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Jonathan Pitts, Baltimore Sun
http://www.baltimoresun.com/
He
seemed a normal lad growing up in central New Jersey - quiet, studious,
a bit of an appetite perhaps, but no predilection for superhuman feats.
Then he saw the TV show that changed his life.
"I couldn't believe what I was seeing," says Brian "Eatin'" Keaton.
He was watching the hot-dog-eating competition at Nathan's Famous Coney
Island on the Fourth of July seven years ago. That was when Takeru
Kobayashi, a slender Japanese native, shot to fame by gorging himself
on 50 hot dogs to win the contest. He went on to win the title five
more years before finishing second last year to another world-record
eater, Joey Chestnut of California.
"I was so impressed," Keaton says. "I was inspired."
A junior at the University of Maryland, College Park, Keaton can't quite say what it was - the cheers of the crowd, Kobayashi's unyielding gluttony or the fact that the 110-pounder was so small compared to the size of his achievement. But the Middletown, N.J., native knew the sport of competitive eating was to his own taste.
Now, after three years of his own on the feed-bag trail, Keaton, 21,
finds himself on the brink of eating eminence. He'll fly to San Diego
this weekend to take on the likes of Christian "Muscox" McCarthy and
Casey "Powerhouse" Poehlmann, competitors from Kentucky and
Pennsylvania, and other gurus of the groaning board in a
no-holds-barred pig-out for the first-ever title of Collegiate
Nationals Eating Champion.
Keaton is seeded fourth for the contest, a joint production of the CBS College Sports Network and the Association of Independent Competitive
Eaters, which will be televised coast to coast in May. "I might be a
long shot," Keaton says, "but I do have a shot."
As he trains for the biggest eat-off of his life, Keaton is part of an
international wave of interest in competitive eating that began around
the time the 5-foot-8-inch Kobayashi first stepped up to that Coney
Island picnic table in 2001, loosened his belt and astonished the
public by doubling the record for the 84-year-old contest, then a mere
25 hot dogs.