But like many CVA alumni such as Bode Miller, Kirsten Clark, and Emily Cook -- to name a few of the 70 US Ski Team members the school has produced -- Wescott, a 29-year-old former skateboarder, quickly made his mark on the world. Big time.
He began competing at age 14 as a halfpipe boarder at CVA. Wescott is now the reigning Snowboardcross world champion and a seven-time winner at the X Games -- the most wins by a male competitor.
And despite his early love of the halfpipe, when he heads to Italy next month it will be as a competitor in SBX (snowboardcross), a discipline that is bound to change the Winter Games as it changed snowboarding itself. SBX, a mayhem-alert race of four abreast through a tricky, turny downhill course, is a vivid picture of Wescott's creed.
''I believe fun and success go hand in hand," said the 6-foot-1-inch, 195-pounder who also excels at mountain biking, kayaking, and surfing Maine's rocky coast.
Sitting at Java Joe's at the base of Sugarloaf the other morning, munching on a bagel (sans cream cheese), Wescott was reflecting on the welcome change SBX was after the halfpipe. For viewers of a snowboard race, the advantage of SBX is that wins and losses are dictated by the clock, not a judge. There is definitely a NASCAR element to snowboarders racing head to head, he said.
''Where the public watching it on TV are not going to get the intricacies of the tricks or the style factor of halfpipe, I think [SBX] is going to give people a race where they can just pick somebody and root for him, like NASCAR. It'll translate well for the US audiences," said Wescott.
And don't forget the crashes. ''It's definitely fun, and a really entertaining spectacle," he added. ''Americans will love watching it."
Many Olympic events are decided by judges -- halfpipe, for example, in which a rider's style and difficulty of trick play into the final score. One of the best features of SBX for Wescott, who believes judging errors kept him out of the 2002 Games, is the fact that winners are based on times.
