UW-Madison sophomore doubles as professional snowboarder

Some say that love at first sight is impossible. Colin Tucker would disagree.

It couldn’t have been anything else but instant love that caused Tucker to leave home and move west to pursue a professional snowboarding career when he was only 15 years old.

Four years later, his passion has endured. Tucker, a University of Wisconsin–Madison sophomore, doubles as a professional snowboarder.

Tucker’s greatest challenge is that he’s just as serious about his education as he is about snowboarding, and that doesn’t leave a lot of time to mess around. To attain his college degree in legal studies while still dedicating himself to snowboarding, he’s put himself on an eight-year plan in which he will continue to enroll at UW–Madison in the fall semesters and take off in the spring to concentrate on snowboarding.

“There are a lot of other things that are going to happen in my life,” he says. “That’s why I go to school.”

Although Tucker sacrifices time on the mountain to go to school, he thinks that decision will help his snowboarding career.

“I would say 90 percent of my snowboarding success is because of my education,” he says. “Going pro has to do with how you want to see yourself, not just fitting this persona, and Madison gives me that whole second life where I can relate on two different levels.”

In October, Tucker traveled to California to shoot a commercial for PowerBar, one of his five sponsors. The others are Quiksilver, Boll� Performance Eyewear, Zero Brand Gloves and Nike 6.0.

The following month, he took first place in the 2009 Hoofer Rail Jam at the Memorial Union Terrace.

Tucker’s college situation is only the latest in a number of special circumstances Tucker has carved out for himself. When he was only 15 years old, Tucker left his Milwaukee home to finish high school with a host family in Steamboat Springs, Colo. There, he joined the Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club.

“I don’t think he will ever appreciate how hard that was for us to miss all of high school,” says his mother, Ellie Tucker. “We’ve lived to regret these words, but we’ve always told our kids to find their passion and then pursue it. We didn’t put an asterisk — only if Mom and Dad approve.”

A combination of natural talent and sheer passion were the driving forces behind Tucker’s decision to become one of the most inexperienced teenagers to go pro. While most professional snowboarders have been on the mountains since they were toddlers, Tucker didn’t start snowboarding until he was 13, not even two years before he left home.

“I strapped on and I knew,” he says. “I didn’t know that I wanted to be a pro or anything like that, but I knew it was what I wanted to do.”

If anyone can compensate for that lost time, it’s Tucker.

“He’s a natural athlete,” says Clint Koehler, Tucker’s former high school math teacher in Steamboat Springs and close friend. “He’s got a good head on his shoulders and he listened and he learned. He soaked up information like a sponge both in school and snowboarding.”

With his dual allegiance to school and snowboarding, Tucker is somewhat uncertain as to what his future holds. One day, he hopes to compete in the Olympics and possibly go to law school.

“I see myself as a Colin of many shapes and sizes,” he says. “If you have a lot of outlets and you can go to school and go snowboarding and you have family and whatnot, it’s a good way to just stay balanced.”