Stacia Hookom

Six Time National Champion

To contact me:

Email: stacia@staciahookom.com

6000 Reims #3307

Houston, Texas 77036

Text Box: outdoor extremes - high life Snowboarding pioneer Hookom hanging it up By Scott Willoughby
Denver Post Staff Writer
Denver Post Article Last Updated:01/22/2007 10:34:09 PM MST Back in 1995, when snow still fell in bigger heaps on Western Slope resorts such as Vail than it does on Colfax Avenue, Stacia Hookom was roughly the same 5-foot-3, 145-pound size she is today. The low-centered physique served her well as a slalom snowboard racer, the first female racer named to the U.S. Snowboard Team when it formed after the 1994 national championships. But when the heaps started piling up in deep, natural drifts on her home hill of Vail during that epic winter of '95, her diminutive stature didn't do her any favors as a freerider. The day we met fell smack dab in the middle of one such legendary snow cycle, as the resident of Edwards crammed in one final powder day before rejoining the race squad headed off for a winter of European competition dates after Christmas break. Riding ahead to snap a photo of the local snowboard star dropping into North Woods Bowl, I turned back up the hill to capture the image of Hookom burrowing her way toward me beneath the snow blanket like Bugs Bunny on his way to Pismo Beach. After coming to a stop, the snow settled enough to reveal her love of the game in an ear-to-ear grin plastered in powder like clown makeup across her face. "That was so fun!" she shrieked. "I couldn't see a thing!" Hookom might have missed the left turn at Albuquerque that day, but she found her line and continued plowing ahead to six national titles, nine career World Cup podiums and seven trips to the world championships in 12 seasons with the U.S. Snowboard Team, including a personal-best fifth-place finish in parallel giant slalom last week in Arosa, Switzerland. Now 31, she decided to hang up her race bib for good after that result (along with an eighth-place finish in parallel slalom), concentrating her trademark perseverance on graduating from the University of Colorado this spring before moving on to the great state of Texas to train as a physician's assistant this fall. "It's really tough, and I'm going to miss it," Hookom said after the world championships. "My motto for the worlds was, 'What would Elway do?' John Elway closed out his career with the Denver Broncos on top, and I was wearing bib No. 7 - his number. Maybe I didn't win, but I feel like I went out on top." Hookom's growth since that initial 1995 season manifested itself beyond the physical realm as she blossomed as both a snowboarder and a person. Originally planning to study to become an orthopedic surgeon after a few seasons (she has undergone three ACL reconstructions herself), near misses for spots on the Olympic team roster in 1998 and in 2002 kept her coming back to the start house determined to make the trip to Turin, Italy, last winter. Although the dream never became reality, the frustration never managed to take the smile from her face for long. She ended her career, she says, "at a point where I am in love with snowboarding." Hookom began her career in a different era of snowboarding. A skier from age 3, she actually juggled high school ski racing with freeriding folly for a few years before entering her first snowboard race at age 17 and deciding to put the planks in storage. During that early-1990s era, the sport had yet to achieve the notoriety or specialization it knows today, and Hookom enjoyed all the elements of her sport as it evolved. "When I was named to the team, lots of people still competed in all events. Sometimes the 'stylers' would show up and enter the races. I usually did the halfpipe," she said. "Now, the sports are so competitive it is really impossible to do them all." With little fanfare, the evolution continues for Hookom now in a life outside of the sport altogether. She'll never know the fame of a Shaun White or the infamy of a Lindsey Jacobellis, but through the lessons learned on her snowboard - perhaps even from that legendary deep day at Vail some 12 years ago - she knows that by keeping her head up, eventually she'll come out on top. http://www.denverpost.com/portlet/article/html/fragments/print_article.jsp?articleId=5064878&siteId=36