Kevin Jones, a name synonymous with snowboarding excellence, redefined the sport with his groundbreaking achievements and introspective views. He won’t tell you he’s won nine X Games medals or that he received Snowboarder Magazine’s Rider of the Year three years in a row.
This article delves into the life and career of Kevin Jones, exploring his rise to prominence, his impact on the evolution of snowboarding, and his reflections on the sport's transformation.
Early Career and Rise to Fame
Kevin Christopher Jones was born in Sacramento, California, on January 23, 1975. As a boy he took up skateboarding and in his late teens became intrigued by snowboarding after seeing popular skateboarders John Cardiel and Noah Salaznek snowboarding in the film Riders on the Storm.
Jones was seventeen when he first began snowboarding and a year later he entered his first competition. Almost from the start, he showed unusual talent for the sport, quickly developing into one of the young sport's emerging stars.
X Games Dominance
Throughout the history of the X Games, which were launched in 1995 by the ESPN cable TV network, Jones has been a dominant force in the snowboard events, which consist of two main forms of competition-big air and slopestyle.
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- In the Summer X Games of 1997, Jones took the silver medal in big air competition.
- At the 1998 Winter X Games he won silver in slopestyle and bronze in big air.
- In 1999, Jones took silver and bronze medals in slope-style and big air, respectively, at the Winter X Games.
- In slopestyle, he went bronze at the 2000 Winter X Games and placed fifth at the 2001 event.
He really performed brilliantly in slopestyle at the Winter X Games of both 2000 and 2001, taking home the gold medal in the event both years. For his impressive performance in 2001, Jones was named Best Freestyle Rider of the Year in the annual Transworld Rider's Poll, an honor that he again received the following year. At the Winter X Games of 2002, there was no big air competition, but Jones finished fourth in the slopestyle event.
One of the most decorated snowboarders in the history of the sport, Kevin Jones has medaled in all but three of the X Games events he's ever entered, settling for fourth place in big air competition at the Summer X Games of 1999, fifth place in big air at the Winter X Games of 2001, and fourth in slopestyle at the 2002 Winter X Games.
He competes in an average of only three contests each year-usually the Winter X Games, the Sims World Championships, and one Vans Triple Crown of Snowboarding event. Jones most often boards at Squaw Valley.
Kevin Jones's X Games Record
| Year | Event | Medal |
|---|---|---|
| 1997 | Summer X Games - Big Air | Silver |
| 1998 | Winter X Games - Slopestyle | Silver |
| 1998 | Winter X Games - Big Air | Bronze |
| 1999 | Winter X Games - Slopestyle | Silver |
| 1999 | Winter X Games - Big Air | Bronze |
| 2000 | Winter X Games - Slopestyle | Gold |
| 2001 | Winter X Games - Slopestyle | Gold |
The Business Side of Snowboarding
Kevin was the first reluctant super-pro in snowboarding. Not reluctant to enjoy the fruits of his labor-he did plenty of that-but of what snowboarding became as a result of the barriers he broke. He’s responsible, in part, for the rise of the snowboard agent.
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When I was coming up, there weren’t agents. And there wasn’t Red Bull money and there wasn’t Levi money and there wasn’t adidas money. You know what I mean? When I started [snowboarding], if you got free boards and you got free clothing and maybe you got your rent paid, you were like a super-pro. By the end of my career, if you weren’t making $500,000 and owned two or three homes, you were just whatever.
So, over the course of fifteen years, we went from being dirtbags, living in our cars and clipping tickets to superheroes at the ESPN Awards, sitting next to Metallica, getting kissed by Daryl Hannah, and accepting an award.
Before that, there wasn’t really a need for agents in snowboarding because nobody was making that much money. It was started by Steve Astephen in his garage in Oceanside, California. He was my team manager at Lamar Snowboards.
And then all of a sudden a couple contracts came up and I said, “hey, Steve, I’m out of town, could you go handle this for me?” I said, “I’m not good at talking to these people. They’re business people. I’m not a business guy.
My support gave him credibility within an industry that didn’t even know it needed agents yet.
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And he was one of my best friends. I was the best man at his wedding. He didn’t even show up to mine.
[Steve] eventually sold [The Familie] and the deal that went down was sketchy. And we had an agreement that I was a part owner. So, when all that went down, he had [control] of my whole life-he held all of my contracts, he paid my bills, he had power of attorney, he could sign my name… He had everything. He had my whole life.
So, after he sold the company, it was like, “oh, Kevin, you don’t have ownership.” I was just written out of the deal.
Reflections on the Evolution of Snowboarding
Kevin makes a point of adding that there’s nothing wrong with halfpipe or slopestyle. It’s just that neither of them measures up to the soul of snowboarding because they’re manmade. And therein lies the crux of our entire conversation: that corporations are draining the lifeblood of snowboarding, leaving something that looks enough like snowboarding to be masqueraded as such, but it lacks the essence of what made those formative years so revolutionary.
Now, that thing-that clone of snowboarding-is the only version this generation of snowboarders will ever know.
That’s what scares vets like Kevin. That more people know what a halfpipe is than they do what a spine is. That you can go to a special school where they teach you how to become a pro snowboarder (“It’s like listening to a top 40 radio station and then trying to act like you know what jazz music is all about,” he says.)
I didn’t quit snowboarding at all, I just didn’t film it. I didn’t go around people who filmed snowboarding and I didn’t go around people who were going to want me to film snowboarding.
[Snowboarding] used to be this rebel thing that we did. Contests were stupid when I was growing up. Snowboarding wasn’t “cool” back then. Skiers would spit on us from the chairlift. We listened to punk rock and smoked weed on the chairlift and flipped off the establishment. In my opinion, it was better.
Now, it’s exactly the opposite of what was attractive about snowboarding all along. We’re turning it into something that’s not attractive anymore because we’re turning it into the thing that we hated in the beginning.
In my career, I was used to people kissing my ass since I was 18 to my mid-30s. Then all of a sudden real life happened and I wasn’t really prepared for it. Child actors and musicians go through it. It’s no different [for snowboarders].
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There is no end game. One of the most decorated snowboarders in the history of the sport, Kevin Jones has medaled in all but three of the X Games events he's ever entered, settling for fourth place in big air competition at the Summer X Games of 1999, fifth place in big air at the Winter X Games of 2001, and fourth in slopestyle at the 2002 Winter X Games.
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