Catching Up With Chicago Celebrity Alligator Robb In The Wild

TAMPA — A security guard clearly didn't recognize Frank Robb as the Chicago celebrity famous for rescuing an interloping alligator known as Chance the Snapper from the city's Humboldt Park lagoon.

Down at the Tampa Zoo, Alligator Robb — as he is known back in my hometown — was just another Floridian violating the no-shirt, no-shoes walking around the Tampa Zoo policy.

"Sir, you can't be barefoot at the zoo," the guard said, sternly.

Robb, who blew out a flip-flop in the parking lot outside CrocFest, apologized and promised to comply as soon as his brother fetched him a fresh pair of baby blue thongs.

---

When I jokingly asked Alligator Robb if he took offense that his status as Chicago's most beloved alligator hunter wasn't properly recognized in his home state, he flashed a shy smile and shook his head. "No, no. Everybody just knows me as Frank down here, or the 'gator guy.' I'm always humble, thankful," he said. "And happy to be here."

I stopped at the Tampa Zoo as part of my summerlong storytelling tour of America to meet up with Robb in the wild, so to speak, now that he's feeling better after undergoing heart surgery that saved his life in March.

This winter — a few weeks after pulling an 11-foot alligator out of a sewer under U.S. 1 near his home in Port St. John, Florida — doctors told Robb he needed surgery to repair a leaky heart valve. They said the procedure would be especially risky due to a chest surgery he had as a child.

After getting the news, Alligator Robb told me, he thought that he had reached the "end of it."

"That's not for a lack of faith. That's just how it felt," he said as alligator aficionados streamed into the zoo for the annual fundraiser benefiting endangered crocodilians. "A few times, I remember saying to the Lord, 'I recognize that if it's my time, it's my time.'"

He didn't have health insurance to cover the expensive, lifesaving heart valve repair operation.

Alligator Robb's friends set up an online fundraiser that, with the help of his fans in Chicago, raised nearly $60,000, enough to cover the cost of surgery that saved his life.

"The people I've met up there and the friendships I've made up there, hands down, it gets me to almost cry when I talk about it. … It's very overwhelming that so many people care about me. God's grace is a real thing, the reason I'm still here is so much bigger than me," he said.

"Everything that has happened. I accepted the Lord in my life seven years to the day that I ended up in Chicago to catch that alligator. Then, to think about all the things that have worked out since, with the surgery, and how many people up there helped me pay for it. All of that just shows that me being here today is about so much more than just me."

On Father's Day, Alligator Robb took his dad to Chicago, the city that helped save his life. They ate deep dish pizza, visited "The Bean" in Millennium Park, got a bird's-eye view from atop Willis Tower and visited with fans and supporters who became friends.

"The whole trip was pretty emotional and overwhelming. Going back there really made me count my blessings, and think even think more about how precious each moment is," he said. "Everything that happened in Chicago. Every person I met. Every interaction I had was really special for me. I tell everybody I love 'em, appreciate them."

Over the last few months, Alligator Robb endured the humbling experience of having to rely on others for everything. He endured weeks of pain-induced sleepless nights. He struggled to learn how to walk again. He's still trying to gain weight after losing 25 pounds post-surgery — that's nearly 16 percent of his slim, 155-pound frame.

Alligator Robb said his doctors told him it will be a year before he's at full strength, and back to the "work the Lord intended" for him to do. It's a craft he learned from his uncle "Gator"
Bill Robb, a local crocodile-catching legend, while attending Titusville High School.

"The first time I ever rode with him, my uncle gave me a tool and told me to pop a manhole. … Then, I watched him drop off the side of sea wall, monkey himself up in 36-inch pipe. ... Three minutes later, he's crawling out a manhole with an alligator," Robb said.

"I always joke that it was either catching gators or prison for me. But truth is some people walk into burning buildings and some people catch criminals. Some people put roofs on buildings … . we all have our talents. [Catching gators] is the talent the Lord blessed me with."

For now, though, Alligator Robb follows doctors' orders. He takes long walks every day to rebuild his stamina. Soon, he hopes to be back in the field helping take notes, offering advice and occasionally helping lure rogue gators by talking in their language — a series of "clicks and pops" — that he's learned while responding to more than 1,200 unwanted-croc reports netting as many as 400 alligators a year over nearly three decades.

He's working with fellow researchers in North Carolina and hopes to be strong enough in a few months to help a friend wrangle a few rogue alligators in Belize.

Whatever work comes next, it probably won't match the headline-making capture of the Chicago alligator known as Chance the Snapper that has outgrown his signature crooked snout, measures nearly 6 feet long and lives like a "rock star" on a diet of frozen mice and "gator pellets" at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park.

---

I told Alligator Robb that I'm almost certain — and no one believes me — that I once saw an alligator swimming at Big Marsh Park near my place in Chicago.

"If it hasn't happened, yet. It's going to happen," Alligator Rob assured me.

I asked if he would make a return alligator hunting trip to Chicago.

"If the people of Chicago needed me, I would be there for them like they were for me," Alligator Robb said, "in a heartbeat."

Mark Konkol, recipient of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting, wrote and produced the Peabody Award-winning series, "Time: The Kalief Browder Story." He was a producer, writer and narrator for the "Chicagoland" docu-series on CNN, and a consulting producer on the Showtime documentary, "16 Shots."

This summer, follow KONKOL ON THE ROAD:

• The Search For IL Gov. Pritzker In Florida's Equestrian Capital
• Finding Romance On The Road At Giant Beaver-Themed Gas Station
• Activist Jedidiah Brown Ended 'Abusive' Relationship With Chicago
• In Atlanta, Everybody Influences Everything For Better And Worse
• It's 'Insane' Chicago Isn't The Sweet Home Of A Blues Museum
• Time To Drive — Out Of The Land Of Fakequity and Faux Reforms