Gate Crasher (Cont.) | Outside Online

You Are Here:

Home >> Gate Crasher (Cont.)

Today's Question
What should you do if you run into a cougar in the backcountry? answer

What is the number one backcountry skill people should learn? answer

Today's Question
What are the five best environmental movies of all time? answer

What are the greenest colleges? answer

What kind of dog will make me look manlier? answer
Is there a sport that safely combines my twin passions for guns and kayaks? answer
How come most of the world's cultures enjoy eating goat, but Americans don't? answer

Online Favorites

Special Issues

Photo Galleries

Outside Magazine January 2004

Page:

Gate Crasher (Cont.)


	The unbearable lightness of skiing: Miller rests up in the lobby during the World Cup (Jake Chessum)

FOR YEARS, MILLER'S MENTORS called him "uncoachable," an undisciplined, irresponsible prodigy. But today, at the family-owned Tamarack Tennis Camp, a 45-student operation that his grandparents started as a ski lodge back in the 1940s, he's demonstrating another of his apparent contradictions. He is a superb, patient teacher, though, as one might expect, his methods can be unconventional.

I'm hanging around the camp's 11-court tennis complex on a private-lesson day; Bode has paired off with two students, Matt and Adrian, who are both 13. While other instructors are busy demonstrating their power serves, Miller tries to show the kids what comes so naturally to him, an awareness of his body and what he's doing, as if he were constantly watching himself on video.

"Don't do it Oompa-Loompa style," he tells Adrian, who's practicing his ball toss. Adrian, who's French, looks at him quizzically. "Like this—straight up and down."

Adrian's next serve bloops over the net, but his toss is perfect.

"Yeah!" Miller says. "That's what I'm talking about!"

Suddenly there's a commotion from another court. It's John, a curly-haired, round-faced kid in glasses, who comes stomping down a hill to Miller's court. "He threw his racket," his instructor yells. "I made him run twice, and then he came back and FU'd me."

"You said my serve sucked!" John screams, hot tears streaming down his red face. "I never said that!" the counselor shoots back.

"OK, OK," says Miller. "John, you go over to the other court, and I'll practice some serves with you later on." Mollified, John saunters across the lawn to wait for his moment with Miller.

"My grandfather used to talk about how there was magic in this area," Miller tells me later. "Like, somehow kids could come here and be the most pain-in-the-ass kids, and they'd find shit here that would help them change, help them be who they wanted to be."

In Europe, not surprisingly, Miller is immensely popular with little kids, who follow him around in herds. Here at camp, he's like the biggest kid of all. "He is a kid," Phil McNichol says. "I don't mean to say that he's a child or anything, but the way he carries and handles himself is very childlike. He plays and explores. He doesn't respond well to authority. He doesn't care about what people think. These are all the traits of a young person."

After lunch, the counselor comes up to Miller and asks, "So, what did you do about John?"

Well, nothing, it turns out. "You gotta understand: He's a super-unique kid," Miller explains. "He's not like other kids. And he felt like you weren't watching him. So he was pushing your buttons, but you were also pushing his buttons."

Amazed, the counselor stands there, looking like he's just been hit by a Bode Miller serve.

Miller has a particular soft spot for "super-unique" youth who have a penchant for tweaking authority. When he was 18, he failed to graduate from Carrabassett Valley Academy, in Maine, the private school known for turning out national-caliber skiers, because of a run-in with his English teacher over a 20-page final paper. The paper was fine, but he didn't turn in his outlines and notecards, as required. She was only too glad to fail him, he believes, because he'd already pissed her off by wearing Teva sandals to a school dance.

"She was one of those chicks you do not want to mess with," he says. Now, the school is practically begging him to formally graduate. But he's not a big fan of doing what he's told.

"It's like if you're gonna go out and mow the lawn, but then your brother or sister says, 'Hey, go mow the fuckin' lawn,' "he says. "Then you're like, 'Fuck you—I'm not gonna mow the fuckin' lawn!'"

This attitude almost got him kicked off the U.S. Ski Team after a year, for what Mike Kenney calls "nonconformity." But he stayed, and those older coaches are mostly gone. "Everybody saw the talent early on," says McNichol. "Otherwise he wouldn't be here. He's way too much of a rebel."

Page:

•	Subscribe to Outside and get a FREE Gift!

•	Give the gift of Outside Magazine!

•	Subscribe to Outside Online's free weekly e-mail newsletter featuring gear reviews, fitness advice, galleries, podcasts, and more.