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Shawn �Smiley� Nesbitt: Life after Whistler

He was never the most radical skier. Nor even the most extreme. But Smiley Nesbitt had one important skill that many of his contemporaries overlooked. He always skied like he was having fun. Skiing is all about having fun. Right? It�s a no-brainer.
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He was never the most radical skier. Nor even the most extreme. But Smiley Nesbitt had one important skill that many of his contemporaries overlooked. He always skied like he was having fun.

Skiing is all about having fun. Right? It�s a no-brainer. But having fun and projecting that fun so others can appreciate it are two different things. It�s not really about how good a skier you are. It�s more than that. To be able to express the sexy madness of sliding down a mountain on snow at full speed and in complete control � and to get other people to really feel that magic on a visceral level � well, that takes a very special talent. And Smiley had it in spades. His enthusiasm for the sport was palpable. His skiing was pure fantasy. And that energy translated so well into pictures � whether static or moving � that the young skier was able to surf the professional-rider wave for over a decade.

And believe me, that�s no small feat�.

But I�m getting ahead of myself. The mid-1990s were a time of great change in the ski business. Challenged by the youth-driven snowboard rebellion, ski manufacturers were just beginning to toy with marketing concepts beyond the conventional alpine-ski-racer-is-king model. Suddenly guys and gals who could ride steep slopes and stomp big airs were in hot demand.

It just so happened that at that same time, Whistler was teeming with a fresh generation of two-planked athletes who were breaking new ground on all sorts of fronts. Following hard on the footsteps of local big-mountain giants Eric Pehota and Trevor Petersen, Whistlerites like Richie Schley and Wendy Brookbank were redefining the sport in truly exciting ways. Suddenly � freeride � wasn�t only about snowboarding anymore.

Meanwhile, Mike Douglas and Shane Szocs and their merry bands of twin-tipped jesters were doing the same thing in the fledgling terrain park scene. Indeed, they set the stage (and provided the players) for the creation of a whole new ski discipline. When Whistler Mountain merged with Blackcomb back in 1997, there wasn�t a resort in North America that could boast so many high-level athletes in so many different snowsport disciplines.

It was into this maelstrom of talent that Smiley Nesbitt decided to seek his fortune. Neither the best big-mountain rider nor the most talented park rat, Nesbitt created an amalgam of the two that proved to be just what the market needed. �Getting sponsored as a �freeskier� was a totally new concept back then,� says the 34 year old. �There was no model to follow. So I created my own��

I remember interviewing Nesbitt a decade ago for a position with the then-fledgling Whistler Freeride Team. Keen as all get-out � and with a perpetual grin plastered across his face � the young skier impressed me as somebody who truly understood the relationship between professional riders and the companies they represented. �It�s all about developing a strong connection with your sponsor,� he explains. �It�s all about understanding what they�re trying to sell.� He laughs. �It doesn�t matter how rad a skier you are, if you don�t get that concept you�re not going to progress��

But Nesbitt got it. Marshalling all his physical skills, and making himself eminently available to photographers like Paul Morrison, Mark Gallup and Blake Jorgensen, Smiley embarked on a career path that some of his more hardcore peers could only dream about.

His critics dismissed him as a ski slut, a guy who would do anything to get his pictures published in the magazines-du-jour. But that never seemed to bother old Smiley. In fact, he even played up that part of his personality. After all, he was making a living skiing � and many of his detractors weren�t�.

Another burst of laughter. �What I represented was the fantasy-aspect of free skiing,� he says. �I got to make the perfect turns in perfect snow.�

He stops speaking for a moment. �People think being a pro athlete is all fun and games,� he says. �But it isn�t! It�s work. I mean, if you don�t put the effort in to grow your brand, you�re going to get in trouble. Why? Because no one else is going to grow it for you.�

But Nesbitt also understood the value of associating his own personal brand with that of the mega resort in his backyard. �There was such a strong youth culture at Whistler in those years,� he explains. �Vibrant, expressive and totally leading edge. I couldn�t imagine any other mountain resort so plugged in.� Another quick pause. �And the more I travelled around the world, the more that impression was reinforced.�

In many ways, Smiley became the face of Whistler. Whether in print ads or in ski movies � in point-of-purchase collateral or even on the graphics for season passes � Nesbitt�s grinning mug and relaxed skiing style became near-ubiquitous in those heady years when Whistler-Blackcomb was the crossroads of the freeride universe. But all good things must end one day.

�I just got to the point where I realized my sporting �career� was drawing to a close,� he says. �The pro-rider market had changed, my financial stability was seriously compromised and I needed to find a new gig��

So he started knocking on corporate doors. �I really wanted to stay in the ski business,� he says. �I wanted to take what I had learned as a pro rider and apply it to modern marketing and communications.� He sighs. �I swung the bat with a lot of companies,� he admits. �But it�s a pretty saturated market out there � there are a lot of people with similar work experiences to mine. Besides, it seems that if you live at Whistler, people in the business don�t take you seriously. It�s like they think your work ethic is compromised or something��

That�s when he decided to move to Vancouver. �That was a huge decision for me,� he tells me. �But my gal, Jennifer MacCormack, was already living in the city so that made it easier.�

It didn�t take him long to find work. And although it wasn�t in the ski business like he�d hoped for, his new job opened up a whole world of opportunities in which to apply his pro rider experiences. �It�s almost like it was meant to be,� he says.

Today, Nesbitt is the sports marketing director for Vancouver-based Kona Bicycle Company. �Every day I work there,� says the born-again cyclist, �I become more excited about my job. It�s a private company owned by two guys. And it�s run 100 per cent on gut instinct. Which means that whenever I have a new idea, I can get an answer right away without having to deal with a bunch of management crap.�

So what�s it feel like to be living away from Whistler? �It�s a totally different lifestyle,� he says. �I mean, at Whistler, you just take it for granted that you can step outside your door and be in the mountains immediately. Whether skiing or riding or running or cycling, it�s all within easy reach. In the city, you have to be so much more organized��

Still, he says, Whistler has changed a lot since he first moved to the valley in the winter of 1990-91. And not all for the good. �In the old days, everyone in the WB marketing office had goggle-tans,� he explains. �Now you don�t see that so much.� It goes deeper than that though. �Whistler-Blackcomb is out of touch with its core market,� he says. �They�ve stopped embracing the edgy, rowdy �anything-goes� side of youth culture. Ironically, that�s what made the resort so unique and exciting in the first place.�

In a proposal he presented to Whistler-Blackcomb�s marketing department (before he got his Kona job), Smiley put it bluntly: Things can only change for WB when it gets back to showing the world what it has as opposed to what it should have . Embracing the youth culture already thriving here will help turn things around��

His point is well taken. Rather than trying to be the new Vail � and attracting a safe, middle aged clientele with a near-institutionalized mediocrity of product offerings � Smiley is suggesting that the decision makers running our ski hill should look to Whistler�s core story for inspiration. �A few years ago,� he wrote, �Las Vegas tried to shift their (party place) appeal with a �bring your family to the alternative Disneyland� campaign. It didn�t work. In fact, it failed miserably. So what did they do? They went back to marketing it for what it is � Sin City.�

Clearly Nesbitt is on to something here. Keeping a core image among young influencers is not only key to (WB�s) immediate success because of their relationship to today�s decision makers,� he wrote. �But (it�s) also a key to future success when those people eventually become decision makers themselves.� I couldn�t have said it better myself�