Jesse Csincsak, the nation’s most ineligible bachelor, zoomed to fame faster than he zooms down the snow-covered Rocky Mountains on his snowboards.

On Monday, the day “The Bachelorette” DeAnna Pappas picked the 26-year-old Amherst Steele grad to be her wedded husband, the words “Jesse Csincsak” were Googled so often that they earned a hotness rating of “volcanic” on the monstrous search engine.

Quite an achievement for a guy who grew up on Tarry Lane in Amherst and trained to be an electrician at Lorain County Vocational School before graduating from Steele in 2001. From there, he moved to Colorado with $500 in his pocket.

“It’s funny,” Csincsak said from his home in Breckenridge, Colo., Tuesday. “I was invited to be in a celebrity golf tournament, and I told them I’m not a celebrity and I don’t play golf.”

But when they told him that he could just come and hang out, he went.

Csincsak talked about the road he took that made him famous, even though he doesn’t feel as if he is.

He said his cousin, Heather Csincsak, another Steele graduate, submitted his name to be on the popular ABC-TV reality show.

“I was just going to go on and have a good time,” he said. “I never thought anything would become of it.”

But in the course of about eight weeks — at the beginning of which there were 25 bachelors for Pappas to choose from — Csincsak managed to win the heart of “The Bachelorette” by just being himself.

He looked and acted nothing like the other 24 bachelors. They wore suits and looked as if they had just stepped out of a barber chair; Csincsak wore casual clothing and frequently had to brush his chin-length hair out of his face.

“When I went on, I wanted to be myself. I’m not an actor,” Csincsak said. “I’m just a kid from small-town America.”

“He’s been like that since he was 8 years old,” said lifelong friend Joe Falbo, a bailiff for Lorain County Common Pleas Court Judge Raymond Ewers. “If he feels like wearing something, he’ll wear it.

“He went out there and let it happen. After a while, his long hair and craziness start to grow on you,” Falbo said.

In the beginning episodes, Csincsak seemed to have an almost cavalier attitude about the whole thing, while the other guys were falling all over themselves gushing over Pappas, a Georgia real-estate agent.

“I was scared,” Csincsak said.

It was only after he took the raven-haired beauty to his Breckenridge home to meet his parents — and they fell in love with her — that he realized how much he cared about her.

“I’ve never been in love before,” he said.

Did he think he had a shot?

“At that point, there were only three guys left. I knew she had to feel something for me,” he said.

The final episode was taped on May 9, although it didn’t air until this week. His parents — Csincsak is an only child — and Falbo were in the audience when Pappas made her decision. Then Csincsak proposed to her, and she accepted.

That’s the reason, Csincsak said, that they chose May 9, 2009, as their wedding day. It will be a year to the day that he proposed to her.

After they are married, they plan to spend winters in Colorado — Csincsak has two houses in Summit County, Colo. — and summers in Georgia.

“It’s great to see it happen,” Falbo said. “It seems genuine, and it’s not just on TV. They just look at each other the right way.”

What about the three bachelors who seemed the odds-on favorites — Graham, Jeremy and Jason?

“Jason was definitely my favorite,” Csincsak said. “I can see us being friends for life. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he is in the audience when we get married.

“I sent his son, Ty, a pair of Nikes with pink shoelaces like the ones I wore,” Csincsak said.

The chosen bachelor isn’t saying much about the string of broken hearts he has left along the way to meeting Pappas.

He had a girlfriend in Colorado for a couple of years, but they broke up.

“We just grew apart,” he said.

And then there was his junior high sweetheart, Janine Feldkamp, of Lorain.

But her heart doesn’t seem to be broken. In fact, she can hardly remember anything about him from those days.

“That was so long ago,” she said. “Everybody was different back then. Everybody was just trying to find their place in life.”

Sure seems as if Csincsak has gotten a whole lot more memorable as he’s gotten older.

Contact Patti Ewald at 329-7142 or pewald@chroniclet.com.

 

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