Tom Sims, RIP
It might sound crazy to some kids, but there once was a time before snowboarding. The first time I slid down a hill sideways on a board was at Boreal Ridge near Lake Tahoe. in the early 1980s. Since I already skated and surfed, I thought I would rip automatically. The reality was I was happy to make if off the ski lift without eating shit. My primitive board was a laminated piece of plywood shaped like a torpedo. Snowboards did not have metal edges yet. Just a couple of small metal fins near the tail. It was crude but it board designed to be ridden on snow. A few years before, it did not even exist.
What we considered ripping back then resembled nothing on the Winter X Games. We were happy with a controlled S-turn and not crashing into the back of the lift line. Nowadays, I watch clips on Youtube and I’m simply blown away by the progression of the sport. For kids these days, it’s just how it’s done. I can only imagine what kids will be doing in the next ten years. I hope that some of the kids might appreciate the fact that in order for anyone to stick a backside rodeo 1440, decades earlier, someone had the where-with-all point a shitty wooden plank down a snow covered hill in the days when no ski resort would allow it. No Youtube clips, no X-games or EA sports to show him how. Just the urge to get rad. Tom Sims was that dude. We owe him a lot of thanks. Respect. RIP Tom Sims.
