WE ALL KNOW that the great American philosopher Mr. Bacharach, father of Sharky, put it best when he said: Love, sweet love. It's the only thing that there's just too little of. But why, if we truly love our kids, do any of us encourage these competitions?

I remember three years ago, sitting in the bleachers at the nationals in Angel Fire on a blazing-hot day and watching the slopestyle warm-ups. In one hour, I witnessed a series of injuries happen, one after another, with these poor young test pilots crumpled on the sticky snow right in front of me, half conscious and already out of the competition before it had even begun. My better instincts told me I shouldn't watch this carnage, but I couldn't help myself. It was a little bit NASCAR, a little bit roller derby, a little bit Colosseum lions eating slaves.

Multiple injuries in one hour! Most of them resulting in stretchers and medics. Here comes a champ from New Hampshire—whoa! Snapped collarbone. Now here comes the little menehune from Alaska—eeewww! Broken pelvis? And now the lady shredder from Michigan—wham! Cracked vertebrae, broken collarbone? "Do you know what day it is? Who's the president?" Dilated pupils, pools of kiddie vomit on the snow. By week's end, the scene was an orthopedic surgeon's dream: A great clinking clatter of crutches as throngs of Percocet-happy kids milled about the resort in slings, casts, neck braces, and other badges of daredevilish honor.

So, yes, we snowboard dads are crazy as hell and probably should be rounded up by Health and Human Services. All I can say is their little bones mend fast and after they down 12 ibuprofens (Vitamin I, as we like to call it), you'd be amazed by how much pain they can ride through.

The truth is, Air Mack's never been seriously hurt on a snowboard—knock on fiberglass. He never tries anything he's not already sure he can pull off, and that incremental sense of caution has seen me through many hours of what would otherwise be extremely anxious spectating.

In fact, the only real injury in our family related to McCall's snowboarding was mine. In 2002, I went to watch him compete in the nationals, at Mammoth Mountain—his first national competition, when he was nine. One early morning before his first slopestyle run, I went up to ski an irresistible-looking double diamond called Drop Out Chutes, a rocky groove that spills from Mammoth's high cornice. It's a run, I was later told, that enjoys a rather gothic reputation for mangling skiers. I slipped on a sheet of ice and pinwheeled several hundred feet down the sheer slope. I broke my arm and wrecked my shoulder, and the EMT, who pulled me down the mountain right past McCall's competition, said I was in shock with a probable concussion.

The next thing I knew, I was in the Mammoth emergency room, and there was McCall standing over me, looking very confused.

"Dad, I was the one who was supposed to get hurt. It was scary—Mom said they actually saw you strapped to one of those sleds!"