response he gets now is amazing.”
– – –
The question Dan Jansen gets asked most at his appearances is “What are you doing now?”
Since he carried the U.S. flag in the closing ceremonies in Lillehammer Feb. 27, Jansen has made dozens of promotional, speaking, golf or autograph-session appearances across the country and in foreign climes.
He also managed to squeeze in the World Cup speedskating final at Heerenveen, Holland, where he won the overall, 500-meter and 1,000-meter titles.
But it reached the point that Janie Jansen began to cry when she saw the control tower at Bradley Field in Milwaukee. Janie and her father are so joined at the hip he often cannot go to the bathroom without her.
Someday, Janie will understand that father knew best about having to ride the gravy train while he still had the opportunities. Now, though, it is just another goodbye, as Jansen embarked Tuesday on a nine-city tour to push his new autobiography, “Full Circle” (Villard Books, $21.50), written with Sports Illustrated’s Jack McCallum. Jansen will do a book signing at Marshall Field’s State Street store Wednesday from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.
The week that was?
Undoubtedly the stretch from Sept. 8-16, when Jansen left a family vacation in Myrtle Beach. S.C. on a Thursday to fly to Zurich, Switzerland; toured the Swatch plant in Biel, Switzerland, with CEO Nicholas Hayer on Friday; flew to Los Angeles on Saturday; spoke to the Southern California Deli Association in Palm Springs on Sunday; helped introduce Swatch’s new Olympic watch collection in Atlanta on Monday; did Swatch appearances in New York on Tuesday and Wednesday and another in Los Angeles on Thursday; and arrived in Atlantic City to judge the Miss America contest on Friday.
Is it any wonder Jansen announced Aug. 24 that he was retiring as a competitor? There was no time to do anything else in the sport, and nothing left for him to do, either. How do you continue after the perfect ending?
As a pitch-and-putt man, obviously.
“Dan is one of the few heroes who came out of the last Olympics, and he comes across as one of the guys,” said David Burns of Chicago’s Burns Sports Celebrity Service, explaining Jansen’s appeal.
“He has all the ingredients a company wants. He is a very good presenter, but there is a naivete about him that is refreshing. He has a modesty about him that knocks people out.”
Jansen is an endorser for Swatch, AT&T, John Hancock, Kodak, Marshfield Clinic, Miller and Anheuser-Busch. Although Busch uses him only to promote its theme parks, the idea of rival beer companies paying for the services of the same person is still rather unusual.
“Both know about it, and neither has a problem with it,” Vuono said.
Jansen understands some people have a problem with the idea of an active-or just retired-athlete endorsing an alcohol product, as he was reminded by one of the few negative letters among the 13,000 he has received since February. But he feels loyalty to Milwaukee-based Miller, which gave him financial support through the Olympic Job Opportunties Program in the years when he had trouble scraping nickels together.
“I’m concerned how I am portrayed in the commercials,” he said. “I want it to be, `Think before you drink.’ “
– – –
When Dan and Robin Jansen returned to their home in Greenfield, Wis., from the Olympics, nearly every real estate agent in town called. They presumed the Jansens would leave their 1,200-square-foot house for something grander. Instead, the Jansens are expanding the house to 2,000 feet and staying put, close to his parents, like all eight of Gerry and Harry Jansen’s surviving children and all 25 of their grandchildren. Jim Jansen, the child who lives the farthest from Gerry and Harry, the retired nurse and retired cop, is referred to as the foreigner. He is 10 miles away.
The older Jansen grandkids earned spending money this summer by helping Uncle Dan respond to all 13,000 letters. The importance of such family involvement with each other’s achievements and tasks is among the many values both Dan Jansen and his wife got from their salt-of-the-earth parents. Those values come out in actions small and large.
When Robin Jansen made a phone call from a hotel suite someone else had paid for, she charged it to her own calling card. The next night, when the Jansens had an extra bedroom in a different suite, they invited the writer traveling with them for the weekend to use it rather than pay for another room.
“It’s ridiculous that when you start making money, you don’t have to pay for anything,” Jansen said. “It’s backwards.”
Baptist Medical Center paid him $25,000, considerably less than his usual fee for such a lengthy appearance. For that, he spent 4 1/2 hours schmoozing, signing autographs, posing for pictures and delivering a speech at a fund-raising dinner and silent auction on a Thursday night, and spent two hours in a Walk for Life two days later.
The year before, the featured speaker at the medical center dinner was Barbara Bush.
“When we announced Dan would be our speaker, we had some people say, `Who is he?’ and others say, `You mean, The Dan Jansen?’ ” said Liz Strauss, vice chairman of the medical center’s cancer institute board.
“I was much more excited about meeting Dan Jansen than I was about meeting Barbara Bush,” said Angela Daniel, chairman of the cancer institute board.
“We feel the things his effort at the Olympics exemplified-never giving up, always looking ahead, fighting your hardest to get what you want-is exactly what a cancer patient has to do. We also felt he was a normal human being, and he comes across that way.”
– – –
It cost $50 a person to attend the dinner and $150 a person for the dinner and a private reception and photo with Jansen. The photo session was limited to 30 minutes and 125 couples. Five hundred people attended the dinner.
Johnnie Pearce was a late arrival for the photo session. “I’m sorry, I know you hate this. It must be painful to stand there and get your picture taken with a bunch of total strangers,” she said to Jansen.
“You don’t have to apologize,” he said.
Unlike his U.S. rival for post-Olympic spoils, silver-medal figure skater Nancy Kerrigan, Jansen has not had to apologize for anything he has said or done in the aftermath of their massive TV exposure in Norway. The only blemish on Jansen’s escutcheon is a lawsuit by his former agents, charging breach of contract. There have been no public gaffes like Kerrigan’s comments about her obligations with Disney or Olympic champion Oksana Baiul’s tears.
While Kerrigan excuses herself by claiming that she was ill-prepared for stardom and often wears an expression like a deer frozen by headlights, Jansen has overcome his shyness-with some professional assistance from a public speaking consultant-to come across as part Prince Charming, part the softball hero of the company picnic, part superstar.
“Once, I dreaded getting up in front of groups,” Jansen said. “Now I get up and do it with confidence, talk from my heart and enjoy it.”
As he waited to speak at the medical center dinner, Jansen kept his head twisted at a 90-degree angle to focus on those who preceeded him at the podium. His attentiveness to what others were saying was broken only by demands from Janie, who was sitting nearby at the dais. As he began speaking, she called out loudly, “Da-da!”
“Yes, honey,” Jansen replied, as the audience all but cooed.
Jansen’s presentation is simple, with no bells or whistles. He begins by showing the CBS preview of his final Olympic race and ends with the coverage of the race itself. For the 25 minutes between, Jansen speaks without notes, recounting highlights and lowlights of a career which he almost ended without an Olympic medal despite being the greatest sprint speedskater in history. His delivery is so low-key, the punch lines delivered with so little fanfare, that the listener feels he is sitting in a family room with a friend.
The most poignant anecdote involves not the Olympics but a competition in Minneapolis that Jansen failed to win when he was 11. That disappointment led him to cry for virtually the entire car ride back to Milwaukee. When his father finally decided to address the subject, Dan expected consolation. What he got was perspective.
Said Harry Jansen: “There are more important things in life than skating around in circles.”
– – –
The three-mile Walk for Life began at 9 a.m. on a gloomy, chilly, Saturday in downtown Columbia, virtually deserted except for the 500 walkers.
He started walking with Janie on his shoulders, then put her down to satisfy the constant demands for autographs. In the past eight months, Jansen has signed virtually every imaginable form of paper, picture or clothing, drawing the line only at a drunken woman’s request to sign her bra at a restaurant in Milwaukee. After about 10 minutes of non-stop signing during the Walk for Life, an event official took the pen away from Jansen so that he could get moving again.
“I’ve watched you for years and years,” a woman tells him. “I’m so glad you came here. It’s our honor.”
When the walk ended, South Carolina State Sen. Jim Lander presented Jansen with the Order of the Palmetto and gave Robin Jansen a senate resolution praising her wifely devotion and support and her “significant contributions to Newberry, the state of South Carolina, and the United States of America.”
The medical center has raised $54,000 for breast cancer research. Part of it came from the $525 paid at the auction for a poster including the result sheet from the 1994 Olympic 1,000-meter speedskating race, autographed by Jansen. A similar poster raised $1,600 at a charity auction in Charlotte. The signature event of Dan Jansen’s life has been writ large in the hearts and minds and pocketbooks of America.
