Pubdate: Sun, 27 Jan 2002
Source: New York Times (NY)
Section: Magazine
Copyright: 2002 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Allen St. John
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/testing.htm (Drug Testing)

I'M ON THE OLYMPIC TEAM? BUMMER!

The party is taking off, but Danny Kass is nowhere to be found. At Trax, a 
dance club on a Bend, Ore., highway, a couple hundred snowboarders are 
unwinding while a band called Red i Rider pumps out its own twisted brand 
of rockabilly, a twangy cover of Ice-T's "Cop Killer," the drummer pounding 
out the beat wearing a sequined face mask that's two parts Hannibal Lecter, 
one part Liberace. It's a snowboarder's nirvana -- $1.50 Buds, cute local 
girls and a band so loud you can't hear yourself think.

"It's got kind of a freaky vibe, and it's only going to get freakier after 
it breaks up here and heads to the strip club next door," says Amen Teter, 
general manager of the Palmer Snowboard team. "You won't find a party like 
this at the Olympics."

This Saturday-night party is the social highlight of the Mount Bachelor 
Grand Prix, the third of five qualifying events that will determine which 
American men and women will compete in the halfpipe snowboarding events -- 
in which riders launch themselves out of a 400-foot-long, 15-foot-high 
open-topped snow tunnel, twisting, flipping and spinning as they go -- at 
the Olympic Winter Games starting in Salt Lake City next week.

Most of the riders partying tonight were eliminated in the afternoon's 
qualifying rounds. The finals of the Mount Bachelor event will be held 
early Sunday morning. Since most of the world's top riders are American, 
the field tomorrow will be deeper and the competition tougher than at the 
Olympics, and all remaining contenders have long since waxed their boards 
and tucked themselves safely in bed.

There is, however, one finalist whom everyone expects to see at the party: 
Kass, the best American halfpipe rider, famous for showing up with a 
hangover and winning anyway. But he is conspicuously absent. Other members 
of his posse are here, indulging in cheap beer, lap dances and 
postadolescent pranks; one of them will later fall asleep in their rented 
S.U.V. and wake up to find his sweatshirt on fire. But no Kass.

Did the 19-year-old star find a better party somewhere else? Nope. He, too, 
turned in early. Was this Kass's secret pre-Olympic training regimen? Not 
exactly. "We forgot our ID's," admits Curt Morgan, a young filmmaker and a 
good friend of Kass's, "and we didn't think we'd be able to get into the 
strip club."

Fake id's or not, it's Danny Kass's world, and everyone else is just riding 
in it. As he's loosening up in the ski-area cafeteria the next morning 
before the finals, Kass summons a white-haired volunteer from the 
registration desk.

"Is there drug testing today?" he asks.

"Yes, I think so," the lady replies sweetly.

"Are they testing for S.T.D.'s?"

Kass's joke goes right over her head. "I don't know; I'll go find out," she 
says, as Curt and Danny chuckle conspiratorially on their way out the door.

This weekend's drug testing is just a symptom of the controversy that is 
plaguing the selection process for the United States Olympic snowboard 
team. At its center is a longstanding dispute between the International 
Snowboard Federation, a loose, rider-driven group that runs the most 
popular events in American snowboarding, and the Federation Internationale 
de Ski, or F.I.S., the Swiss-based governing body of international skiing 
that was given authority over Olympic snowboarding by the International 
Olympic Committee.

While most sports have to lobby long and hard to earn Olympic status, the 
I.O.C., seeking to enhance the Winter Games' youth appeal, courted 
snowboarders for the last games, in Nagano, Japan. But the committee 
insisted that riders submit to its rules, and that grated. It tried to 
impose a schedule composed exclusively of F.I.S. events -- in effect, a 
coup against the International Snowboard Federation. When the riders 
rebelled, the committee backed down a bit, requiring F.I.S.-sanctioned 
events only for Olympic qualifying.

The committee also insisted that the riders attend the games as a team, as 
the skiers do. But snowboarding culture is individualistic, a far cry from 
the jockish ski world. The riders' primary allegiance has always been to 
their sponsors, not to a team. The I.O.C. "just doesn't seem to get the 
fact that it's an individual sport," says Jake Burton Carpenter, owner of 
Burton, the world's largest snowboard equipment company and a pioneer of 
the sport.

Snowboarding's debut four years ago at Nagano was less than auspicious. The 
first Olympic snowboarding gold medalist, Ross Rebagliati, was almost 
stripped of his medal after testing positive for marijuana. (It was 
determined that he had merely inhaled secondhand marijuana smoke.) And 
because of this, the weather and more controversial behavior by the 
snowboarders, the sport got only slightly more prime-time coverage than 
curling.

The riders weren't stoked either. Shannon Dunn, who won a bronze medal in 
the women's halfpipe, shudders as she recalls her Olympic culture shock. 
"We had the most hideous outfits: pegged jeans that go above your belly 
button, cheesy cowboy hat, burgundy old-lady pumps," Dunn recalls. "I was 
rooming with Cara-Beth Burnside, and we went to breakfast wearing our own 
clothes. We had done, like, the worst thing. Big taboo. Everyone just 
stared us down. And then the coaches are like: 'You just have to wear the 
outfit. You're on the U.S. Olympic team."'

And the dance continues this time around. Riders resent being forced to 
compete in F.I.S. events, which they loathe for everything from the judging 
to the random drug testing to the lame music played at the halfpipe. To 
have a shot at the Olympic Games, however, they know they have to play 
along. But then, do they really need the Olympic Games?

The Olympics aren't nearly as important to snowboarders as to, say, speed 
skaters, for whom they're the only thing. You won't find any snowboarders 
retiring after winning a medal, and their prime audience of rad teenagers 
cares even less about the Winter Olympics than they do. Nevertheless, the 
riders and their agents understand the potential rewards. While they remain 
dubious about the ultimate payoff, they can't quite escape the idea that an 
Olympic snowboarding gold medal might just put them on a Wheaties box.

The men's finals are about to begin, and Mount Bachelor is blanketed in a 
layer of fog and misty rain that will make this already dangerous sport 
that much riskier. While other riders are talking strategy or fine-tuning 
their boards, Kass is perched on the edge of the halfpipe, playing with the 
remote control on his minidisc player so that just the right music -- Minor 
Threat? Fifteen? Snoop Dogg? Celine Dion? -- will be pumping through his 
camouflage headphones when he drops in for his first finals run. Enveloped 
in a black jacket that looks three sizes too big, the five-foot-seven-inch 
Kass is still the same kid who started riding in baggy jeans at New 
Jersey's Vernon Valley/Great Gorge seven years ago. If he weren't at the 
top in a sport that's white-hot in the marketing world right now, he'd 
probably be just another former class clown, working in a snowboard shop 
for minimum wage. But instead he has a seven-figure income, his own 
glove-and-accessories company with a stable of sponsored riders and a 
bad-boy image that is the envy of any marketer in America. Not bad for a 
guy who only a few years ago was hiking the pipe at Stratton Mountain in 
Vermont so he wouldn't have to pay for a lift ticket.

Whether it's the music, the weather or too much sleep the night before, 
Kass's first run of the finals is decent but uninspired, and he finds 
himself in seventh place. "On a scale of 1 to 10, my stoke level was like a 
2," he says. And as far as the Olympics are concerned, he's playing with 
house money. Riders are selected on the basis of their two best finishes in 
five events leading up to the games. Win twice and you're automatically in. 
Kass already has one victory, so he needs only one more big run to get to 
Salt Lake City.

His second run isn't that, but it demonstrates why he has won virtually 
every big contest he has entered over the last year and is a favorite for 
Olympic gold. He doesn't win; he "sketches out," catching his heel-side 
edge on the lip of the halfpipe on his way down, almost falling and ending 
any chance of a decent score. But instead of just riding it out to the 
bottom, Kass recovers his balance and casually launches a front-side 1080 
- -- three full revolutions 10 feet above the pipe. It's the toughest move in 
snowboarding, and Kass sticks it, even though he lost considerable speed 
when he sketched out. He's the only competitor to complete the move all 
weekend. That one spectacular trick is far from enough, though, and he 
settles for 13th place.

"F.I.S. judging is terrible," he says later, dwelling not on his mediocre 
placing but on the bigger picture. Although he excels in these 
Olympic-style events, where amplitude -- how high a rider can get above the 
lip of the halfpipe -- counts for a lot, he seems vaguely offended at 
having to ride within a system that stifles his creativity.

"They look for height," he explains. "But it should be based on spinning 
and grabs and landings. They'd rather see a guy going 11 feet out and out 
of control, waving his arms around, than someone doing a smooth 9-, 10-foot 
air. It's holding the sport back." Asked if he choreographs his run to 
please the judges, as most other top riders do, Kass just laughs. And then 
realizing that he's gone 30 seconds without making a joke, he adds, "The 
judges like my bigness."

This is not Kass's lucky day. Not only did he blow a chance to nail down an 
Olympic spot (and to collect a $10,000 winner's check), but now the drug 
cops from the United States Ski and Snowboard Association approach him. 
"Your bib number was randomed," says Melinda Roalstad, the association's 
medical director.

"How random was it?" Kass asks snarkily.

Roalstad assigns a volunteer to escort Kass to the drug-testing station. 
"If you ski away from him, it'll be considered a positive test," she warns.

"I have passed multiple drug tests," says Kass, his voice dripping with 
sarcasm. "I'm high on adrenaline. And blood doping."

But drug tests are no joke, and there's always the chance of being set up 
by unscrupulous or vindictive opponents. "We tell them to be suspicious of 
open bottles," says Kass's chaperone for the drug test, Chris Orlich. "One 
of the other competitors says, 'Here, drink this,' and you end up with a 
positive drug test."

When Kass is finally ready, the sport's biggest star takes a few running 
steps and slides down the hill to the testing area in just his snowboard 
boots, like a kid on a snow day. "Dude," Morgan, who is carrying Kass's 
board, calls after him. "Did you know your bindings are broken?"

Kass's dismissiveness toward the Olympics may be genuine, but he can hardly 
afford to be any other way. His rebel persona has made him the biggest star 
on the circuit, a hero with the "core" (short for hardcore) part of the 
snowboard industry, which is skeptical of any rider who even appears to 
sell out. Going to the Olympics, or seeming to care too much about going to 
the Olympics, could actually hurt Kass with the core fans.

While he'll never be confused with Bill Gates, Kass is also a teenage 
entrepreneur and proud of it. In an industry where image is everything, his 
glove company, Grenade, is quick to trade on the Kass name. Morgan has been 
carrying his Arriflex around all winter, following Kass and the rest of the 
Grenade crew, and the resulting film should prove to be a huge seller and a 
monster promotional tool.

At the same time, the filming is far from all business. "We've been doing 
kid stuff like getting wasted, puking on ourselves, picking up chicks," 
says Kass of the season-long road trip. He delights in telling about 
dodging local cops on the way to Mount Bachelor as they tried to film 
skateboard-style tricks on the railings at a school building and then left 
behind a spray-painted Grenade logo. And of course, the joke is on the rest 
of us, too -- the spray paint is tax-deductible.

Indeed, thanks to riders like Kass, brilliant in the halfpipe, party 
animals out of it, snowboarding was the fastest-growing sport in America 
last year, boasting a 50 percent increase in participants at a time when 
most other sports were shrinking. And within the desirable 
12-to-22-year-old Gen Y demographic, Kass is a bigger star than, say, 
Michelle Kwan. Just ask Kyle Getty, a 15-year-old fan. "If the Olympics and 
the X Games were on at the same time, I'd watch the X Games," he says while 
watching Kass's run.

To the snowboard industry, the message is clear. "The Olympics need 
snowboarding more than snowboarding needs the Olympics," argues Burton's 
vice president for marketing, Dave Schriber.

But other riders aren't so certain about that, and they aren't nearly as 
casual about the Olympics as Kass is. Sure, they also complain about the 
qualifying process and the rules on teams and dress. But they've also got 
sponsorship obligations with mainstream companies, which crave the 
prime-time television exposure that will come only with a medal in Salt 
Lake City.

The 1998 Olympic bronze medalist Ross Powers, who has clinched a spot on 
the Olympic team, is paid to wear Polo Ralph Lauren's sleek, chic RLX 
clothing line, while Rob Kingwell, who just missed out on an Olympic berth, 
has been seen on a billboard over Niketown in San Francisco. Tricia Byrnes, 
a savvy veteran, is featured in a series of United Airlines ads.

Outside the ski patrol building, Kass's place in the sport's pecking order 
is obvious. Andrew Burton, 15, a local snowboarder, who waits an hour and a 
half for Kass to emerge from his drug test, scores a carefully inscribed 
autograph, a Grenade hat and a handful of stickers.

"That's tight, dude," Andrew says with thinly disguised awe.

Kass is Andrew's favorite rider, but not because he might win an Olympic 
medal. "Snowboarding has always been a rebel sport, a sport for outsiders," 
Andrew explains. "I don't think it should be in the Olympics. A lot of 
great riders aren't going to be there."

Going to the Olympics isn't the only way to get rich in snowboarding. There 
is a whole generation of riders who take Kass's indifference to another 
level and won't compete in contests at all. Magazines like Transworld 
Snowboarding and Snowboarder, as well as dozens of low-budget snowboard 
videos, allow riders to build a following with 15-second clips of wild 
stunts, like riding on the roof of a house or jumping giant cliffs in the 
back country. "Kids pass the magazines around, watch the videos over and 
over," says Bill Carter, president of Fuse, a Burlington, Vt., marketing 
firm. "It was virus marketing before there was such a thing."

Indeed, Terje Haakonsen of Norway, the man generally considered the world's 
best halfpipe rider, boycotted Nagano and plans to do the same this year. 
While he's openly critical of the greed and nationalism of the Olympic 
process -- he compares the former I.O.C. president, Juan Antonio Samaranch, 
to Al Capone and calls F.I.S. officials "ski Nazis" -- Haakonsen is careful 
not to put down the riders who are going to Salt Lake. His prime sponsor, 
Burton, also sponsors many top Olympic hopefuls, including Shannon Dunn and 
Ross Powers. "Snowboarders feel that we've never been waving any flags; 
we've been waving our boards," he says in broken English.

The wary courtship between snowboarding and the Olympics manifests itself 
in the season's most delicious, and fanciful, rumor. The buzz on the hill 
is that Haakonsen is planning to sneak into Salt Lake City anonymously, 
borrow a bib from a friend, poach the pipe, launch the biggest air of the 
day and then ride off into the back country.

Kass has passed his drug test ("I think it'd be cooler to get busted at the 
Olympics than before"), and he retreats to the ski lodge cafeteria. Over 
lunch, Kass and his Grenade posse sound as if they're auditioning for a 
Farrelly brothers movie. An NC-17-rated rant about the drug cops morphs 
into a discussion of the effects of large quantities of the energy drink 
Red Bull on the digestive tract.

As Kass takes a breath from free-associating to wolf down some chicken 
strips and a Dr Pepper, his cell phone rings. Kass, who is notorious for 
ignoring phone calls, checks his caller ID.

"It's my dad," he says casually. "I woonnn," he shouts into the phone.

"Really?" Dad says.

"Noooooo." Kass delivers the punch line and proceeds to give his father the 
abridged version of the morning's events.

"My parents want me to go to the Olympics," he says. "They weren't too 
psyched when I told them I wasn't going to go to high school anymore. They 
think I probably wasn't going to make anything of myself."

Kass isn't quite as excited as Mom and Dad, but now, even he is beginning 
to warm to the idea. "I think the Olympics are pretty crazy. I'd be stoked 
to go, but I'm not really setting my whole life on it, because I've only 
been trying to go for a few months now," he says. "I'm looking forward to 
the Swedish cross-country-skier girls."

Snowboarding's pre-Olympic circus rolls on to Breckenridge, Colo., where 
Kass eventually clinches his spot on the Olympic team, though just barely. 
And with that, he and his entourage begin to set their sights on the coming 
games.

"I can see it now," says Morgan, half-seriously. "Danny'll put on some 
Fifteen and drop in. The crop dusters will be flying over spraying anthrax, 
the bombs are dropping, and in the midst of it all, he'll be doing a cab 1080."

Kass laughs so hard he almost spits Dr Pepper up his nose. What would he do 
if he won a gold medal? "I'd probably celebrate by running down to my 
family, who's all going to be there," he deadpans. "Or maybe a two-year 
drug binge."

"The Olympics stink," Morgan smirks, "for people who can't get to the 
Olympics."
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