Lost & Found

CULINARY CAVEAT
The last time the 71-year-old NASCAR great pushed a local product was when he ran moonshine on the Carolina back roads.

THE VERDICT
All those years in hog country paid off; the man can cure a ham.

15 minutes of infamy
A controversial moment in the spotlight can leave a lasting memory—and change a life

Michael Pantazis
During a Bears-Packers Monday-night game in 1995, Pantazis jumped off a concrete wall in the Soldier Field stands to snare an extra point. He fell 25 feet onto an usher (who was not hurt) and landed on highlight clips everywhere. "The other day strangers recognized me and bought me drinks," says Pantazis, 35, a sales manager for a Chicago moving company. "It's amazing how my life has changed."

Richard Jewell
On July 27, 1996, a pipe bomb concealed in a backpack exploded at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, leaving two dead and 110 injured. After it was leaked that the FBI suspected Jewell—a security guard who had reported the suspicious backpack and began evacuating the area—he was all but convicted in the press. Jewell was cleared and won nearly $2 million in settlements from media outlets, but his bitterness lingers. Says Jewell, now 39 and a Senoia, Ga., police officer, "I still feel that the good I did that night was taken away from me."

Jeffrey Maier
In game 1 of the 1996 American League Championship Series at Yankee Stadium, Maier, then 12, reached over Orioles rightfielder Tony Tarasco to snag Derek Jeter's fly ball and give New York a game-tying home run. Next fall Maier (whose family turned down SI's interview request) will enter Wesleyan, where he'll play baseball. Says Wesleyan coach Mark Woodworth, who recruited the Old Tappan, N.J., centerfielder, "He wants people to respect him as a player."

Bo Kimble
On March 4, 1990, Loyola Marymount senior Hank Gathers knocked down a two-handed dunk off an alley-oop pass against Portland and a moment later collapsed near midcourt, dead of heart failure. In that month's NCAA tournament, his close friend and teammate Kimble honored Gathers by shooting his first free throw of each game lefthanded. Ever since, the two—Bo and Hank—have been inseparable in the public's mind. "I'm glad he's part of my legacy, and I'm glad I'm part of his," says Kimble, 36, who led the nation that season with a 35.3-point scoring average. Since retiring from pro basketball in '99, Kimble has carved out his own identity in his hometown of Philadelphia, where the nonprofit Bo Kimble Foundation turns rundown buildings into affordable housing for low-income families. "I help a kid get his first room," says Kimble, whose foundation owns 10 apartments and hopes one day to house 25 to 50 families per year. "Every kid should have his own room."

Casting Their Shadow

More than two decades after they first donned the burnt orange of Carver High, Warren Coolidge and Morris Thorpe still run the fast break daily on ESPN Classic. Such is the enduring appeal of The White Shadow, which originally aired on CBS from November 1978 through August '81 and starred Ken Howard as a former pro basketball player who winds up in Los Angeles coaching an inner-city school team. Carver's finest have long since graduated into adulthood. Here's the latest on the squad.

Eric Kilpatrick as Curtis Jackson Kilpatrick, 46, divides his time between St. Louis and Los Angeles, teaching acting in both cities. He is divorced and has one child.