DAY 6: Buellership WINNERS!

Scott Hawk

Virginia

"Growing older, but not up"


So I will start out with my Bueller contest entry with stating that I am a teacher and have been for the past five years. Although I started skiing when I was about ten, I really didn't start freeskiing until I was in high school and could finally drive the the resort on my own. I went off to college and did the whole college thing, but fortunatly was only about 40 minutes away from Wisp resort ( in Maryland). This allowed me to ride at least 3 or 4 days a week and meet a lot of fun people. After college, I moved to Utah for a few months to be a ski instructor at Brighton. The skiing as incredible, but as I returned home, I knew it was time to begin my career as a teacher. I currently teach fourth grade and just love getting kids excited about learning and life and general. My approach to teaching and motivating kids is unique in that I believe they need to be motivated and learn to persevere in order to succeed just as skiers and other athletes work hard to overcome overcome obsticles in their life.

Last year as you may know, the east coast was hit by some major snow storms. My original plan was to jet out of school on Thursday, catch a plane to Utah that evening, call off on Friday and Monday and return to school on Tuesday. As I am leaving school on Thursday, I get a text that school is canceled for Friday already because of this massive snowstorm that is coming so now I don't have to take a day. The skiing was epic in Utah as usual and it was Sunday evening and I was a little bummed I had to fly back home already so I checked the school website and school had been canceled for the entire week because of the storm. I get on the phone with Southwest and they were able to move my flight from Monday to Friday for $45 extra dollars which completly blew me away. It continued to snow that week and was able to get in some more epic days at Alta. Although I had some luck on my hands, it turned out to be one of the best weeks of my life.

As for another story, I took a day off at school and decided to go skiing. Being that it was my first year teaching, I was a little stressed so just needed to get out and ride. While skiing, it was a great day with a lot of fun jibs and a free reign of the park to myself. Not to claim or anything, but I was trying to dial in my switch ups on a battleship box and thats when it happened. On the second one I came off a little early and did one of my least favorite tricks "pole to face." I knew instantly that I was probably looking at stitches or a horrible black eye. The whole way home I had ice on my face. Luckily I didn't need stitches, but I did have to face all my coworkers the following day. I said that I fell skiing, but it really looked like someone punched me in my eye. The worst part was that I couldn't even describe what happened since i keep my freeskiing life on the DL at work.

Although I am a teacher now, my passion to ski has not gone away. I remember someone mentioning in Contrast about everyone having a passion in life and that teaching is one of them. I feel very fortunate to be able to teach and ski. Hats off to all of you who have found a passion in skiing or whatever else you can do. I have more respect for people who live doing their passion than who live by going to a job they hate just to make some money.

Thomas O'Connell

Washington

"Cello is dope too!"

I've been playing the cello for 9 year now, and at one point it was starting to get in the way of skiing. 2 winters back, I had qualified for an all state orchestra put on by Washington state, least to say I was thrilled. I practiced the pieces they wanted us to play for a solid 6 months, memorized every note, every cue, and every other detail of the work. The final performance was scheduled for a friday in late december, when Washington gets the most snow. Come the day or the performance, I look at the weather report and what do I see? 2 feet of fresh had dumped over night, in addition to the snow that had been falling all week (mind you my mountain is not open mid week, so it would all be untracked). So whats a skier to do? Go sit in an auditorium in a tux and play classical music for old people, or go have one of the most epic pow days of my life. I'm guessing you can tell which I picked. Come the end of the day, I check my cell phone only to find I have something around 25 missed calls and voice mails, all from my conductor wondering where the hell I am. I never returned any of those phone calls, nor did I ever play the cello in a full sized orchestra again. I decided that day that if something is getting in the way of skiing, then screw that, I'd rather spend my free time on the mountain.