The supplies Keith Doubman has carried during his walk across America mostly fit in a 50-liter green Osprey backpack and weigh roughly 60 pounds. Well, maybe 65 if he’s carrying extra water.
There are the essentials, including a tent, air mattress, medical supplies, two types of water filtration systems, two waterproof bags, two solar powered battery packs, a portable stove and enough peanut butter crackers and granola bars to last until he arrives at the next town. There’s also a tripod for his camera and a 4-inch 3D printed figurine of himself. There was a drone — until it broke and he had to ship it home to Pennsylvania.
The item he gets asked about the most, though, is attached to the side of the pack and peeks out over Doubman’s right shoulder.
A lacrosse stick.
“My goal has been to play in every state that I passed,” Doubman said earlier this week in a phone interview around Baker, Calif., on the outskirts of the Mojave Desert. The traffic on Interstate 15 hummed in the background. Doubman could see the Avawatz Mountains in the distance off to his left.
The “epic” journey began on May 17, 2020, when Doubman ceremoniously stepped into the Atlantic Ocean along the shoreline of Lewes, Del. He once reached 42 miles in one day as part of a challenge to hit 100,000 steps in 24 hours, but most days he covers around 20 miles. That puts him on pace to finish in San Francisco near the start of February. Doubman followed the American Discovery Trail most of the way but called an audible around Las Vegas because he did not want to traverse the Sierra Nevada mountains during the winter.
Every morning when he wakes up with the sunrise, he plots out his day’s route on Google Maps. He’s learned to not look at the estimated drive time.
“I’m taking it step by step,” he said.
The trip’s origins stemmed less from a sense of wanderlust (go West, young man) than a desire to honor his father. Keith, 41, was born in South Korea and adopted by John and Barbara Doubman when he was 7 years old.
John Doubman played lacrosse and wrestled at Penn and founded the Harriton (Pa.) high school lacrosse team in 1964. He introduced Keith to the sport and coached him in the Ashbee rec leagues and during the summers. In 2011, Doubman retired from the Insurance Federation of Pennsylvania, where he was the general counsel, after 42 years of practicing law. He was the type of guy who often brought along an agenda of contentious issues when going out with his friends. That kept the conversations lively.
He died in May 2016 at the age of 75 from a rare form of blood cancer.
In lieu of flowers, the family asked that contributions be made in Doubman’s name to two organizations. One was the Kevin Cain Memorial Foundation to provide assistance to local families in their battles against cancer. The other was the First Stick Program of US Lacrosse.
Keith Doubman, with his stick in tow, has taken up the cause.
“When I first started to think about walking to raise money for cancer, I thought I was going to do it for my dad, but I realized that I'm not,” he wrote on the Cancer Research fundraising page he established to coincide with the walk. “I'm doing it for mom, for my siblings, my family, for me and everyone that is fighting cancer at the moment and the loved ones that are going through it with them.”
John and Barbara Doubman met at a wedding while John was still attending Villanova Law School. They got married a year later. They had three children, but after their youngest, David, made a friend in the first grade who was adopted, Barbara felt a similar desire to provide someone else a home.
“I just felt it was something that I needed to do,” Barbara Doubman said. “And my husband agreed with me.”
She felt a lot more hesitant when Keith proposed the idea of the cross-country trek. A Long Island University grad who also played lacrosse and soccer at Lynchburg in the early 2000s, he spent 12 years teaching English in South Korea after college.
“Athletically, he was really gifted and knew the game,” said Lynchburg head men’s lacrosse coach Steve Koudelka. “He was one of the last kids at our school to play two sports like that.”
Doubman also lived in Honolulu more recently and once covered the 550 mile Camino de Santiago, the Way of St. James, in Spain.
But 4,680 miles across the entire United States? During a pandemic?
“No way,” his mom told him. The whole family tried to talk him out of it.
“But he was hellbent and was going to do it anyway,” said Barbara Doubman, who allays some of her fears by tracking Keith’s location on the Life360 app. “We were all a little bit worried, but his experience has been phenomenal. I eat my words almost every day.”
As of this writing, Doubman’s supporters have donated $38,000 to the cancer research institute fundraiser. When he started his journey, he had zero followers on TikTok (@kcdadventure). Now he has over 227,000.
@kcdadventure Day 239. ##california ##barstow ##deaert ##dirty
original sound - Keith
“Gooooood morning,” he starts most of the daily updates through which he chronicles the journey. He started referring to his mission as the “Grateful Walk.”
There are the countless couches he’s been offered to sleep on. The interactions when people tell him he’s an inspiration. Several times he’s posted on TikTok where he’s going to eat, and by the time he goes to pay the bill, he’ll find out one of his followers already took care of it for him.
“The generosity and kindness of people has just been overwhelming and something which I did not expect,” Doubman said.
He remembers the state of Utah, the site of the Premier Lacrosse League’s Championship Series last summer, most vividly because of the scenery. But when it comes to the people, Kansas holds a special place. It took him 30 days to cross the state. He slept in his tent for only three.
During the long days when miles of asphalt or dirt stretch in front of him, Doubman only listens to music when he’s “super bored.” He tries to stay in the moment and enjoy the view. He has a lot of time to think.
“I like to be in my own thoughts and look around and see the beauty of the country,” he said.
He’s tried to play catch in a unique location in each state, whether that’s a large sandstone rock in Utah, an underpass in Missouri, or a sign for the town of La Crosse, Illinois. After he moved back home, he worked at Lacrosse Unlimited and Acme Supermarket on the Main Line for seven months to save up enough money to finance the trip. A STX representative gave Doubman the shaft he attached to a Nike CEO head after he heard about Keith’s plans.
“Lacrosse has played a huge role in my life,” Doubman said. “It’s created strong bonds to family, school and just a love of the sport.”
That’s not to say there haven’t been bumps in the road.
An infection that Doubman said left him “technically blind in my right eye” stalled him for two-and-a-half-weeks while he sought medical treatment around St. Louis. There have been thunderstorms and snowstorms, the likes of which most people only see on the Weather Channel. His tent flooded once.
When he finally had to retire his dad’s old hiking boots after wearing holes through both of the heels, the new pair Doubman bought caused blisters and required him to put up his feet for a couple days.
He’s developed a routine for the times when he feels like giving up.
It goes like this. Doubman sets down his backpack. He takes a couple deep breaths and tries to relax. He takes in his surroundings and considers how lucky he is to be healthy enough to walk across the country. Then he thinks of his supporters and his family.
Especially his dad.
“I know he’s looking down at me,” Doubman said. “It’s those memories and thoughts that keep me going.”