When I was 8 years old, my dad bought our family a boat that came with both adult and kid skis. I learned how to ski in San Diego Bay, but also all over California as our family traveled around for camping. A few years later, when I was 11, my family went on a trip to Lake Shasta where I took a slalom lesson from Mike Syderhoud. Afterwards, we rented a Skurfer from the local marina to try it out for the first time. It took me a couple of tries to get up, but I will never forget the feeling of some of my first “one-handed wake carves.” I had never experienced a feeling like that in all my 11 years of life and I knew I was immediately hooked.
The next year, my parents bought me my first Skurfer and our family moved to lakefront property Lake St. Louis. My brothers and I made the best of it—the accessibility of the water in our backyard allowed us to figure out what was and wasn’t ride-able behind the boat.
Now, after 35 years on a board, I’m proud to admit I still get that familiar, first-day-riding feeling of excitement and I’m still trying to figure out what you can and can’t ride behind a boat (check my YouTube to see what all I’ve tried!)
Watching the Wakeboard Pro Tour on TV back in the day, my parents would say, “You can compete with those guys!” I thought to myself, “Yeah right!” The sport seemed much bigger than it really was at the time. I didn’t think it was a real possibility. I used to think, if Darin Shapiro ever got pulled over for a traffic ticket, the cop would probably say, “Sorry about that Mr. Shapiro, I didn’t realize it was you. Have a good day.”
The thought of actually riding pro never entered my mind. I would have never imagined riding a wakeboard for a living, much less all the other unbelievable experiences I have been blessed with through this sport.
For a year and a half, I was a marketing major at Florida Southern College. I was known as “that skateboardin’ kid” around campus because I would skate to class everyday. I competed on the college ski team in three separate events: slalom, trick and jump. I could jump decent, was halfway-skilled on a slalom ski, could ride a trick ski but the moment I tried a "Toe Hold" where I found myself putting my foot in the rope, I thought "Nope. Not for me." Soon after that, my coach read in the rulebook that if your wakeboard is 1/3 wide as it is long (which most wakeboards were), it qualified as a trick ski. So off the dock, I rode my wakeboard competing against the “trickers.” It turns out I was the first person to ride a wakeboard at a college competition for the trick ski event.
That summer, in Portland Oregon, I placed 5th in the finals of the Pro Tour and immediately signed a deal with Hyperlite. However, the following weekend I didn’t even come close to making the finals and I thought I was going to be fired. I rode at the World’s in my “Welcome Back Cotter” outfit for the expression session and got 8th in the finals.
After the World Championships in ‘95 I asked my parents if I could take a semester off school to see how things would go with riding. They agreed with me that it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and encouraged me to take advantage of it while I could. If I didn’t reach certain goals with my riding by the end of the season, I agreed to go right back into school to finish. I haven’t been back to college just yet and Hyperlite has kept me on the team so far, but I’ll let you know how it goes after the next season!
My family is everything to me! My beautiful wife Kerri and I were married in 2003 and together, we have three amazing daughters: Hayden, Presley, and Liv.
My 2nd of 4 appearances on American Ninja Warrior.