“My wish, for you…”
Dateline: 2009…
“When I grow up I want to be a little boy.”
~Joseph Heller
“When I first started fishing the Elites, they called me, “Pampers.”
~Bradley Roy
Pull up a chair, this is a tale of growing a young-un out here on the tour.
And it relates exactly to you, you if you have ever been old, or ever been young, either one makes no never mind.
It’s about growing, growing up if you are young, and growing wise if you are old.
This here is about a young man, a really young man, a 19-year-old boy, Bradley Roy, who was the youngest ever to qualify to fish the Elites, a boy so young we nicknamed him “Pampers,” a boy so young he may have been on the road a couple of seasons before he bought his first razor, so young that half the reels in my friend Steve Kennedy’s boat were older than the kid fishing next to him.
Know this though, I’ve got a thing about doing stories just because the person I’m writing about is young, or old, can’t write this for you under the pretense of telling you, “Lookey here what this 19-year-old snot-nosed kid did,” can’t do it.
Here’s why, my best friend in the world was 19 years old when he passed away. He was a snot-nosed jerky kid too, he died face down in a rice field in Vietnam, so it’s tough to say, “Hey look what this 19-year-old did,” when in fact we have thousands of 19-year-old men and women in the military putting their lives on the line for us, for freedom.
So this isn’t a story wondering how a 19-year-old can do anything because I know for sure they do a hell of a lot for all of us. This is in fact though a story about how we growed us an Elite.
It’s about growing, Bradley Roy.
Here goes.
“It is not the question, what am I going to be when I grow up; you should ask the question, who am I going to be when I grow up.”
~Goldie Hawn
“…is that this life becomes all that you want it to…”
“In 2009 Bradley finished ahead of me in the Southern Open standings, qualified to fish the Elites, I knew his father some so I called him and told him, ‘send the boy to my house in Paducah, I’ll follow him out to California for the first event out there,’ we’ve been rooming together ever since.”
Mark Menendez is sitting in a booth across from Bradley, as soon as he finished that sentence he reached across the table and stole one of Bradley’s French fries.
Bradley’s dinner order, 12 Buffalo wings and an order of fries.
Sitting next to Mark in the booth is Bradley’s other longtime roommate Greg Vinson, “None of us planned any of this, it just happened, frankly I think it sped up the learning curve for Bradley, we all get along well, like to laugh and goof on each other.”
And then, like Mark, Greg reaches over and steals a fry as well.
I’m sitting next to Bradley in the booth, he nudges me with his elbow, “I don’t know how I would have survived without them, learned a lot about fishing and maturity, learned the little things, like where to stay on the road, where to eat, how to get to the ramps, stuff like that was a huge help.”
Then Bradley takes a fry off my plate.
“…your dreams stay big…”
Back up some, this photo is of the first steps Bradley ever took on an Elite stage:
And this is Bradley, today, actually, last Friday:
Now this is Bradley with his parents back in 2010, they are still of course his parents here in 2016, and beyond, but I don’t have any photo of them together now since I didn’t plan too far ahead of time to do this story:
Jacquie, his mom, was, or maybe still is, a school teacher, Anthony (I’ve always called him Tony) is his dad, was in the construction business now in the family fishing business, I don’t have an exact number of how many of Bradley’s tournaments they have been at, but I can tell you for sure it is a lot more than just a few. I’m betting, more than half, easy.
Bradley: “db, I come from good stock, great stock, I’m blessed to have the best parents in the world, they were, are I should say, very supportive, they let me try things, they gave me a chance, have my back, have my back.”
And now these two guys, now…well just let Mark explain: “I’m somewhat between a dad, a brother, an uncle and a friend.”
Greg, listening to what Mark is saying, is shaking his head as in, yep me too.
“…and your worries stay small…”
I have known Bradley Roy almost a quarter of his life, as have Mark and Greg. Mark has been fishing at the top level of the sport “since when it was the Top 100, since 1992 been doing this…”
I feel a nudge in my ribs, “…db I was 2 when he started…”
Mark just gives Bradley the father/uncle/brother/friend look and continues on, “…I use Bradley for his youthful exuberance, he gets me excited about the sport, I’m road weary, road weary, but it’s neat to see the fire in him it makes both of us step up…”
“…We’ve sort of made a transition, db, when I first came on the tour he pushed me, now I push him, he groomed me well.”
Greg: “I don’t give Bradley an inch, push him all the time, it’s phenomenal to see him grow as a person and as an angler as well. I tell him, ‘Don’t check up, don’t check up,’ and he doesn’t he goes all out all the time.”
“…you never need to carry…”
Mark is now eating some sort of fried cheese thing off my plate, I got the bill. The four of us are just sitting talking, I’m not asking any questions, I know this part of the deal, it’s my favorite part when I sit around for a moment or two after dinner with my two road roommates, Paul Elias and Shaw Grigsby, unguarded truth time.
“You know chief here (what Mark calls Bradley) when he first started he pretty much just fished on adrenalin but as he has grown, as he has learned, the boy fishes old, fishes very old now for such a young guy, boy has got the know how and, AND the wisdom…”
“The last two years,” Greg says while downing the last drop in the tall iced glass of sweet tea, “Bradley’s maturity level has gone up, he’s taken his maturity to a new level, but the cool thing to watch is that he’s learning and perfecting his own style, his own style, that’s very special.”
And in a quiet, classy move, Bradley doesn’t reply to the compliments he just smiles and nods his head in respect.
The young dude knows his place.
“…more than you can hold…”
His place.
Right now his place is 21st in the 2016 AOY race with 572 points.
Right now his place is in the 2017 Bassmaster Classic on Lake Conroe in Texas.
If his place holds, it will be Bradley’s first ever Bassmaster Classic berth.
First ever.
And for the record we did not toast that fact, we all told him to fish on through, fish strong, go into the last two tournaments ablaze, fish through my young friend, fish through.
For those of us on the tour who have been here since 2010 and before, it will be very special to see Bradley step onto that Bassmaster Classic stage, as special as it was when he first crossed our Elite stage.
If he does make the Classic I hope to be up in the audience sitting next to his mom and dad when his feet first walk that biggest stage of all. In these past six years we’ve become friends as Bradley became family for so many of us on the Elite tour.
And to the young man who has known me a quarter of his young life, this:
“Play fair, play hard, but remember, only life and death is life and death, play with integrity, play with love of the game, play…happy. Respect those you compete against and those who sit in the seats and watch you compete…”
And then this…
“…when you are all said and done, hand this sport off better than when we handed it to you.”
“…and you always give more than you take.”
My Wish
Rascal Flatts
db
“The trick is growing up without growing old.”
~ Casey Stengel