SCOTT DOWNEY

NK: You stepped on a skateboard 46 years ago, (in New Jersey for Crying Out Loud) How did it change your life? Have you ever looked back and thought, if I never would have started skateboarding what would my life be like today?

SD: Man..you got it. That’s exactly how it happened. My brother Todd brought home from the local hobby shop in Rahway, a Nash, mahogany, loose ball bearing, clay wheel setup. He bought it for a sneezly 16 buck’s!! But back then that was a lot of money for us….we were not well off. I was standing in the doorway in between the kitchen and the dining room. I said “where did you get that”? He handed it to me. I flipped it over and checked out the trucks and how they articulated. I was fascinated. I set it down on the carpet and “stepped on it” while holding the door jambs. No joke...that was it...I was hooked!!!! From there I took apart a roller skate and mounted it to a piece of perch wood. I would ride that board back and forth to my girlfriend’s house. Talk about sketchy...steel wheels and pavement. Talk about an oxymoron, haha. Soon after that, I hit that same hobby shop and layed down 22 bucks for a plywood board with roller derby urethane loose ball bearing wheels. It was a long time ago but these few months really set my obsession with skateboarding in motion. I tried all the usual curricular sports like football and baseball but I realized early on that I just wasn’t into someone dropping the ball and losing the game for the whole team. I wanted to be in an activity where I didn’t have to rely on others. If I messed up then it was my fault and there was no one else to blame but myself. This really helped me to stay focused, practice, and show up. We skated ALL the time. Hours and Hours every day even in the harsh east coast winters. This led to riding Snurfers (early snowboards) which led to surfing and snowboarding.

NK: Why did you start skating, was it teen angst? Were you rebelling from something? Did you have a crew that you rolled with back in (Rahway, New Jersey)?

SD: I started in 1974. I had a lot of anxiety as a kid and skateboarding really helped with that. But really, I just wanted to do my own thing. As any skater knows, the reward of getting a new trick after hours or days of trying was so satisfying. We did mostly freestyle. Head stands, handstands, 360’s, high jumps and all the variations of wheelies. Stuff like that. We would hit the skateparks as often as we could. I would build ramps that were portable so we could wheel them across the street from my house to

Photos Courtesy of Scott Downey

a paved area. I would make the ramps adjustable for different angles. We would skate local ditches. Now and then we were blessed with a backyard pool. Few and far between in NJ. Everything back then was about gettin “radical” and having good style. Our little immediate crew consisted of my 2 brothers Todd and Brett and a couple kids from the neighborhood, Scott Holt and Timmy Avalose. We also skated with Evan Feen and all the Feen brothers, Pete Meridith, Bill Peterson and Dan Eckert. These guys were into pools and ramps and bombing hills.

NK: You got good at skateboarding quickly. Was it a combination of your athleticism and desire to conquer your new love of the skate lifestyle?

SD: I was a kid and I didn’t know what the word athleticism was. I don’t think skateboarding was a lifestyle yet back then... At least not in NJ. It was just so new. We just wanted to skate and learn new tricks. That’s all we would talk about. Over and over. One night at the mandatory Sunday dinner with family, my brothers and I were talking about skating and finally drove my mother nuts!! She slammed her fists down on the table and yelled at the top of her lungs; “skating this, skating that..SHUT UP ALREADY, stop I can’t take it anymore.” She got up and drove away for hours. We were all stunned just sitting there with forks in hand thinkin what the hell happened to Mom. I look back and get it now. Sorry Mom.

NK: How did you get recognized for your skating? And how did you get on the original Pepsi Demo Team? What year was the team formed? Did you actually get paid?

SD: We would go to contests a lot and do really well. My first contest was in Toms River, NJ in 1976. It was also a team tryout for Grogs Surf Palace, a surf shop down at the Jersey shore. I was so nervous the night before, I couldn’t sleep at all. I was trashed before we even got on the road. I won that contest and also made the team. That was my first sponsor. We would

also go to The Monster Bowl, Casino Arena, Oakhurst, Vineland, Fiber Ryder and Cherryhill Skate parks. They would have contests there and that’s how we got to know other skaters and where the next event was. The Pepsi team kinda happened by accident. I was on a trip to the Poconos with my family. I had all my skateboards with me because I heard there was a Pepsi Team tryout at Great Gorge Resort in Vernon Valley, and it was on my way home. I thought how dumb/corny is that. I stopped by to see what all the hype was about. They were only hiring one person. I watched for a bit and got stoked and I really just wanted to skate with other people. I didn’t even try out. I was just skating with everyone and they asked if I wanted to be on the team. I think this was the summer of 1977. I was framing houses at the time for $5.00 an hour. I told my boss I wanted a 50 cent raise per hour or I quit because I was offered a job as a professional skateboarder. I guess he didn’t take me seriously. He didn’t give me the raise. Pepsi sent a huge box of clothes and other promo stuff and off we went. I got paid $20.00 per demo and $25.00 a day per diem for gas and lunch. We did demos all over the north east coast. MA, CT, NJ, NY, and NYC. We would do all the PS schools in sketchy neighborhoods like Jackson Heights Queens, and Bedford Stuyvesant Brooklyn. They confiscated a handgun from one of the kids prior to the assembly/demo. Of course they told us this after the Demo. We had our PA system stolen, were bombed with snowballs, and received many double parking tickets. This was back in the 70’s when NY City was the real deal. The highlight of these demo’s was when I looked at the list of stops. On that list was the my old grammar school and high school. The same schools where the teachers told me I was going “nowhere with skateboarding.” I tried to be cool about it but I couldn’t wait to show them that they were wrong.

NK: Did Coke have a demo team that the Pepsi Team battled at competitions? Or did you just go around and do your own demos for Pepsi?

SD: No...No Coke team, no battles. That would have been cool though. They would set up a taste test and I would be standing there in my Pepsi outfit and choosing coke every time, lol. We did safety demonstrations. It was a skit format about this guy “Joe Cool” that didn’t wear safety equipment. He was “to cool” for that. Then we came along and hooked him up with pads and a helmet. Yeah it was teaching about skateboard safety but it really was about selling Pepsi to kids. Hahaha, we would run through our routines and tricks. At the end we would line kids up next to each other on the gym floor. I would push off on my skateboard and get lots of speed and jump over the kids from one board to a waiting board, then skate away. We would have ten kids lined up and deliberately miss a jump, fall and skid away. Then we would make an announcement, “Let’s see...who can we put out here now…...Hmmm. How about the principal?” The place would go NUTS!!! If you can picture it, we would have ten or twelve kids all lined up and at the very end is the principal on his back with his big belly stickin’ up in the air. These kids were loosin’ their minds. They really wanted us to land on their principal. I would again miss the first jump to build suspense then take a final jump and clear them all. Very fun times!!

NK: What was your first snowboarding experience like? Did someone introduce it to you? What year was it? Where did you go riding? Did some of your skate friends from Rahway also learn to snowboard?

SD: When N.J. would get snow we would break out the Snurfer. 74-75 winter was the first time. We just thought we were skating/surfing on the snow. We would make jumps out of plywood with packed snow on it. Snurfers didn’t turn, so we would just point it. And if we made it to the jump we would fly off the end and crack the tail on the Snurfer. They were only like 15 bucks back then. I still have that same one I first rode back then. It was modified at some point with a bicycle inner tube to hold my feet on and I also installed some aluminum fins on the tail. One on each side. Little did I know, this was the early start of designing things to make them better. I also cut up some old ice skate blades and made these little blades with holes in them so I could mount them on the axles of my skate trucks where the wheels would normally be. I made a leather toe cup for my kicking foot with nails in it. That would give me traction on the ice to kick and ride the ice board. I also made a skate car with really wide trucks, big wheels and a brake. We would lay down in it and someone would close the top and off we would go. We would see all these things in Skateboard mag and make them ourselves.

NK: Being from the east coast how did you get recognized by the Sims Snowboard Team that was based in California?

SD: I saw the first Burton Video in a ski shop in N.J. The one where they hijack the chopper and the whole team heads off to the Ruby mountains in Nevada. Epic!!! The shop had Burton boards and clothing, so I bought an Elite 150, a Woody, a one piece suit, and matching gloves. I headed for the hills of the local golf courses. That’s where I really learned to turn on the snow. I moved to Colorado in 1985. We would chip in for gas and run shuttles at Loveland Pass. That’s where I met all the UCB (ultimate

control boards) guys and Steve Link and all the Summit County Snowboarders. Spring of 86, I entered the Swatch World Snowboard Championships thinking I was gonna take the whole thing only to get my ass whooped. It was such a great time back then. I just remember everyone being so STOKED!! The following winter at the Legendary Mount Baker Banked Slalom, I was in the bar and Joel Gomez from Sessions said, “Downey get upstairs the New Sims video is playing and you’re on the team.” Tom Sims was a skate hero of mine back in the 70’s so you can only imagine how stoked I was.

NK: When and who gave you the nickname “upsideDowney”? What does it mean?

SD: That name was given to me by Scott Clum. He was a team rider, but more importantly he was the graphic artist who designed all the logos, stickers, boards, and clothing for Sims. He did a team ad where I was doing a handplant on a log that was placed at the lip of the halfpipe and the ad said…. Scott “UpsideDowney” Team Sims. That’s the first time I ever saw it. We are still great friends. Scott is a long time Cal/Oregon shredder and we still skate together often.

NK: At what point did you decide that you needed to be out west to begin the professional snowboard part of your career. Where did you live?

SD: There was no plan really other than wanting to get outta NJ. I knew it was a dead end road for me to stay there. I wanted to see the world. I started with Colorado. I moved to Evergreen and then worked my way to Summit County, then to Crested Butte. I pretty much went to whatever area would sponsor me and pay for my season ticket.

NK: Who were some of the snowboard crew who you first rode with out west? Did you need a regular job or was snowboarding supporting your ability to just ride?

SD: I first met Butch Bendel from UCB Snowboards at Loveland pass. We learned frontside 360’s off this jump waiting for the shuttle to pick us up to go back up to the top. In 1985 ski areas were not open to snowboards yet. I met Steve Link from Summit Snowboard’s, Kerri Hanon, Dave Alden, Brad Reaser, and Lori Gibbs. They were Breckenridge locals. Some others were Kevin Delany, the Papas brothers, and all the Boulder guys. John Calkins from this mysterious place in Oregon I never heard of...Mount Bachelor. Evan Feen and I were roommates my first year in Breck, but the person I hung out with the most was Shawn Farmer. I met Shawn at Steve Link’s house at 6 A.M. the morning of the Aspen downhill event one week before the Swatch World’s. The Aspen downhill is where I would meet all the Burton guys and girls from that much inspiring Burton Video back in NJ, years earlier. Farmer and I would ride all the backcountry spots. We would build kickers, do high speed pow runs and video all of it. When the ski areas started to open we would ride all day, every day. In the beginning I would go back to NJ in the summer to make enough money to ride all winter and not have to work. Eventually between Sorel and all my other sponsors I could piece together a decent living just from snowboarding.

NK: What was the competition scene like early on? Was it similar to skateboarding? Were you able to find enough places to skate while spending so much time in the mountains?

SD: The early snowboard comps were outta control. Everyone was so stoked!!! We would come into a town and take over the small hotels. I can still picture looking down the hallway of a hotel in Wolf Creek and it was filled with smoke and I had this huge portable homemade boombox that Farmer and I made when he came to NJ to visit me the summer before. We would crank Anthrax on that thing until the A/C converter would fry. We would party all night and get up and compete in the GS, go back to the hotel, party all night and get up on Sunday and compete in the halfpipe. It was all so new and we were NOT focused on getting sponsored per say, we were focused on riding and looking forward to all of us getting together at the next event. Everyone did all disciplines back then. Halfpipe, GS, and Slalom. It was not specialized early on like it is now. We did them all because we wanted to snowboard now matter what that looked like. Skating in the winter was a bit of a challenge but we would skate in parking garages and hit the indoor skatepark in Denver often. Most of my skating was in the summer.

NK: You are considered one of the inventors of the modern snowboard boot. What was it about the early boots you used that just weren’t cutting it? How did you come up with the ideas to improve snowboarding boots?

SD: Farmer and I would always complain about our feet hurting after a long day on the hill so we would sit around at night and cut up our boots and liners to make it less painful. A lot of that pain had to do with the bindings as well so we would modify them too. After tinkering with my boots night after night, I finally came up with the perfect boot for the time. It was a Sorel Caribou top with a Kolflak plastic bottom

shoe-goo’d and pop riveted together. I used a telemark double boot liner with velcro straps instead of laces and that gave more protection from instep pain. I used those boots for a couple of seasons. I still have them in my boot collection.

NK: Did you have any connections at Sorel Boots, or did you just cold call them and tell them about your ideas to build a better snowboard boot?

SD: I didn’t know anyone at Sorel. (I found out later on that Tom Sims had contacted John Barnes at Sorel a year or so earlier about doing a boot but nothing transpired). I called Dachstein boots and Sorel with my Idea of a snowboard specific boot because there was no such thing at the time. I set up a meeting with Sorel and pitched the idea to a room full of business men with suits on. When I was done with my 45 minute spiel, John Barnes said to everyone, “wait here.” I thought, what’s goin’ on?” He brought this older gentleman in and said to me, “tell him what you just told all of us.” This was the owner of Kaufman Footwear/Sorel…. Mr. Kaufman himself. I did the entire pitch all over again and they sent me home with a box of boots, clips, clasps, laces and everything else I would need to come up with some Prototypes. I went home and built 2 prototypes. (See, back in the early days before there was a snowboard specific boot, snowboarders would buy a pair of Sorel Champions and put a Dale Boot ski boot liner in it and use a lot of duct tape to hold it all together. This is the set up that Craig, Palmer, Kimmel, Kidwell, myself and others used in the early days.) I brought the proto’s back to Sorel and they were blown away that I could make a pair of boots with pop rivets, shoe-goo, and some heavy duty stitching all done by hand. They sent me home with a contract. I showed it to a patent attorney and he said that the contract was the most fair he’s ever seen. I signed it immediately. After a few more meetings we ran a couple more prototypes from the factory which I tested on the Sleepy Bear Dunes in Michigan that summer... Hence the first pro signature model snowboard specific boot. The Pro Flex 1 (Kevin Delaney came up with that name for me on the chair lift at the Sims training camp at Mount Bachelor, Oregon. Credit where credit is due).

NK: Was it always your intention to get a signature model boot with Sorel or did it just come about once the new designs started to come out? How did you know Sorel wasn’t just going to steal your ideas and cut you out? (it’s happened before)

SD: There was no such thing as a snowboard specific boot back then let alone a “signature” boot. I just wanted to come up with the first snowboard specific boot…the signature thing just kinda happened as we proceeded with the project. When I went to that initial meeting with Sorel I came prepared with all the proper disclosure agreements and made sure they were all signed before I shared any of my Ideas.

NK: You also designed the first specific snowboard sock? How did that come about? Did it come from the lack of a comfortable sock made just for snowboarders?

SD: I endorsed and designed the first snowboard sock as well with Thor-Lo socks. Boots and socks...they do go hand in hand right? Once I got deep into the boot projects I thought that it would be great to have a sock as well to compliment the boot and help with the foot pain of riding. I designed the sock with a heel hold down so a snowboarder’s foot would stay securely in the heel pocket. More padding in the instep to protect the foot from instep pain, and a pad in the highback binding area for even more protection. This sock is still made to this day. Just without my endorsement but with all my ideas. Unfortunately, I was burned by this company as a young entrepreneur of sorts, so we parted ways. Lesson learned. So keep this story in mind when buying your next pair of snowboard socks. hahaha

NK: At what age did you discover you had a knack for art and music? Was your interest in the arts encouraged as a child or were you pushed into team sports like most boys back in the 60’s?

SD: I loved art and art classes so much as a kid but I got the message early on that art and music was for “sissy’s.” Being an insecure kid, I didn’t want to be known as that, so I suppressed my love of the arts for a really long time. I started painting in 1997 out of the sadness of losing my dog “Slide”. (She was all white like an avalanche). That helped me realize my long lost love of art. I had a roommate that went to art school and he showed me how to stretch the canvas, and with my carpentry skills I could make stretchers/frames. Large pieces are my favorite. Long light and shadows just fascinate me. I really consider myself a painter more so than an artist. I really suck at drawing so a lot of the time I will see a photo and use that. With permission of the photographer and subject of course. I think of it as using someone else’s “Art” so I can do a painting. I love hittin’ the skatepark for a session and then coming home

to paint. When we were kids we hated team sports so much that we had a pact between us skaters that when we got hurt skating and had to go to the doctor or hospital we would blame it on basketball. LOL. We would blame the injury on any sport but skateboarding. My parents were pretty cool about giving my four brothers and I the freedom to do what we wanted so far as sports go. Skating and surfing was the perfect outlet.

NK: Tell us about riding your bike 4024 miles across America in 1983? How much training did you put in?

SD: It was1983. I was working for a large company changing light bulbs for a living. That’s all I did all day was go from one room to another with my roll around ladder changing bulbs. Mundane to say the least. I was thinking of getting a van and driving across the country. Then I thought, no, a motorcycle. Then it hit me...A bicycle!!!! That’s what I’ll do. Talk about a challenge. I was in!!!! I told everyone what I was going to do. Then it dawned on me… Shit, now I gotta do it. It’s a pattern of mine as you are probably putting together by now. I bought a $1,100.00 bike, all the bags and gear and started riding around Rahway parks one mile loop 35 times every day for months. That’s all the training I did. I must say to anyone out there who has ever fantasized about bicycling across the country…do it!!! It’s the perfect speed to see things. Walking is too slow and driving is too fast. I did it with someone I didn’t even know that I met through a bicycle club. We are still great friends till this day. I packed everything up on the bike, looked back at my family on the front porch looking at me with stunned faces of disbelief. I was 23. Their faces said it all… what the hell is this kid thinking? Off I went alone for the first 243 miles to Keene, NH where I would meet up with my bike partner to start this crazy adventure across the country. We camped every night in the yards of people we didn’t know. Campgrounds, youth hostels, parks, along the road, over a fence, and even in a graveyard. We went east to west and fought against the trade winds the whole way. We got caught in a tornado, eaten alive by mosquitoes and black flys, killed a rattlesnake, dodged bullets at a bluegrass festival, drove a farm tractor, almost got plowed over by many cars and tractor trailers trucks, and came this close to getting in a fist fight with the Montana Highway patrol. It was FKN awesome!! We took the northern route to the badlands of SD and on to the Bighorn Mountains, to Yellowstone, WY and finally finishing in Seaside, OR with our bikes in the ocean.

NK: In 1999 you traveled to Africa to study drumming and masked dance. Was that a life changing experience?

SD: I have been in Bend for nine years by this point. I was 8-10 years older than most of the snowboarders on tour. I was getting older and my sponsors were not re-signing me as fast as I remember. I knew my expiration date was coming. Sorel gave me my walking papers. I guess I just burned out doing 225 days a year on the snow. I decided to move to Eugene. Out of curiosity I started studying West African drum and dance. After a few years I went to Senegal with a dance troop to study a traditional masked dance called Chakabba, where I danced on one stilt as well as two. The dancers/artists over there are held in high esteem and are considered Shaman’s or healers. They also can have a tendency to smoke marijuanna. Hanging with these artists taught me many lessons, not only about drum and dance but how to stay outta trouble. We got busted with some weed. Carted off in a paddy wagon, and went on the scariest ride of my life. I thought I wasn’t gonna be coming home for a few years. Thankfully we were able to pay the policia $700.00 to get us off, which is like a bizzilion bucks over there. Big life lesson for sure. Unfortunately our guide went bad on us so I decided to break off on my own. It was frightening to be in a foreign country by myself. Prior to the trip I had learned a few pages of Wollof, the native language of Senegal. That helped me to hop a cab and head to a place called Gore Island. This Island is the western most point in Africa and the shortest distance from Africa to America. Sadly it also happened to be the center of the slave trade in West Africa. It is called “The island of no return.” I stood in the same doorway where human beings were shackled, loaded and stuffed on a boat, and brought across the Atlantic Ocean, NEVER to return to all they ever knew. Ripped away from their loved ones, their culture and their native land. It was absolutely heartbreaking. The Senegalese people are gracious, loving, happy people who invited me in to share meals, their families, their culture and traditions through drumming and dance. I continued for a few more years traveling with that dance troop and other troops as well doing shows all over Oregon.

NK: You ran the New York City Marathon twice; 2005 and 2006. What made you decide you needed another challenge in your life?

SD: I was just looking for something big. I thought about hiking the entire Appalachian trail or Sea Kayaking from the tip of Maine to the tip of Florida, or Skateboarding across America. I needed something that would break me down. Ya know that guy that you see running along the side of the road lookin like he’s hating every minute of it. That was me. I sucked at running but I just wanted to see that if I trained, I could finish 26.2 miles? I heard Oprah did it the year before. Challenge on! Oprah…..you’re goin’ down. (laughing)

NK: Did running marathons lead to competing in an Ironman Triathlon in 2009. How did you find the time to do all that training? Are you a person who sets goals and lets nothing interfere with it until it is completed?

SD: I just pick something to challenge myself. Then I tell people what I’m gonna do so now I have to follow through. The Marathon wasn’t enough. So one day I was going through some old papers and found what they now call a bucket list. It was really just some scribble of the things I wanted to do in life. On that list was, do an Ironman. That was it!!! The thing that was really gonna break me. I started doing shorter distance races. I did about 20 Olympic distance races over time. Then on to the Half Iron which led to the Full Iron in 2009 in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho. Really the training for an Ironman was the hard part. Once you’re in reasonably good shape, doing shorter races and getting the body accustomed to the discomfort, this is when training for the Iron starts and takes about a year to race day. I am convinced that if a person does all the training that is required to do an Ironman, you WILL finish the race. I happened to be remodeling a 1910 craftsman house at the time that I moved up from downtown Eugene. I got the house for free. I just had to pay 33K to move it up to a lot I had purchased a few years back. There were some painful days and ice baths trying to do all that at one time.

NK: Now that you’re past 60 and you are still skateboarding, snowboarding, surfing, and painting, is there such a thing as, “old age” for Scott “UpsideDowney”?

SD: I’ll be 62 in July and yes I still do those things. I have slowed down on a lot of it, like snowboarding, mainly because it is too expensive now. I’ll go to Mike Chantry’s Sim’s Retro Worlds in CA. It’s like a big snowboarding family reunion for me. All of us old pros get together wearing our old outfits from back in the 80’s and ride an old primitive half pipe, run some GS, eat, visit and remember the past. Super fun time! Also I seem to get injured more frequently and the time it takes to heal is a lot longer. I will admit I take naps after exercising now. I used to want to hold the world record for being the oldest person on the planet, but the older I get the body rebels so I’m just not sure about THAT goal anymore. Skating is still my passion though. It’s cheap, the 2.3 Million dollar skatepark is only two miles away, it’s great exercise just rollin’ and hangin’ with other skaters. Pushing each other even as we age feels great. I do a road trip every year for 2 months to San Diego and skate with the “Old Bro’s” and the “Death Racers”. They have the most awesome skate crew down there. All over fifty and super stoked. There’s even a couple of people over sixty. And when I say a couple I mean two. Haha. Very inspiring! One year I hit over 40 skateparks parks down and back. I’m the oldest guy at the skatepark here in Eugene by 30 years for sure. I skate alone mostly for that reason. I always show up though because I know there’s a session with the old guys just around the corner. Skating is what started it all for me. It’s in me. For life. I skate transition better now than when I was a kid. Maybe it’s because I feel like I’m running outta time so I make sure I go a few times a week. And I just love to session a backyard pool or park bowl with friends. That’s the biggest STOKE of all!! I need to get real though. That day is approaching when I just can’t skate anymore. If I’m lucky I have 15-20 years left of life, as I get older these activities will just change form that’s all. Not as much, not as fast, not as long. Like my friend Mouse says “Change gears.” I’m gonna hang on as long as I can that’s for sure. I can surf more and paint more later. And when my body really gets bad I can walk the beach with a metal detector. (laughing) I think back at my life and all that I have done, and most of it I think “what the hell was I thinking.” But I’m glad I took on even the most challenging things.

Thank you Jami Godfrey for the kind intro, and everyone who has been a part of my adventures over the years. And thanks Neil for the opportunity to walk down memory lane.

sixty plus DON’T SUCK

By Neil Korn

Outdoor mainly focuses on young athletes pushing their achievements to new levels. Older athletes in most cases are trying to hang on to something, whether it be a feeling or a level of athleticism. Some compete, some don’t, and injuries are harder to come back from. Some are unfortunately exercising with a new knee or hip. To be honest, these 60 plus athletes are in a league of their own. In real America, 60 is old age, and nearly a senior citizen. In privileged parts of Oregon, the lifestyle is to be active for a lifetime and it shows. There are many senior athletes in our area who still kill it. Some I asked to be profiled in this story turned me down. I understand, some older athletes are just trying to stay fit and healthy and keep out of the spotlight. I’ve always looked up to and respected older athletes. There is something awesome about seeing a fit 80, 90, and even a 100 year old still going for it. Without a doubt, It goes against the mainstream of what most people think old age is supposed to be. Working at the Nordic Center for the last nine years, I have seen many of these older athletes. Some might not consider themselves “athletes’’ but they are an inspiration to me and many others. I get the privilege to talk to them almost every day for six months of the year, enriching my life and inspiring many others. Age is only a number. How you feel mental, physically, and how much happiness you have in your life is what’s important.

LEW HOLLENDER 91

I will be 91 on June 6th. These are the happiest days, weeks and years of my life with my wonderful wife Karen. I am a physicist, and I just filed a patent. Sports Hall of Fame for American Endurance Riders Ass. One rider, one horse, 100 miles. Guinness Book of World Records 2014 pp. 231 (oldest to finish Hawaii Ironman) Finished over 70 Ironman races. Fastest time record for over 70 at Florida 12:48. I have the fastest time at Hawaii for over 80 at 15:48 I finished the Western States 100 mile race over the Sierras five times ITU World age group Champion and 2010 awarded Performance of the Year by Ironman. Six times finisher at Alcatraz Escape last at 87. I was featured by BBC, The Human Body, Secrets Revealed. Over 100 marathons and many shorter tetris and ultra marathons.

DAGMAR

ERIKSSON 76

Dagmar grew up in Hamburg, Germany, not an area known for snow, skiing, or world competition. And yet that’s what she pursued. Dagmar left Germany to complete her education in foreign languages and lived in Montreux, Switzerland; New York, NY, and San Francisco, CA. As a flight attendant she traveled the world and eventually made Bend her home. At age 50 wanting to compete solo in the local PPP (pole, pedal, paddle) competition, she learned to bike, kayak, and Nordic ski and became competitive in all sports. Nordic ski racing was her major focus. Dagmar brought home medals from all over the world. Masters World Cup races in Cross Country Skiing took place in countries like Norway, Italy, Austria, and Germany. In 2011 she won 3 Gold medals in Sovereign Lakes, Canada. That same summer she signed up with USA Cycling when the Nationals came to Bend and won the time trial in her age group, adding to her medal count. At the age of 76 Dagmar continues to teach Nordic skiing at Mt. Bachelor and will compete in races all over the world as soon as the pandemic will let her.