Snowboarding: From Rags to Riches One snowy Christmas day in Muskegon, Michigan, a young girl by the name of Wendy Poppen tried to stand up on her sled while sliding down the hill. Seeing this, her father Sherman ran into the garage and bolted a pair of skies together with wood to ""act as foot stops"" (Crane). While watching Wendy use the contraption, some of the local kids ran up to Sherman and asked him to build one for each of them. Little did he know that he had given birth to the fastest growing winter sport (Prosl) known as snowboarding. The history, simplicity, and rate of growth of snowboarding took the sport from being completely banned from ski resorts, to being accepted worldwide with its Olympic debut in 1998. Its hard to believe that back in the early 1980s people perceived [snowboarders] as daredevil adolescents who posed a threat to skiers (Shipley). Though the sport was banned from almost every resort, it grew to be so popular that the resorts could no longer ignore the moneymaking possibilities. Resorts realized that the average young person was abandoning the sport of skiing, and learning the new trend of snowboarding. Not only that, but the younger generation who was taking up a new winter sport would choose snowboarding over skiing. These days, resorts spend thousands of dollars to attract snowboarders to their resorts with claims of the biggest halfpipe or the best board park. But how did this sport explode onto the scene? To answer this question, a brief history is in order.On that snowy Christmas day in 1965, Sherman Poppen had created the first snowboard. His wife named this contraption a Snurfer because it was a cross between surf and snow. Snurfers were typically made of wood, and had a piece of rope attached to the front tip to steer. The Brunswick Corporation liked Poppen's invention and was the first company to mass-produce it. Over a million snurfers were sold, which sparked the imaginations of a few s...
