It took a U.S. Snowboard Team member's stolen boots to jump-start former Olympian Mike Jacoby out of a self-imposed exile from competitive riding.
One of the original young rascals who helped pioneer American snowboarding, the "Joker" quit the World Cup and Grand Prix tours after the U.S. nationals in April 1999. He didn't know when he'd don a racing bib again.
Since he started competing as a high school senior, Jacoby, 31, has won everything there is to win on both alpine and freestyle boards, except a medal at the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano.
Jacoby did it all in the early days — halfpipe, giant slalom, boardercross. He was the first rider to do a 540-degree spin in the pipe while planting one or both hands on the lip of the wall. The trick became known as the J-Tear Air.
But the leader of the sport's merry band was tired after 13 years of nonstop snowboarding, and his equipment was growing old. He needed some down time. He needed a new scene.
"I'd gone all the way through to the Olympics without having any time off. All of a sudden it was like, you know, I'm not going to make it to 2002 if I don't take a break," Jacoby said in an interview in Whistler, British Columbia.
Jacoby spent his time away from the snow (he did do some free riding last winter and also shot a couple of commercials that featured snowboarding) mostly on the water or in the air. He traded his snowboard for a surfboard, taking on breakers from Oregon to Costa Rica. He also spent time honing his flying skills as a private pilot. He learned Spanish.
And then the telephone rang in mid-December at his Hood River, Ore., home. Former U.S. snowboard teammate and fellow Hood River resident Anton Pogue asked Jacoby to bring him some new boots for a World Cup meet at Whistler.
Jacoby had just returned from Costa Rica. "It was kind of chilly. I really didn't feel like getting out in the cold even though I really wanted to start snowboarding. I kept saying I was going to make a comeback," he said, adding lack of his own up-to-date equipment was among the things holding him back.
So, he made the eight-hour drive north, pushing on even after his car overheated near Seattle.
Pogue, Chris Klug, Jeff Greenwood and other U.S. riders who had told Jacoby to "get his butt in gear" set him up with a board and boots and bindings. He put on a racing bib for the giant slalom, number V4, signifying him as the fourth forerunner on the course. Four to six riders run the course to check it prior to the official start.
"It felt good," Jacoby said as he crossed the finish line wearing hard boots and riding a slalom board for the first time in 18 months. He plans to enter some meets this season and then try to qualify for the Olympic team next season.
Jacoby dreamed of winning an Olympic medal long before snowboarding was even part of the Winter Games. He doesn't want his shot in Nagano to be his last one.
"My Olympic experience was awesome," he said. "But I messed up. I didn't bring home the medal."
Jacoby blew a turn on his first run and wasn't able to make up the lost time on his second run. He said it took two months to figure out what he did wrong.
And it has taken 18 months to figure out that it's time to buckle up a pair of hard boots and get on the slalom board again.
E-mail: romboy@desnews.com