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MAR/APR 2019
Kind of a mix of both. I’ll set goals before camps or comps on what tricks I want to
get or what result I want to get. So I’ll keep the tricks I want to learn in the back of
my mind but a lot of the time I’ll just try to ride and experiment with stuff and gen-
erally I’ll think of new stuff/tricks to try while I’m riding. The US team coaches have
been super helpful with learning new stuff. It’s nice when they video and I can look
at the clip with and see what I did right or wrong. They are pretty good at break-
ing tricks down for me. The biggest thing they do is just give me the extra push to
try something new. More than the coaches though I feed of my riding homies the
most. I’ll see that they are trying a new trick and so it’ll motivate me to try some-
thing new as well. Or work on the same trick with a homie so we both can feed of
each other and get psyched.
Competition can sometimes be confining because of standardized judging
and what the judges are scoring high that day or season. Who is throwing
down unique runs and what are you doing to try to stand out from the field
and get noticed?
Red Gerard definitely stands out for throwing down unique runs. Like in X-Games
he did a switch back 12 off the side hit which was nuts and I think he was the only
one to hit the side hit in the comp. I’m still trying to do the big rotations and ev-
erything but make it look good and use different grabs. On my front 10 I’ve been
grabbing mute for the first part of the trick and then switching to tail for the second
half of the trick. I think stuff like that helps me stand out in the field because it
something different and looks cool.
What do you do to relax? I can’t picture you lying around reading a book. Are
you a video gamer? Are you always doing something high energy like skat-
ing, snowboarding, kiteboarding, jumping off bridges, rope swings, etc?
Yeah haha I’m pretty high energy and always trying to do something but it’s nice
to just chill every once and awhile. Usually to relax I’ll go chill with the homies. I’m
not super into video games but I’ll play some fortnite after a long day of snow-
boarding. I’m pretty trash at fortnite so I’ll usually end up just watching Netflix. I
watch a lot of The Office, haha.
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What advice would you give to an aspiring snowboarders or skateboarder?
Just have fun with it. If you ever feel like your not having fun anymore you need to
change something. As long as your having fun with it you’ll ride well and have no
regrets.
Are you making any plans, do you have any goals, have any aspirations or
are you just living in the moment trying to progress your riding, navigate the
snowboarding world, and reduce outside pressures so you can just have fun?
Kinda just living in the moment trying to take it all in. I mean how many kids my age
get to travel around the world and snowboard in these insane places? I definitely
have some goals, like film a cool video part or do well at a certain event and what
not. But for the most part I’m just trying to have as much fun as I can and I think the
rest will come from that.
Is there anybody you want to thank or give a shout out to?
Huge thank you to my parents for always backing me in everything I do. They saw
that I loved snowboarding from a young age and have fully supported me in it.
Without them backing me in all the ways that they do I would probably just be a
weekend warrior wishing I could snowboard everyday. Huge shoutout to my brother
Tucker as well. We grew up skating and skiing/snowboarding together and always
pushing each other. He has by far had the biggest influence on me. He’s got a
great work ethic and has always pushed me to try new things. Big thanks to all my
sponsors and Hood River community. They have always been so supportive and
helped me out at my fundraisers for my snowboard seasons. Also a huge shout-
out to Rick Millett. He was the first person to coach me, get me really psyched on
snowboarding and see that I had a future in it. As well as big thank you to Coggin
and Alex at MBSEF. They’ve been great coaches and I’ve always had a blast riding
with them.