The first thing James Overstreet did when he got home from a lengthy hospital stay was “fire up the smoker. Ribs and chicken … and a big pot of pinto beans. That’s what I was wanting and that’s what we cooked.”
Typical JO, living life to the fullest.
Getting back into his routine – and erasing all memories of hospital food – was the mission after treatments to knock down myasthenia gravis, an autoimmune neuromuscular disease that struck him on his way to photograph the season opening Bassmaster Elite Series tournament in Florida.
Causing a breakdown of normal communication between nerves and muscles, myasthenia gravis is a chronic disease that medicine can only slow. Patients usually suffer reoccurrences to varying degrees.
“I’m pretty early into this disease,” said Overstreet, who’s provided stellar images from Bassmaster events since 2006. “There’s no cure for it. It basically can attack any of your voluntary muscles, your legs, your arms. Some cases it can get on your diaphragm muscle where you can’t breathe. They call it the snowflake disease because no two patients are the same.
“Chances are I’m probably most likely going to be hospitalized from it again. Odds are pretty great. These treatments only last for so long, then I’ll have medications I’ll take for the rest of my life that will help.”
Overstreet, who has crossed the country taking spectacular outdoor photos, was forced to miss the first events he’d been scheduled to work. Last Monday, he left Baptist Hospital in Little Rock feeling strong and hoping to work next month’s GEICO Bassmaster Classic presented by DICK’S Sporting Goods.
Editor’s note: See JO’s Best Photos of 2016.
Seeing double
There were signs that something wasn’t quite right – fatigue, not being able to chew. Then it hit hard.
Overstreet and writer Steve Wright had landed in Jacksonville heading to the Power-Pole Bassmaster Elite at St. Johns River. Not able to eat, JO threw his sandwich in the trash. Then driving down to Palatka, his vision went awry and he had to pull over. Wright finished the drive but once at the hotel, Overstreet realized he needed more than just rest.
Hearing his symptoms, Hunter, his son who works in the Baptist ER, told him to get to a hospital with a neurological department. Wright drove him back to Jacksonville, where he was admitted. Doctors ruled out other possibilities, like a stroke, and quickly pinpointed MG. They only allowed him to fly home if he promised to check into the hospital for treatment.
Every other day, Overstreet went to a room for intravenous immunoglobulin. Through a port in his upper chest, an eight-pack of the antibodies – he said it looked like beer – was sent through his veins for four hours. After each of the five doses, he progressed. It cleared his double vision and eye droop, which had him wearing an eye patch, as well as muscle weakness, which allowed him to chew and swallow. He went home definitely feeling stronger but still tired from not sleeping well. From a post on his Facebook page, you could hear JO’s pithy, country twang known to thousands of B.A.S.S. fans:
“Man, is my insurance company gonna be pissed about my choice of accommodations.”
Yet he felt strong enough to think he’ll be able to work the Classic.
“I feel good. There was a lot of money spent getting me to good, so you hope you get some return,” he said. “I feel pretty lucky to come out in pretty darn good shape.”
While in the “clink,” JO was surrounded by family, his wife and their two children, who both work at the hospital, grandchildren and his brother. He had a lot of visitors and heart-felt messages.
“I think I’ve always been pretty good at being positive with all my family and friends – can’t take them for granted,” he said. “You may not realize how much you need them until you need them, and they’re there for you.
“I had so many friends, so many calls, so many texts, so many visitors. I was pretty humbled about people showing the kind of compassion that they have. I got a great amount of encouragement and prayers. One of the things about this job, whether we’re doing hunting stories or fishing stories, you’re always surrounded by your people – they enjoy the same things you do. You make a lot of friends and you meet a lot of good people. Bass fishing people as a whole are pretty good folks.”
There’ll be no griping about being unfortunate to contract MG, he said, because he’s just got too much to be thankful for. In his 10-day stay at the hospital, he saw a lot of other folks in the halls and treatment room who had it worse than him.
“From the first five minutes I was on this floor, I saw people with a lot of neurological problems, a lot of really sick people,” he said. “Every day I was in there I could still stand and walk, could talk, feed myself, laugh and breathe on my own. Every day I would walk down the hall, get coffee or go downstairs for treatments, there were so many people I encountered that could do none of those things.”
A woman in the adjacent room, who suffered bouts of MG for the past 20 years, talked to him about her experiences, including numerous hospitalizations. JO knows he might face tough times ahead, so he vowed to continue living the best he can.
“You just try to go like hell when you can, and you deal with it when you have an episode. You go get your treatments,” he said. “My life expectancy should still be the same. It’s all good. There’s a lot of other things that could have happened that are a lot worse. I’ve seen a lot of people in the last couple weeks that I think I got out pretty easy.”
Missing being on the crew
Watching the first two events of the 2019 Bassmaster Elite Series from a hospital room was not the plan. His trusty laptop front and center, JO kept up with his co-workers and anglers, many of whom have become close friends.
“That’s the most time I’ve ever spent watching LIVE, because I’m usually working the tournament, and we’re doing what we do to get things up on the website,” he said. “But I can see why it’s so addictive. It pretty much helped me pass eight days in the hospital.
“I was itching to work, but I was really itching to go fishing. I guess I never spent that many hours watching consecutively. That was such a storyline that first tournament. It kept getting better and better. It got to the point where I don’t want to miss any of it.”
Overstreet said the St. Johns tournament was incredibly dramatic. He and Steve Bowman, who hired him and assigns cameramen to shoot anglers, have battled over who would shoot Rick Clunn the past several times the legend has vied for a title. (Bowman was quick to say the event was not the same without Overstreet there, especially making up his workload.)
“It just makes me sick I wasn’t there,” Overstreet said. “We’re good friends, and I know how much Rick means to our sport and all of us that are in it. But the work standpoint, that was by far the most disappointing to not witness in person.”
While he might not have missed the frigid conditions for the Toyota Bassmaster Elite on Lake Lanier, he thought that event provided just as much dramatics.
“The weights were so close. That could have went a lot of different ways. That tournament wasn’t decided until the last cast,” he said. “I think our fans have got to see two polar opposite bodies of water and the different ways there are to catch bass.
“I’ve been able to sit back and watch our content and our programming and see just how well we’ve been able to come out of the gate this year.”
From tracking to whacking
Overstreet met Bowman through a mutual buddy while in their 20s, and their love of the outdoors created a friendship that’s going on 35 years. Overstreet served in the military as an MP at Columbus Air Force Base and Thule, Greenland, from 1978-1982, then he owned several successful businesses through the years. Bowman’s journalism degree landed him as outdoors columnist at Arkansas’ largest newspaper then at JM Outdoors, where he orchestrates B.A.S.S. tournament coverage.
“We’ve been running buddies,” JO explains. “Back in the day, we fished a lot of tournaments together, hunted a lot of deer, killed a lot of ducks … gigged a lot of frogs (laughs) … played a lot of golf. We’re just buddies who hung out.”
Before heading to Lanier, Bowman and Wright, who’s been Overstreet’s travel partner on most every assignment, visited JO in the hospital, and they donned eye patches for this photo Overstreet posted.
“I just simply wrote, ‘My Brothers.’ Those two guys, we’ve just worked together for so many years. We’re pretty lucky to all get to work together,” he said. “We were all buds before any of all this started, the B.A.S.S, ESPN. We go back to really young men.”
How Overstreet got his start in outdoor photography was somewhat by chance. He was assisting Bassmaster TV by catching fish, releasing them with a tracking device then following them around to show how bass moved.
“We had done the segment for the show, and I was there, just kind of hanging out, at the very first Elite Series – 2006 in Lake Amistad,” he said. “Bowman asked if I thought I could shoot the weigh-in. He knew I could shoot a little. I had been messing with photography since I was 15 – took a class … I shot every one of them since.”
Work for ESPN Outdoors also sent him up and down the U.S., and even Canada, shooting photo galleries and writing stories for series like Deer Camp, Duck Trek and Turkey Trek. His photos have graced books, magazines, websites and TV shows, and he’s even fished on several shows like Mark Zona’s and Dave Mercer’s. His uncanny ability to convey a message in cowboy cool conciseness made him a fan favorite.
Yet Elite events have been his bread and butter. He’s out with the anglers before first light chronicling the takeoffs and is editing photos long after the final angler weighs in. Before neck surgery took him off rough water, Overstreet chased down the angling action. Now, he spends the middle of the day editing other photographers’ on the water action. Yet he’s got plenty of muscle memory bringing his Canon up to his eye and composing compelling shots.
“I don’t waste near as much ammunition as I used to – used to you just hold it down,” he said of the shutter button. “Probably take about 1,500 shots a day.”
There’s also photo shoots not for work. On his Facebook page, which he quickly had to turn into a fan page after accumulating more than 5,000 friends, he posts a photo of the day. The scenic shots from old barns to El Capitan in Yosemite National Park show America, and they draw raves.
“A lot of these have been taken on my trips going to Bassmaster. I have a destination in mind and knock it out, on the way or on the way back,” he said. “Over the years, I’ve photographed pretty much everything in the continental United States that was on my bucket list.”
Editor’s note: See Overstreet photos from South Dakota.
An avid duck and deer hunter, the camera is always along for the ride. With several hard drives full of just waterfowl shots, along with all the deer, fishing and scenics, Overstreet said he recently did a major backup and counted around half a million images. He’d probably be out there even without a camera, rod or gun in his hands.
“I think the hardest thing for modern man to do is to slow down. We’re in a hurry all the time now,” he said. “We all have so many responsibilities. We don’t take enough time to get back our peace of mind. That’s what being outdoors gives me. I like the way that air feels in my lungs, versus air coming through a vent. That’s why I’ve always been able to sit on a deer stand for hours and hours. You’d think it’d be boring. But honestly, it’s just damn near therapeutic.”
Often imitated, never duplicated
JO is an original. That gravelly Arkansas accent is probably the most imitated among B.A.S.S. fans, and certainly his co-workers. On a 10-day drive to the West Coast Elite events, Overstreet shot up an old west town that looked like it had literally been shot up. His line, “Man, this place is a dump,” was mimicked for years.
One of his funniest bits came before a Halloween. He set up a camera at his front door and recorded how he wanted to greet trick-or-treaters ringing his bell. The farce began as the door slowly creaked opened to reveal his bearded face with spooky under lighting, and in a deep voice reminiscent of an old western movie, he simply said, “State your business.”
Another famous bit was when he was in charge of bringing the Classic trophy back to Little Rock. In giving it Stanley Cup treatment, he stopped at feature spots along the ride home, like Talladega and Elvis’ Graceland, and took selfies with the trophy, the most comical of which were at his house eating cereal and snuggling in bed.
Living with MG
No doubt there were worries when double vision hit, especially for someone whose eyes record that before him with artistic flair. He’s accepted life must go on as normally as possible with the disease, and his attitude of going and doing have been re-instilled.
“If it does come back, it may or may not be hard on me,” Overstreet said. “Whatever, I’ll go get it treated and jump back into the world.”
Overstreet turns 59 this July, and his outlook of taking what the world dishes out in stride is admirable. He offered a thought everyone should follow.
“There’s this saying, ‘If you want to hear God laugh, tell him about your plans.’ My deal would be, don’t get caught not living. Just don’t get caught not living every day,” he said. “That’s why I encourage people that if you’re still able to hunt or fish, you have an inclination you can’t make up your mind to go or not, you’re on the fence, man, hook up the boat, load up the four-wheeler.
“It’s easy to talk yourself out of doing some of those things. You need to do as much of it while you can.”