Notes

Globe – 20, July 1999
He claims he was a gravedigger, but he never worked in a cemetery. He says he’s from sizzling Death Valley but he grew up in the soft suburbs of Houston. He brags that he was an embalmer but that’s a lie too!
The only thing true about gigantic grappler The Undertaker, real name Mark Calaway, is that he pulled bizarre pranks in high school just like he does now in the ring.
One teacher at Houston’s Waltrip High wasn’t happy about where Calaway sat in her room. “At a parent-teacher conference, she pointed to this storage shelf that was kind of a loft in the back of the room”, recalls his mom Catherine. “She said he would get up there and sit for class instead of sitting in his seat. He felt like it was his own private balcony.”
Calaway’s eating habits were also legendary. He gobbled 3 to 4 sandwiches at lunch every day.
“It was nothing for Mark to scarf a bagful of double cheeseburgers washed down with a gallon of milk”, says his mom. He also stood out because of his size and flamming red hair. The summer before high school he exploded six inches. As a 6-foot-8, 230 pound redhead, he starred in basketball but skipped football because of an umbilical hernia stemming from birth that caused weakness in his stomach wall.
Now 6-foot-9 and 330 pounds, The Undertaker’s dark moods are no surprise to his high school teachers.
Says his mom: “His English teacher once told me: ‘If he’s down, it’s like a morgue in my classroom’”