Zoe Oksanen: Pearce be with you
Why critically injured snowboarder Kevin Pearce deserves more respect than ignorant journalism.
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By the time you read this, most of you will know that the young snowboarder Kevin Pearce is tragically lying in a hospital in Utah, having suffered a serious head injury last week while practicing for this week’s Olympic qualifiers.
It’s taken me a few days to think about whether I even felt like writing about this because I am simply so devastated for him and his family that I find it hard to make sense of it all. But in the last couple of days I have seen two things that have driven me to put my thoughts down on paper, and those two things are direct contradictions to each other. They are Christine Brennan and her ignorant interview on ABC news in America and Danny Davis and his winning run in this week’s Olympic Half pipe qualifier in Mammoth Mountain. For me these two things are inextricably linked.
Kevin Pearce, 22, is an incredible athlete. One of the Olympic hopefuls, he is a snowboarder of great integrity, ability and drive. He is also a smart human being full of positive energy and certainly no risk-taking fool. As in any sport, even sports far less “extreme” than snowboarding, serious accidents can happen. Kevin was training in the halfpipe at Park City, Utah when he was knocked unconscious while attempting a cab double cork and suffered a severe traumatic brain injury. He was wearing a helmet at the time. Airlifted to the University of Utah hospital, he has been in a medically induced coma and remains in serious but stable condition.
His accident reached global mainstream news, in large because he was an Olympic hopeful and also as proof of how mainstream snowboarding now is.
But this is where snowboarding seems to suffer compared to most other sports. So few people outside the sport seem to understand it, and yet many feel compelled to discuss the subject as though they are an authority. I can’t think of any other sport where this happens. Have you ever seen a news station feature a journalist outside of Formula One, for example, to give an expert opinion on the sport? Unlikely. So why ABC felt they needed to bring in Christine Brennan, the sports columnist for USA Today, to give the nation her opinion on snowboarding and the sport's progression, is beyond me. Why not reference the US team coach or Jake Burton, to mention just a couple of the people who are not completely ignorant of snowboarding?
Christine’s comments in the interview have angered snowboarders across the world, to the point that there is now even a 'Snowboarders Against Christine Brennan' Facebook page. Check it out and excuse their French – these people are pissed.
Most odd among her comments were that the IOC (International Olympic Committee) are “leaders of this sport,” which is news to any snowboarder considering many choose not to do half pipe at all and the Olympics only featured snowboarding from 1998; that the sport needs to be “reigned in," a mentality that does not apply to progression in skiing, gymnastics, and all the other Olympic sports where injuries are possible; that snowboarding was added to the Olympics “for television ratings,” not, of course, on its merit of being an incredibly technical sport a step or two above curling; and that they should “immediately commission a group of medical experts” to look into what can be done about this. The whole interview was offensive and just plain dumb.
It saddens me that this degree of condescension and lack of understanding of our sport is sought out by huge news networks and relayed to the American public as fact in the name of sensationalism. Professional snowboarding is a sport that requires huge dedication, long periods of time spent away from your family and a commitment to progression that any athlete worth their salt would respect. Moreover, a day-tripping skier runs as much risk of running into a tree as a high level snowboarder does riding the park or pipe wearing a helmet.
This is where Danny Davis steps in to stick a bold finger up at all those who believe the sport will retract because of Kevin’s tragedy. Danny, like Kevin, dedicates his life to a sport he loves and is challenged by, each day. As much as I sometimes secretly wish, only to protect all the professional snowboarders I know and love, that we were all still impressed with a straight air 3 foot out of the pipe, or a 540 in a slopestyle contest, I know that the pursuit of excellence and progression is innate to any sportsman or woman, as it should be.
Danny and Kevin are part of the “Frends” crew; they ride together and are very close friends. Danny visibly rode with Kevin close to his heart in the contest and put down the, nearly perfect, run of his life beating the almost unbeatable Shaun White. He rode with a “Pearce be with you” sticker on his board and a huge symbolic banner for the camaraderie which is intrinsic to the sport and for which it should be hugely respected.
But the most important story here is that of our friend Kevin Pearce who is still lying in hospital in Utah surrounded by his loving family, just taking the first steps on a long road to recovery that so many thousands of people are praying for every day. Kevin may be one of the greatest half pipe riders today and inspire a generation of snowboarders to excel, but what is most inspiring of all about Kevin is that great big smile of his that he shares so generously. I am just one of so many people who cannot wait to see that smile again. Be strong Kevin.
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Pearce be with you (text) by Zoe Oksanen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.Comments (4)
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Her comments would be hilariously funny in there ignorance if it wasn't so insulting.
Tragically, accidents happen everywhere in life, be it on a snowboard or just walking down the street.