Don’t expect Gerald Swindle to miss any more bed fish this season. His line of sight won’t be hindered by all that facial hair.
“I couldn’t see those sight-fish good with that beard,” the two-time B.A.S.S. Angler of the Year joked Sunday night, hours after he shed his beard in a public shaving event at the Toyota booth during the final day of the Bassmaster Classic Expo in Houston.
Hundreds of people crammed around a small stage as Bassmaster emcee Dave Mercer took the first few swipes at Swindle’s beard with a pair of trimmers. Swindle’s daughter, Whitney, took over from there and finished the job as the crowd cheered.
Swindle’s facial hair attracted attention through the offseason and early part of 2017 as he and FLW Tour angler (and T-H Marine Products sales manager) Luke Dunkin turned a friendly wager over not shaving last fall into a full-fledged fundraiser for breast cancer awareness and research. The first one to shave would have to write a check for $2,017 to the charity of the other’s choice. When Dunkin’s mother was diagnosed with breast cancer last December, it became a team effort. (To learn more about the genesis of the idea, click here).
Companies and individuals – perfect strangers even – said they’d match the donations when it was over. On Sunday, even more donations poured in. It was humbling, Swindle said.
“It started out as a fun, joking deal, but then it kept growing and snowballing,” Swindle said. “Then as I got here, the severity of it started sinking in. When I’m at home and we’re doing Instagram posts about #BeardGameStrong and #BeardWars and asking for donations, you run into a few people, but here all of a sudden people were walking up, going ‘I lost my sister’ or ‘I lost my mother.’ Then it gets heavy and serious. It got me thinking that breast cancer sucks in how it’s affected all of these people.
“Then you start to see them reach in their pockets. I had a whole new respect for it as this week unfolded because I never dreamed it would touch that many people or raise money. I think it says a lot about bass fishing fans. These people started rallying up and I’m damn proud to be a fisherman and having fishing fans because to me there are no more loyal people or people who are emotionally tied to you. You have a connection. I think it’s the fish that connects the world and after that it’s like your family.”
At last count, Swindle said close to $25,000 had been raised and there’s already talk of devoting an entire month during the next offseason to a fundraiser.
“I told Luke we should look at doing one month next year in the winter and we should call it Beards for Boobs,” Swindle said. “For one month, we should hold everybody accountable. You can’t shave for one month and you have to raise $500 in order to participate and then make that same donation back to show women out there that we support them. There are a lot of athletes out there that wear pink and all that, but this is something all guys can do.”
