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A stomach that aches for success
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Jason “Crazy Legs” Conti will compete tomorrow in the Super Bowl of competitive eating: Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest at Coney Island. As a competitor, Conti is ranked No. 11 by the International Federation of Competitive Eating. — Courtesy photo
BALTIMORE (Map, News) - Sitting at a table in his apartment in New York City’s East Village, Jason “Crazy Legs” Conti eyes a Krystal hamburger with the unwavering concentration of a chemist.
Surrounded by his closest friends, the 37-year-old Johns Hopkins University graduate then chops up a hot dog with the precision of a surgeon. He stares at it intently.
Conti, a Boston native who is ranked No. 11 by the International Federation of Competitive Eating (IFOCE), relies on this scientific approach for success. These “Stomach School” sessions are designed to find any weaknesses in a food — weaknesses that could be the difference between eating greatness and just another big, messy meal.
A former three-sport athlete for the Blue Jays in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Conti will need every advantage today at Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest in Coney Island, N.Y. It will be his seventh consecutive appearance, and he’s hoping to devour a personal-best 25 hot dogs — with buns — in the 10-minute competition. Last year’s winner, top-ranked Joey “Jaws” Chestnut, 25, from San Jose, Calif., ate a staggering 66 dogs to earn the coveted Mustard Yellow Belt, defeating six-time defending champion Takeru “Tsunami” Kobayashi, who downed 62.
“The basis for knowledge is out there in books and libraries, but the greatest knowledge you can find is self-knowledge,” said Conti, who was the subject of the 2004 documentary “Crazy Legs Conti: Zen and the Art of Competitive Eating.” “If Jung is going for self-actualization, I’m applying it to hot dogs and buns.”
“He’s as close to Cosmo Kramer [from ‘Seinfeld’] as anyone you’ll ever meet,” said Dan Flynn, Conti’s friend and former Hopkins football teammate. “He’s that much of a character, and he’s always on, always entertaining people.”
Conti’s appeal — he wears pastel suit jackets with shorts and felt hats — has helped pull the sport of competitive eating into the mainstream, as nearly 50,000 fans attended last year’s Coney Island event, and millions more watched on ESPN.
“He’s invaluable to our sport,” said the world’s No. 4-ranked eater, Tim “Eater X” Janus, who is Conti’s roommate. “He’s proven you don’t have to actually win to be able to touch people.”
He’s built his celebrity with a host of media appearances, including as a commentator for “MLE Chowdown” on Spike TV, and he’s featured in a new Major League Eating-themed game for Nintendo Wii. Away from competition, he’s a purchasing director for Robert’s Steakhouse inside the Penthouse Executive Club — a New York strip joint. On weekends, he washes windows.
“He’s an overachiever in eating just as he was as a college athlete,” Flynn said. “Mental toughness made him a good player, and that has carried over to his eating career.”
Conti attended his first Coney Island competition 10 years ago. He was drawn to massive “gurgitators” such as “Hungry” Charles Hardy (now the IFOCE commissioner) and Eric “Badlands” Booker — and even to their table scraps.
“A lot of people would find that gross,” Conti said. “But much like Mean Joe Greene throwing his jersey to the kid [during the famous 1979 Coca-Cola commercial], I wanted to get the half-dog from Hungry Hardy’s rookie performance or Oleg Zhornitskiy’s leftover matzah balls.”
Conti, at 6 feet 2 inches and 213 pounds, has made a smooth transition from super fan to competitor.
In 2002, he traveled to New Orleans for Super Bowl XXXVI, but couldn’t get a ticket. Instead, he went to a local oyster house and set the house record by eating 34 dozen oysters during New England’s victory over St. Louis.
Later that year, Conti won his first competition — also in New Orleans at a big oyster-eating event. He qualified for Nathan’s hot dog eating contest that year by winning a regional qualifying event and has earned his way back ever since. Conti qualified for today’s competition by eating 21 1/2 hot dogs and buns in 12 minutes in a competition last August in Saratoga, N.Y.
Today, he’ll plan to use a technique he perfected at “Stomach School” to better lubricate the dog. He calls it “reverse bunning,” in which he flips the hot dog bun inside out, so it becomes more saturated when dunked in water before consumption.
“I hope that people start eating their hot dogs that way,” Conti said. “If you’re at Camden Yards and you order one from the vendor, I hope you say, ‘Give me a hot dog with everything, and reverse the bun.’”
eric.detweiler@baltimoreexaminer.com
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8:10 AM MST on Fri., Jul. 4, 2008 re: "A stomach that aches for success"
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