Excerpt: Fat Guys Shouldn't Be Dancin' at Halftime -- Meet Jerry "the Crasher" Berliant

You don't know "the Crasher"?  What rock have you been hiding under? Trust me.  You've seen Jerry - you just don't know it.

For years, with no discernable job or source of income or place to go, Jerry has shown up uninvited at sports events, cocktail parties, grand openings, and charity functions with absolutely nothing resembling an invitation or ticket.

If Jim McMahon is signing autographs at a Kmart in Carbondale, Jerry will likely be in the house.  He won't introduce himself to McMahon.  That's not Jerry's style.  "Berls" will treat Mac as if he went to high school with him and this is their first meeting since they played volleyball last Tuesday.

I'll take a wild guess that Jerry's irritated people in at least 10 different countries.  "Crasher" was once busted by the heat in Denver for trying to barge his way into the Pepsi Center with phony credentials to watch an NCAA tournament game.

He's the CliffsNotes examination on Jerry "the Crasher."

Years ago, he conned his way into the Hubert H. Humphrey Mortuary to watch the Bears play the Vikings.  The stands weren't good enough for "Crash."  So he just walked down by the visitors' bench.  Bears officials, led by P.R. Chief Kenny Valdiserri, saw Jerry from the press box and had him tossed out.  End of issue, right?

Oh please.  About seven minutes later, Berliant was back on the scene - sitting in the press box.

Jerry used to work for a living.  He was an attorney.  But he got in a jam with the Feds back in the '80s and lost his license in the legendary "Greylord" judicial bribery scandal.  That's part of Jerry's intrigue.

Nobody knows what the hell Berliant does for a living.  How he jets to Super Bowls, the Cannes Film Festival, the Bob Hope Desert Classic, the Final Four, or any prime-time Las Vegas boxing match with no apparent source of income is a mystery.

There are always rumors about Jerry.  A bundle of people think he works undercover for the Internal Revenue Service.

Jerry and I haven't spoken in years.  He got ticked at me when I was emceeing a charity event honoring Tony La Russa at the Westin Hotel. As the party was nearing its close, I told the crowd that, "We should feel blessed.  Jerry Berliant has crashed our dinner.  We're on the map."

This is Berliant at his best. Jay Blunk, a great friend and vice president of the Blackhawks, got married at the Art Institute.  A gala like that had to have "the Crasher" drooling.  You got it. Jerry crashed Blunks's wedding.

Now, go back to 1978, I'm in New Orleans for what turned out to be a lousy fight between Muhammad Ali and Leon Spinks.  A few hours before the undercard, I'm spinning Berliant yarns at a joint on Bourbon Street about "the Legend of the Crasher."

Nobody's buying. Everybody says I'm nuts.

I said, "Trust me. I guarantee you will see him at the Dome." Sure enough, as I entered the building, the first guy I saw was Jerry.  Somehow, some way he had scored credentials to both the Ali and Spinks dressing rooms.

"I knew the Cub convention was a hit when Jerry crashed us during our third year." - John McDonough, president of the Blackhawks and former Cubs exec

Jerry always turns up on "radio row" at the Super Bowl.  He'll just go from table to table, station to station, hoping somebody gives him the time of day.

Dave Abrams runs Skybox on Sheffield.  He tossed in this nugget.  One night at the Allstate Arena, during a Notre Dame-DePaul basketball game, former Blue Demons A.D. Bill Bradshaw had Jerry bounced from his seat three rows behind the DePaul bench because, well, he just didn't have a ticket.  What else is new?

Security put the grip on Jerry and tossed him out of the building.  Less than 10 minutes later, Berliant was back in the house - three rows behind the Notre Dame bench.  You've got to give Jerry bonus points for consistency.

Berliant turns up on camera all the time. The year War Emblem won the Kentucky Derby, he was waving wildly to the ABC cameras while he stood next to War Emblem's trainer, Bob Baffert.

We go back to the summer of 1976. The last College All-Star Game is being played at Soldier Field. On a game day, Chet Forte, who was on board to direct the game for ABC, called a luncheon with a handful of guys who were going to be directly involved in the show.

I was in the house because I was handling public address. There were some real A-list people at this lunch ... and some guys who couldn't get arrested at their Elks Club meetings. So Forte suggested that everyone introduced themselves. This is classic. Here we go: Cooper Rollow, Chicago Tribune ... Lee Grossccup, ABC Sports ... Ara Parseghian ... Chuck Noll ... Jerry Berliant .. and so on and so forth.

Nobody said a word. But after the gathering, Forte asked me, "Who the hell was that guy?" I gave Forte the lowdown on Jerry and his response was, "That was Jerry the Crasher?  I've heard about that guy for years."

Berliant's museum piece? He crashed Prince Charles' wedding to Princess Diana.

Gate crashing really isn't that tough. It's not an art form. If you're wearing a suit, maybe toting a briefcase, and walk with a stride that says, "Don't fuck with me ... I'm here on urgent business," almost any event can be crashed.

Trust me - Jerry is living proof that easing past a couple of 19-year-old ushers doesn't require any particular kind of genius.
 
This excerpt from Chet Coppock's book "Fat Guys Shouldn't be Dancin' at Halftime" is reprinted courtesy of Triumph Books at www.triumphbooks.com. The book is availabkle in book stores throughtout the Chicago area and Northwest Indiana as well as on Amazon.com.
 
Chet Coppock's podcasts featuring Denny McClain, Lester Munson and Geoff Pinkus may be heard on Itunes or via his website www.chetcoppock.com.