Inspiration on a very large bun

No matter how bad things get, we Americans always manage to find our inspiration. It's one of those things that make us such an enviable lot.

During the Great Depression, the country found strength in the heroic athletic achievements of Seabiscuit and Joe Louis. In World War II, it was Rosie the Riveter and Jimmy Stewart. Even during those tumultuous days of the '70s, we had Gabe Kaplan, Robert Conrad and the glorious distraction that was the "Battle of the Network Stars."

Now, just as we face what may be our most dire days, as wars linger and economies tank, a new hero rises in the east. His name is Brad Sciullo, he is 21, and he is a big hungry boy.

By this point you really should know why Sciullo is such an inspiration. You should, but I'm afraid you probably don't. That's because we media types - the "nattering nabobs of negativism" to quote the late and less-inspiring Spiro Agnew (and yes, I did manage to work Spiro Agnew and Gabe Kaplan into the same column, please hold your applause till the end) - have gotten so wrapped up with stories of economic troubles, war and history-making elections we skipped right over what may be the most inspiring, if not the most important story of the year, the story of a young man who saw a challenge, faced his fear, and, literally, ate it.

Last month, Sciullo, a 5-foot-11, 180-pound western Pennsylvania chef, became the first person to eat a monstrosity called the Beer Barrel Belly Bruiser: a 15-pound burger with toppings and a bun that brought the total weight to 20.2 pounds. The historic digestion occurred at Denny's Beer Barrel Pub, a smallish, now-famous joint about 100 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.

(Side note: Denny's Beer Barrel should not be confused with our local Beer Barrel. The Dixie Highway - and soon to be Market Street - establishment has some great pizza and the hands-down best wings in the eight-county area. And while owner John Heaphy is certainly not one to shy away from excess, he has so far avoided the particular excess of record-setting beef.)

If the tale of big eats at Denny's Beer Barrel seems vaguely familiar, it may be because I actually wrote about the tradition in a column two years ago. At that time, Kate Stelnick, a 100-pound college student from Princeton, N.J., who did what seemed at the time the impossible and put away a burger titled Ye Old 96er - as in 96 ounces. That's 6 pounds for the University of Michigan grads.

At the time, Stelnick's achievement was pretty inspirational. Nobody had finished the big burger in the three-hour time limit since it was introduced on Super Bowl Sunday 1998. Even famed, 420-pound competitive eater Eric "Badlands" Booker failed three times to eat the burger. He finally succeeded on his third effort, but it took him 7.5 hours.

Stelnick's short but glorious rein as burger queen ended a year later. When Denny's lost its title as home to the world's largest burger to a New Jersey diner, owner Denny Leigey Jr. decided to up the ante and came up with the 15 pound Belly Bruiser, which includes 25 slices of cheese, a head of lettuce, three tomatoes, two onions and a cup each of mayonnaise, relish, ketchup, mustard and banana peppers.

The rest is, two risk the cliché, history. It took Sciullo 4 hours and 39 minutes to finish the Buster. Humble as all heroes are, Sciullo feigned surprise that he managed to finish the behemoth burger.

"About three hours into it, things got tough," he told The Associate Press.

For his effort, Sciullo received $400, three T-shirts and a certificate. Obviously, he wasn't in it for the earthly rewards.

"I wanted to see if I could," he told reporters when asked why he would eat 20 pounds of food in one sitting.

It reminds one of the inspirational words of another adventurer, George Mallory, who, when asked by reporters why he climbed Mount Everest, told them "because it was there." Mallory climbed the mountain because it was there. Brad Sciullo ate it.