BY CHIP BEARDEN

Goodbye,
PAPA GOLF

“The Riskiest Thing I Do”

A Memoir of Flying, Family, and Self-Discovery

An insecure 14-year-old boy learns to fly gliders to measure up to his All-American father. His success in the cockpit, especially in the high-stress world of sailplane racing—an exotic sport that, after 50 years and 20 fatal accidents, he will concede is “the riskiest thing I do”—plus running his first (of what would become 47) marathons provides the self-assurance to set ambitious goals and to emerge, at last, from his father’s shadow into manhood.

Fifteen years later, a violent crash on the day of what should have been his greatest triumph threatens everything he has achieved and changes the course of his life forever. This is his compelling account of that tragic day and how the aftermath leaves him struggling to understand a world falling apart around him. It is also the story of how he comes of age again, rebuilding his life to achieve success while redefining what that means as a pilot, as a professional, as a Boston Marathon veteran, as a husband and father, and, ultimately, as a man.