Ben Watts
Forget that Watts picked
up a Nike skate sponsorship when he was nine and was beating 20-year-olds the following year. The Bend, Oregon, native insists
he was made for snowboarding. "Even when I'm skating," he says, "I like to find lines at the park that make me feel like I'm snowboarding." His mom bought him a secondhand snowboard when he was seven, and the next season he won the first competition he entered. Last spring, at 13, he snagged his most impressive victory to date, the all-ages USA Snowboard Association's national championship in freestyle. He'll be visible this fall as one of the youngest athletes featured in the new Warren Miller flick, Playground.