Jack Sanders

As a kid, I would always look forward to the last weekend in January because it meant fires, hot chocolate, and most importantly, the Winter X Games. I made sure I was well rested to stay up late for my favorite event, the snowboard half pipe. The event always aired late on Saturday night which meant it brought the biggest crowd and most excitement. I would watch professionals like Shaun White do crazy tricks and I told my dad, "I want to be like them." So last winter, he finally caved and took my family out to Colorado for a skiing/snowboarding trip. I had hit the promise lands and the first thing I did when I got strapped into my board was fall right on my butt. Which was the same result for much of the trip. The professionals don’t do the sport justice for how hard it is just to get down the mountain. Constantly wiping out and getting back up just to fall back down. This failure just drove me to want to be even better at snowboarding. So, I kept trying and by the third day I had mustered the courage to go on a ramp. It felt like I was flying and to my surprise, I landed it. After looking at the video, I saw that I might have gotten 6 inches off the ground. However, this did not change the fact that I felt like the professionals I grew up admiring.