by Tina Basich
Good or bad, the image of snowboarding was making an impact on other sports that I didn’t expect. Gaylene Nagel from Sims, who now worked at EA Sports, a video game publisher, called me one day to participate in a promotional gig in Los Angeles for the snowboarding video game SSX. They said that Tiger Woods would be there and EA wanted to know if I would come down and participate. I thought, Of course I would, and maybe, I thought to myself, I could even get to meet Tiger. So I flew into L.A. and spent the night at the Ritz Carlton (EA doesn’t mess around). In the morning the publicist from EA came and picked me up and we went for breakfast before the promotion. Over breakfast I said to her, “I heard that Tiger Woods is going to be at the trade show. Do you think I can get a picture with him? Because I brought my camera.” She looked at me and said, “Honey, has anyone told you what you’re doing today?” I told her I thought it was going to be like a trade show and all the athletes would be there, signing autographs and playing the EA video games. She said, “No, you’re in a photo shoot with Tiger Woods for the front page of USA Today. There is no trade show—the photo shoot is set up in one of the suites upstairs.”
We walked into this room and there was Tiger Woods with all his peeps. I was star-struck and shyly introduced myself. He looked me right in the eye, shook my hand, and said, “So, you’re the pro.” It was one of those stares that make you look away at first. He had such confidence that it filled the room. They sat us chair-to-chair, knee-to-knee, and we each had a video game controller in our hands. We were promoting the snowboarding video game because the Tiger Woods video game was off-season or something, but they still wanted him present. In the background they had the snowboarding game playing on the big-screen TV and the idea was that he and I were supposed to look at each other competitively like we were playing the game.
We were talking to each other while the photographer was getting ready and he asked me a little bit about snowboarding, mentioning that he might try it someday. I told him I’d only been golfing three times before and wasn’t much of a fan of golf, but thought he was excellent. We talked about sponsors and I tried to get him to trade watches with me. I figured his watch was given to him by one of his sponsors and it was much nicer than mine, which I told him I’d give him. I figured he could probably get another one, but he didn’t go for it.
It was already a pretty surprising day, but then the TV show Access Hollywood showed up and they wanted us to play the video game. It was a timed racing snowboarding game and being the freestyler that I am, I was doing tricks while I was racing and joking around like, “Hey, did you see that backflip I just did?” And Tiger would say, “So, what place are you in?” I was always in second. He was not about to let me win even at my own game.
My snapshot with Tiger.
I think he would be good at anything he tried. He’s one of those people who are gifted with talent, which made me think of where talent comes from. Anyone can work out and become strong and get into sports and learn. You can practice and practice and it makes you near perfect. You can learn these movements of your sport and teach your body these motions. So, it’s hard to know where the true talent part comes in. Tiger Woods is the greatest golfer ever. He’s been preparing and programming his body and mind his whole life to perform, and the result is that he’s labeled one of the most talented athletes in the world. I cannot imagine what that would be like. I wondered if in the future there would ever be a snowboarder with that sort of dedication their entire life.
We didn’t get the front page of USA Today, because Matt Damon scooped it from us for some movie promo. But we ended up with a nice full-page article, and I did end up getting my snapshot photo with him in the end.
* * *
happy monkeys
I was honored to be able to work with artist and designer Paul Frank on snowboard graphics and an animated short film. Paul Frank’s artistic talent is a part of who he is. He has an amazing imagination and each of his cartoon caricatures that he creates has a personality and really seems to come to life. His designs for clothing, accessories, furniture, and art creations are his own style—he’d be making them whether other people were into them or not. That’s what I think is a cool thing about Paul Frank.
My cartoon character.
I was asked to be a part of an animated cartoon he created called Julius and Friends. They wrote up a little script and asked me to do a voice-over for the snowboard character with red hair and freckles (me) who went on a snowboarding adventure with Julius the Monkey and his friends. The three-minute short film involved all the animals, including a monkey, raccoon, and giraffe piling onto my snowboard and flying down the hill on one wild ride that leads us into an unexpected encounter with the Shaka Bra Yeti, Paul Frank’s version of the abominable snowman. The cartoon premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2001, which was an amazing thing to be a part of. Lisa Hudson and I went out to Park City, Utah, to see the screening of the cartoon. It was so cool to see it premiering at such a prestigious film festival. The creation was a breath of fresh air amidst all the dark and artsy cartoons out there today. It received Honorable Mention at the festival. From that cartoon came the idea to create snowboard graphics with Paul Frank using his Julius and Friends characters and the little girl with the red hair and freckles.
* * *
* * *
creating a video game character
I was so excited when I was asked to be in a video game as a character. This was in 1999, and at that time, there had never been an “X-treme” action sports game before and having athletes in the game as characters was a new idea. Tony Hawk’s game wasn’t even out yet. I remember Lisa Hudson asked me to come into her office so she could show me to her boss. She said, “This is Tina, she’s a professional athlete, and I think we should put her in a snowboarding game.” Sounds like the normal thing to do, but back then it needed backup. So we brought in professional snowboarder Peter Line. Peter, being the gamer that he is, completely related to the video game developers and talked about ideas that you could do for different levels of riding and different locations. He went on and on…
My video game character.
They went for it. The first snowboarding video game was to be made and called “Pro Boarder.” I imagined them hooking us up with sensors and wires and jumping on trampolines inside a warehouse or somewhere, trying to do tricks. That was not possible because it wouldn’t look right. Lucky for the athletes, some of the video game designers actually snowboarded and knew what was up. They watched videotapes and had us critique all of the steps involved with making tricks in a game. We even did voice-overs for the sound effects. So it’s really my voice saying “Ouch” or “Watch out!”
We did our first promotion of the game out at the Winter X Games in Vermont in 1999. It was the weirdest experience watching kids play my character—when they would crash, they’d look back and say “Sorry, Tina.” I just replied, “It’s OK. It doesn’t hurt.”
* * *
Rooting for Shannon at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Park City, Utah.
Copyright © Cory Cottrell
CHAPTER 16
OLYMPICS
If it weren’t for the X Games getting us publicity, telecasting to 110 million people worldwide, I don’t know if the Olympics would ever have considered snowboarding. We were by far the most outcast sport in the world and definitely didn’t fit into the rigid, old-school format of the Olympic Games. Snowboarders had green hair, multiple piercings, and tattoos. We used words like rip, slash, ally-oop, and indy grabs. The thing was that many countries had snowboarding competitions, which is one of the prerequisites for a sport to become an Olympic event. There was an established World Cup snowboarding tour and it could not be denied that it was a full-fledged business. In the first ten years it had grown 237 percent and up to $82 million in board sales.
The X Games also let the mainstream public see snowboarding. Snowboarding was now popular at ski resorts and it was not out of the ordinary to see all types o
f people out on the hill trying it. The ratio of skiers to snowboarders was almost equal. I thought it was cool to see whole families out snowboarding and kids as young as five learning how to snowboard before they even knew how to ski. Looking around at all the snowboarders at the ski resorts, I couldn’t believe that I used to have to explain what a snowboard was. It gave our sport a huge boost and provided grounds for more commitment from sponsors. It helped establish snowboarding as a legitimate sport and its professionals as legitimate athletes, whether the Olympics thought this or not. When the Olympics finally allowed snowboarding, it was the final seal of approval—snowboarding was something everyone would have to accept. We were mainstream and here to stay.
The first time snowboarding was an event in the Olympics was for the Nagano, Japan, Olympic Games in 1998. I tried out for the halfpipe team, but I was already two years out of competing consistently in the halfpipe. There were only two events available in the 1998 Olympics for snowboarders, which were giant slalom and halfpipe. I was doing well in the slopestyle and had just won the big air in the X Games, but those disciplines weren’t considered for an Olympic event. Timing is everything. I wish snowboarding would have been considered for the Olympics back when I was competing well in the halfpipe on the World Cup tour. I didn’t make the Olympic team but I wasn’t too bummed because I was already moving on to big air. If big air was an Olympic event then, I may have been a medal contender.
Anyway, some of my friends, like professional snowboarder Terje Haakonsen, refused to participate in the Olympics for many reasons, mainly because the Olympics had their own rules and regulations for the sport that were not what we had created in snowboarding. The first reaction to snowboarding in the Olympics was that it would take the soul out of the sport. The thought of coaches, trainers, and uniforms wasn’t what snowboarding was all about. But soon I realized that this could be an opportunity to have our sport recognized as an Olympic event, which fundamentally was considered the pinnacle of sports. This could finally give us the respect we so eagerly longed for in our sport and as athletes. My girlfriend Shannon made the team and won the bronze medal in Nagano and reported that the Olympics was an incredible experience because it brought worldwide athletes from all sorts of disciplines together. It was a different way to communicate other than through governments. Athletes from around the world, representing their countries, could share for two weeks the feeling of sport and being the best athletes they could be. Unfortunately, I think the only thing the world noticed about our sport in the Nagano Games was Ross Rebagliati from Canada, who had his gold medal taken away for a positive drug test. This was blown way out of proportion and the media focused on this incident, again giving snowboarding a bad reputation. It was like, See, those punk kids really didn’t fit in. Although an international arbitration board later voted to return the gold medal to Ross, the message seemed to be that, even with an established event like the Olympics, we were still on our own.
I think snowboarding was different from other sports in the Olympics because of the individual people who were a part of it. I could really tell the difference from my experience of almost becoming an Olympic trainee for gymnastics. In gymnastics, the pressure already existed and it was an established sport in many countries. You knew what the steps were and the competitive pressures it took to overcome to make it to the top. Snowboarding was new and unpredictable. The pressure wasn’t established yet. In snowboarding, a new girl could easily work her way onto the scene and get into competitive series like the Vans Triple Crown of Snowboarding, and make it all the way to the Olympics on her own. Now there’s more pressure to get to the top. Kids look up to Shannon Dunn and her accomplishments in Nagano for what she’s done in the halfpipe. They don’t even know all of the other things she’s done for the sport. These kids can go train in snowboard school with coaches and trainers and take the typical traditional route to the Olympics. From now on, competitive snowboarding will be a different experience with different goals.
Cory and I entering the scaffolding seating at the 2002 Olympics in Park City, Utah.
When the Olympics were coming to the United States in 2002, I knew I had to go watch just to witness the full circle our sport had made. I went to watch the women’s halfpipe with my soon-to-be boyfriend Cory. This was our first date, and we spent the whole morning making “Go for the Gold Shannon” signs. This was the first time I felt like a fan going to support my snowboarding girls. We had to park so far away and walk with the crowds of people through security checkpoints. I remember thinking there was no way all of these people could possibly be here for the snowboarding halfpipe event. When we entered the massive scaffolding seating arena, it hit me: All of these people holding American flags, regardless of whether they knew a single thing about snowboarding or not, were here to support our girls. It was an amazing feeling. I just stared at the half-pipe. It was perfectly shaped. I told Cory the story of my first halfpipe contest at Donner Ski Ranch and I couldn’t believe that this was where it had led to, sitting there with 20,000 other people, cheering on our friends who were competing for the gold medal. I was completely absorbed in it. I got chills when they would call out the competitors’ names and I screamed the whole time holding up my signs. This was history in the making.
Kelly Clark won the gold in the halfpipe, our first U.S. gold of the Games. In the men’s halfpipe the following day, the U.S. guys—Ross Powers, Danny Kass, and J.J. Thomas—would sweep all the top podium spots for the first time in forty-seven years for the USA.
I always feel grateful that I was able to see snowboarding from the beginning and watch it take shape and come full circle at the Olympics. The negative attitude toward snowboarding from Nagano had been erased. Now the world knew what snowboarding was all about. We were truly legitimate athletes.
The photo chosen for the book Gameface.
Copyright © Mark Gallup
CHAPTER 17
GIRLS ROCK
Nadia Comaneci was my only sports hero growing up. One of the few times my parents brought the TV out of the closet was so we could see her performances at the Montreal Olympics and watch a historic moment for women in sports.
Twenty-two years later, in 1998, I was invited to the launch party for Women’s Sports & Fitness magazine in New York, where they were celebrating women in sports. I didn’t know Nadia was going to be there, but there she was, in the same room I was in. I introduced myself and completely fumbled my words and kept saying the same thing over and over, “You’re my hero…I’ve always admired you…you’re my hero…”
Nadia was so nice and we talked for a few minutes. She gave me advice on the importance of sticking with what you love without letting the pressure get to you, and wished me luck with my snowboarding. At the end of the party the magazine introduced all of the athletes and brought them onto the stage. I was so proud to be standing on the same stage with volleyball player Gabriella Reece, surfer Lisa Anderson, professional basketball players, tennis players…and Nadia. I will never forget that moment.
I’d been a professional snowboarder for seventeen years (whether I was considered an athlete or not) and still could not believe the doors that snowboarding continued to open for me. I’d met Nadia, played video games with Tiger, heli-boarded in Alaska, won a gold medal at the X Games. But what I was most proud of was that my little snowboarding event for breast cancer had become an entire nonprofit foundation that has raised more than $1 million to date. The Boarding for Breast Cancer Foundation became something much bigger than ourselves and so it continued. We worked hard and developed traveling educational booths where we taught thousands of young people how to do self breast exams at surfing, skateboarding, snowboarding, and music events. Our message, Early Detection is the Best Prevention, reached so many people that I sometimes have young women come up to me, not to get an autograph, but to say that because of Boarding for Breast Cancer, they learned how to do a self breast exam and caught a lump. It saved their lives.
They
say one person can change the world and I believe that it’s true. Individual women were making great strides through snowboarding and other sports and it was obviously having an effect around the world. But I didn’t realize the incredible struggles that women in general had made in sports history. Like the first woman to swim the English Channel or the women in the early 1900s who pole-vaulted in hoop skirts. In 2001, Jane Gottesman put together this book called Gameface to illustrate through photos and captions what a female athlete looks like, honoring their triumphs and the steps they’ve made in sports. The book represents female athletes of all kinds throughout the last century. I was honored to have one of my photos selected to be in this book. It was an action shot that photographer Mark Gallup had taken of me jumping on my snowboard off of a cliff up in Canada.
Gameface was premiering as a photo exhibition for the launch of the book at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. This museum was something I’d learned about in high school and couldn’t believe that my photo would actually be hanging on its walls. My mom and I bought airline tickets right away and flew out for the opening reception. All of these athletes, young and old, were there representing every sport—swimming, baseball, tennis, roller derby…and snowboarding. Being a part of a historical exhibition at the Smithsonian gave me such an incredible feeling of accomplishment. We walked through the gallery looking at all of the photos of the different female athletes and found my photo on the wall. I was so proud of it as I stood next to it to have my picture taken. My mom was blown away by the whole event. She started crying. I don’t think she realized what an impact snowboarding had made for women in sports, and now I was being recognized as a part of it all.