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Outside Magazine November 2002

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The Cool Sellout (Cont.)


	Does this metal make me look phat? Danny and J.J. (below) get ready for their Wheaties shoot(Ben Watts).

THREE DAYS LATER, over at the World Quarters in Waterville, all the beer's been drunk and the bonfire's been put out and Shane Flood, a 23-year-old rider from Rhode Island, has been judged the winner. (Rauh took second.) Powers and one of his oldest friends, Frank Knaack, return to the Best Inn in Plymouth, New Hampshire, which is housing all the riders who have migrated from Stratton to Waterville. As they pull in, they're greeted by eight police cars parked helter-skelter in front of the motel. The desk clerk is going door to door with a police escort, kicking out anyone who could pass for a snowboarder. "All ah you guys are pissin' on the walls, pissin' on people's caahs, throwin' beeah cans," she announces. "I can't be playin' favorites; everyone's gotta go."

It's a fitting wrap—and the end of an era. The World Quarterpipe Championships as we know it won't exist this coming season. The folks at Snowboarder are moving it to a ski area near Boston. "We're going to sell out," says senior editor Pat Bridges, a 29-year-old with a husky voice and build who's fond of aviator sunglasses. "We're going to do it up, put on a real stadium event." The plan is to bring in bleachers and bands, and—because they won't be tucked away in the New Hampshire woods—focus more on competition. There will even be prize money.



	(Ben Watts)

"How many years can you keep it real without paying the price?" Bridges asks. "It's weird, you know. Somebody's living in a cardboard box in a ski area parking lot, but they're keeping it real? It's like, C'mon, man, it's big business now. We've done [the World Quarters at Waterville] five years in a row with no lift tickets, no entry fees, no release forms—and that opens everybody involved up to a lawsuit."

Thomas hopes to be there. When I speak to him in late August, he tells me he's been spending time playing golf and rehabilitating from ACL surgery on his right knee, which he blew just before the finals at the U.S. Open. He is excited about his post-Olympic windfall: He scored a character in Activision's new Shaun Palmer's Pro Snowboarder 2 video game, his own pro model from Ride (for which athletes receive somewhere between $10 and $20 for each board sold), and a sponsorship deal from Right Guard Xtreme Sport deodorant. "Hey, everybody's got to wear deodorant," says his agent, Todd Hahn.

Kass's stock has risen as well. He's looking at an economic boost that will take his earnings from $250,000 in 2002 to nearly half a million in 2003. No wonder he whiled away his summer playing video games and riding at Mount Hood, where he was filmed for a new Grenade 16mm release called Full Metal Edges. Clark, ever the go-getter, went surfing in Costa Rica in May, won an ESPY award for action sports athlete of the year in July, and did a lot of training at Hood.

When not traveling for corporate appearances, Powers has been hanging out on Cape Cod with his mother and grandfather and trying to get some work done on his house—an old cob job on 126 acres about half a mile from Stratton that he and his friends gutted and are refurbishing. He's had offers to subdivide the land, which he bought three years ago for $208,000, but he's not interested. Better to have your own motocross track. "Snowboarding's pretty much been my life," he says, "and now to be able to make a living and be kinda secure in doing something that I love to do—it's awesome."

As for the sport's biggest player, at press time Burton Snowboards was in talks with none other than its old rival, the USSA, about a deal to outfit the U.S. Snowboard Team.

This season, all of the medalists plan to do more slopestyle events, which may open the door for up-and-coming halfpipe riders. "This is going to be a fun year, because there's no qualifying for the Olympics," Thomas says. "We weren't raised to go to the Olympics. We just love snowboarding."

That holds true regardless of whether the sport's image gets hijacked by tone-deaf ad men. As with anything that becomes popular in the mass market, snowboarding can—and will—be accused of selling out. It's an inevitability. Funny thing is, nobody's trying to stop it. Do you think Powers, Kass, Thomas, and Clark regret their success? Don't kid yourself.

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