A New Marquee Event That Is Worlds Apart

The future of Olympic sports McTwisted and Stalefished across America’s front porch Monday.

Its jeans hanging halfway off its rear end.

Its hair hanging tangled off its head.

Its dreams not exactly the dreams of heroes past.

“I would never want to be on a Wheaties box, I never eat the stuff,” said Danny Kass, smiling. “Put me on Count Chocula.”

Draped in heavy metal and big air, the future of Olympic sports landed square in the middle of America’s fears that its children will go too fast, risk too much, hang too loose ... and get away with it.

Does a medal sweep by three of our kids in something called halfpipe snowboarding qualify as getting away with it?

It sure sounded as if it did at raucous Park City, where Ross Powers, Kass and J.J. Thomas won the gold, silver and bronze medals, respectively, in only the second U.S. winter sweep ever.

After which, Powers and Thomas autographed the bare breasts of an excited female fan.

While Kass acknowledged a male blowup doll he jokingly called his team manager.

Yeah, this is not going to be easy.

That’s four U.S. snowboarding medals in two events that, despite their lofty status as Olympic sports, still appear to some as skateboarders doing tricks in overcoats.

The question is not whether America is the new dominant power in what could be the Winter Olympics’ new dominant game.

The question is, does it want to be?

Snowboarding, after all, is not simply two skis tied together.

It is a culture apart.

It is more than the traversing of a hill, it is the empowering of a generation, with a sometimes reckless, sometimes rebellious attitude that sometimes irritates instead of inspires.

What adult skier has not looked either angrily or jealously at the young tattooed soul flying past him on a snowboard?

Snowboarders are often viewed not as young people lawfully flexing their voice, but as transplanted bums from the mini-mart parking lot.

Loiterers, only faster.

The average American sports fan understands the athlete who listens to music on headphones before the competition. But during the competition?

“Why not? It’s cool,” Kass said.

And doesn’t the average American sports fan want its athletes to, like, lift weights?

“It haven’t been to a gym in, I don’t know, two years,” Kass said.

Certainly, America wants its athletes to at least act like athletes.

“I try not to think of myself as a jock,” Kass said.

Regardless, snowboarders were shoved into the Olympics four years ago by officials who viewed them not necessarily as studs, but marketers.

As figure skating attracts women, and downhill skiing attracts men, snowboarding could speak--and sell--to young adults.

“If you understand kids,” said Kass, 19, “then you understand us.”

But many still didn’t understand.

And when that 1998 winner of the first Olympic snowboarding event, Canada’s Ross Rebagliati, tested positive for marijuana and temporarily lost his medal, the news was greeted with rolled eyes and tongue-clucking.

You see? Thought so.

Many figured that snowboarders would finally just go away, much like skateboarders are eventually kicked out of grocery-store parking lots.

“Yeah, I’ve been kicked out of a few parking lots,” Kass said.

Yet suddenly, in the middle of last week, they showed up again.

I know because I was there, at the news conference for the halfpipe folks, the longest hour in the history of the hired interpreters.

“A lot of those words they used, there’s no translation for them,” said frustrated Renate Dallmann, a German expert. “I had to reach way back to high school for some of the other words.”

By the end of the meeting, everyone was staring at Kass because, with shaggy hair and distant eyes, he looked just like the infamous “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” burnout named Jeff Spicoli.

Sounded like him too.

When asked how he liked being a first-time Olympian, he squinted.

“The uniforms are pretty mommy,” he said.

When asked how he deals with the pressure of being a first-time Olympian, he squinted.

“Maybe lots of video games?” he said.

When asked about his sport’s reputation, though, he frowned.

“You can’t do this sport if you’re high, you can’t do it if you’re drunk,” he said. “That’s just crazy.”

Crazy, perhaps, but Monday morning, the Salt Lake Tribune carried a story written by Kirsten Stewart with this first paragraph:

“University of Utah fraternity bashes are like Tupperware parties compared with the drunken, late night revelry of snowboarders renting the Beta Theta Pi house during the Olympics, says an angry Greek Row neighbor.”

Turns out, those snowboarders aren’t Olympians, but workers at a nearby extreme-sports expo. But still ...

Then later Monday, America’s Olympic snowboarders brought the party where it belonged, to the snow, and above the snow, with acrobatic moves and tricks that would have won a gold medal for any gymnast or diver.

They are different. But they are athletes. And they aren’t going to leave the room while you wait for them to grow up.

“It’s like in high school, the cool kids were on the football team

Probably. Right up until they see the silver medal draped around his neck, and hear our national anthem played for another dude just like him.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com