Why Do You Want To Be A Pro Skier?

I think most pros will have to get a "real job" at some point in there life. It's pretty hard to ski professionally until retirement age.
 
Well, If you make 20 million during your time as a pro skier, then you could live the rest of your life on the money you already have, thus never having to get a real job.
 
I mean honestly if traveling is your only reason for becoming a pro skier there are many and way less competitive ways of doing that. But, if being a pro skier is your ultimate goal then having the i don't really care attitude is not exactly the best way to go about it, unless that's your image in which case lie it up. Work hard and sell yourself and you'll do fine but make sure it's really what you want. The reason guys like Jon Olsson are so successful is because they know that it's their job to ski and they work all year on getting better and getting better sponsors or old ones to give them money. There are plenty of people out there who are better skiers who do it for fun and get some free stuff but can't really make it to the next level.
 
My out look on things is that I would love to just be as good of a skier as I can be. I have always been into extreme sports since I was little. I have always wanted to be pro in something. I am pretty good at everything I do but not extraordinary. Everyone tells me I can do it I can be pro. But I never committed to anything. I got good at what I was doing then just quite. My hopes of being pro are slipping and instead of doing 5 sports and being good at all of them. When I move I want to stick with one sport and be great at it. If all im doing is skiing for fun, but I can hang with all the other guys in the park killing it I will be happy.
 
haha, I agree, but please offer one of more merit and originality.
also, I decidedly don't want to be a pro skier. maybe EP has a pretty open filiming schedule and he doesn't compete anymore, but that kind of pressure doesn't sound enjoyable to me. and how many sponsors would pay me to do backcountry, only a few runs a day because I'm skinning my way up, without any competitions or cameras on me. me and the mountains, that's all I need, cliche and overused as it may be.
also, my parents are worried about me because I'm dealing with an OCD lesion from repetitive impact and overuse in my right knee. I recognize that I'm taking 2-3 years off to fully heal it, but after that I'm fucking charging all the way. I'm down but not out. They're afraid that I'll destroy my knees by thirty. I am NOT a cripple for life.
 
I don't understand why anybody would ever want to fully immerse oneself in a lifestyle of sponsorship-dependent payroll. Don't get me wrong, its great lifestyle to mutually grow with a brand, meet new people, and go new places. But as with any sponsored lifestyle, there is a level of publicity that makes it not worth it.

Why do so many people want to be famous? Sounds like a bad thing to me.
 
I'm in the same boat as you are. i don't graduate 'till nest year, but my pops is wondering what my plans for the future are. In my case idk yet, but i'm pretty sure i wanna go to some collage after I finish skiing.

Anyway, before I do that I will spend a couple of years skiing to see where it takes me. I don't care if I become a pro or not. As you said it's all about doing what you love. And after speaking with a lot of older people who are not my parents, they all say that i should spend a couple of years skiing and see how it goes, OR ELSE I WILL REGRET FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE !!!

Every kid should get the opportunity to do shit like that, or they will end up as a grumpy motherfucker thinking about what he could have spent his "best days" doing...

feel me on that one...??
 
Here is something my dad told me:

"If you want to go pro in anything... MMA, skiing, or Kendo. Please please PLEASE finish college first. That way you have something to fall back on in case it doesn't work out.
 
I don't want to be a pro. I just want to have all the perks of being a pro like sponsors and free stuff. But I don't want to compete or anything. I just want to ski.
 
so that i can travel for free to really interesting places that i wouldnt go to otherwise. so i can meet tons of people while im traveling (skiers, and not skiers), so that i can shred snow all year long for free, so that i can ski as much as possible, so that i can have 15 kids follow me everywhere i go, so that i can..... wait, not that last one, that just sounds awful
 
Agree 100%, I wish I did (I'm 21). I'm graduating college in 2 weeks, and wish i took a few years off first. My parents told me the same thing as most peoples, go to college first. In the end you realise that you should have done it the other way around even though your parents would disagree.

This is for a few reasons:

-Like a lot of people, I wasn't really sure what i wanted to do so I spend the first 2 years of my college life jumping around majors and degrees wasting time and money.

-You ski less than you would like, and are always trying to get on snow as much as possible. As a result, you do worse at college in terms of grades, and ski less than you would like.

-My parents always said they wanted me to go first in case i never went back. Realistically, you will go back if you find a degree/field that you really enjoy. Otherwise chances are you will find a job not needing college that you really enjoy so it doesn't really matter. If you are the sort of person who should be at college, you’ll go in the end. College is always going to be there, a body that can handle the impact of skiing may not be.

-People who start college at 25-28 do much better academically, as they are there because they really want to be, not because their parents wanted them to go.

-If you go to college, then go skiing/take time off, you won't be earning enough to pay back the debt you've accumulated. If you have a few years off before starting study, you'll probably go straight into a higher paying job and pay it off faster since you won't have all of the interest which has build up when you were making no money.

-Experience & maturity is good for getting jobs once you graduate.

-The college drinking scene: In your first few years of college people tend to drink a lot. You drink more frequently when you just leave home and have more freedom. Get this phase out of the way when you don't have college commitments in the way. You academic record will thank you.

Basically I feel I would have got to ski more and do better in college if I took some time off first. Doing 13 years of school then straight into college is a lot of disciplined learning in a row. People need a break from that at some point.

If you know exactly what you want to do, I can see going to college straight after school making sense, otherwise not really.

If I did it again, I would still go to college, but not so soon.

 
Today, Everyone has their hopes and dreams in our sport. Basically, we all know that we would LOVE to get free stuff from sponsors, be able to shred at the coolest areas, and being able to compete at the most rad times and events. But, we all must search deep inside of us, and realize that we ski because we love the goddamn sport. Period.
 
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