A new plan...

For those that know, know - I think this is appropriate for people who are ready to start candidly talking about the state of the sport.
photo 'borrowed' from Adam Haynes

I unitentionally figured out what this was all about about a week ago. I was talking to my friend Seth in Vermont and said something along the lines of, "The death of my aspiratons for the sport gave birth to a new dream for snowboarding." The conversation that led to that point was long, but the takeaway was in the summary. Let me explain.

"We cannot seek achievement for ourselves and forget about progress and prosperity for our community... Our ambitions must be broad enough to include the aspirations and needs of others, for their sakes and for our own."
- Cesar Chavez

A week or so before that, I had dinner with my old friend Pat the eYe - as always the conversation quickly steered to snowboarding. Its funny - Pat and I worked closely together for many years and in many respects, share the same core values in the sport. Ultimately, growth is good. More participants = more jobs for snowboarders in the sport. A good thing for riders like us. Unfortunately, we both had snowboarding in the Olympics pegged wrong - we both agreed, that inclusion in the Olympics and the burning media light that comes with it would catapult snowboarding participation forward, and if we were lucky, continue the rapid, radical growth we saw snowboarding enjoy for a majority of the past 25 years. That has yet to happen. In fact, hardgood sales continue to falter as Shaun White's name is murmured across the lips of hardworking Americans everywhere. Instead of prompting a gold rush of greyhounds whisking new riders to resort towns, it gave us 'The Shaun White.' The ubiquitous 'snowboard dude.' Without doubt, Shaun is the most well know represenitive the sport has ever known.
That, however, doesn't make him the sports best.

"If a man loves the labour of his trade, apart from any question of success or fame, the gods have called him."
- Robert Louis Stevenson

It seems like every time I bring up the fact that I am involved in snowboarding, Shaun White's name comes up. That doesn't really bother me. I think that his fame is well deserved - where I find issue, is what he does with that fame - it isn't pimped out heli trips for his entire family, or a worldwide tour of resorts that want to name runs after him - instead he has taken a swan dive into the armpit of notoriety, partying away his balmy nights in the seedy clubs that line Hollywood Boulevard. That isn't what a snowboarder would do, is it?

"Fame is empowering. My mistake was that I thought I would instinctively know how to handle it. But there's no manual, no training course."
- Charlie Sheen

Instead of jumping back on the media hamster wheel to churn out another seasons worth of snowboarding content, I figured it is time to do some real genuine soul searching - to look inside myself, through the sport that has defined me and try to find some sort of clarity to the big questions. Why have I spent 25 years chasing winter around the world? Why isn't the Olympics having a positive impact on the sport? What is it to be a snowboarder anyway?

Well, I have a few months to chew on the answers, before Tailgate Alaska rolls around again.