9781422284216

CHAPTER EXTREME SPORTS’ GREATEST MOMENTS Most American sports involve an athlete doing battle against another athlete, either individually or as part of a team. What makes extreme sports so unique and thrilling is that, more than anything else, they are battles against danger and the elements. Extreme sports like snowboarding, BMX biking, BASE (building, antenna, span, Earth) jumping, skateboarding, snow skiing, parkour, and many more all pit athletes against a combination of unpredictable weather, challenging obstacles, and the limitations of their own abilities. There typically are no coaches, no high school teams, and no community youth programs that support young people interested in these sports, and the inherent danger involved with hitting a halfpipe full bore or tumbling down a mountain at speeds that would be illegal on many American roads are the biggest reasons why. Unlike baseball, football, basketball, or most of the traditional sports enjoyed by millions of American athletes every day, extreme sports are much harder to classify because there simply are so many of them. Tony Hawk pushed skateboarding into the mainstream while Mat Hoffman and Dave Mirra revolutionized the world of freestyle BMX. Shaun White helped to bring snowboarding into the national spotlight. While these action sports are probably the most popular in the genre, there are scores of others, all of which require participants to conquer choppy waters, hilly terrains, frozen mountainsides, or the whipping winds that circle thousands of feet above the surface of the Earth. ESPN’s (the sports-oriented Entertainment and Sports Programming Network’s) 1995 X Games, known then as the Extreme Games, helped to popularize the sports, while the 1999 introduction of the Extreme Sports Channel helped make these events more accessible to fans all over the world. Today, there are tens of millions of young Americans participating in extreme sports, and the numbers keep on rising. With participation in more traditional sports dropping, it is clear the appeal of action sports is drawing people in as they continue to produce electrifying moments for fans. 7 In other words, there are sports, and then there are extreme sports.