Snowboarding's ‘Old Man' does it again

Bardonecchia, Italy - Four years ago in Salt Lake City, Danny Kass was the 19-year-old rebel face of snowboarding, a kid from Sussex County who had a reputation that wasn’t entirely peaches and cream. He took a silver medal in the 2002 Olympics, part of a sweep of the halfpipe by the U.S. Snowboarding Team. His instant fame led to endorsements and his own clothing line, and the intervening years have mellowed him. Instead of acting suspicious of celebrity, he embraces it. Kass, who went to school in Vernon after spending his early years in Hamburg, added another stanza to his legend Sunday in the mountains north of Turin when he took a second silver medal behind his U.S. teammate, snowboarding wunderkind Shaun White. It wasn’t easy. Kass butchered the first of his two runs in the finals, scoring just 20.8 points and leaving him with one final chance to do something big to cement his place in his sport’s history. In snowboarding, competitors get two runs down the halfpipe; only the best score of the two counts. On his second run, with 21 family members and friends watching live, Kass performed a fakie, a Cab 1080 into a frontside 1080, a Cab 720 into a frontside 720 and a switch alley-oop backside rodeo. A 1080 means three complete revolutions in the air; a 720 is two revolutions. The run was worth 44 out of a possible 50 points and the silver medal. At 23 in a sport that is dominated by teenagers, Kass is snowboarding’s old man. But he has no intention of quitting. Asked if he thought he could come back for the Vancouver Games in 2010, he quipped, “You never know. I’ve been pulling things out of my rear all day, so who knows.” Spotted the next day near the Today Show set, he said he would stay in Turin a few more days, then go to Rome. “We’re just going to sightsee mostly,” he said. “We’re stoked.”