Wakeboarder Hopes Her Flips Don’t Flop

Someday, Gretchen Hammarberg will nail a whirlybird. Maybe even a mobe.

“I’m not fearless,” she says. “But I’m not afraid to try.”

Which is why she left her Coeur d’Alene home for Orlando, Fla., last week. Gretchen is a wakeboarder with her eye on the pros. Orlando will tell her if she’s extreme enough for this gravity-defying sport.

Gretchen’s 19 and so full of life that she radiates energy and invincibility. Jumping over wakes and flipping backward and forward on a mini-surfboard at 20 mph is afternoon play to her.

She never considered wakeboarding more than a pastime until she won a competition this summer.

“I really didn’t have a good run, but I beat a girl who had a sponsor,” Gretchen says. “Everyone got so excited.”

Growing up in gymnastics and on Sandpoint’s ski hills strengthened her legs and sharpened her coordination.

A friend who noticed her ease on a snowboard suggested she try wakeboarding, a cross between waterskiing and snowboarding. Gretchen took her first ride on Lake Coeur d’Alene two years ago.

“It took me forever to get up,” she says. “I remember thinking, ‘Why can’t I do this?”’

Its difficulty teased her. That summer and the next she practiced her moves on a trampoline, hitched boat rides from people she hardly knew, hooked up with seasoned boarders and competed with a friend to learn tricks.

By the end of the season last year, Gretchen could jump wakes and spin 360 degrees. She hung up her board and headed to the University of Colorado in Boulder, but hit the water as soon as classes ended last May.

A win at her first competition in June encouraged her to try bigger moves. Gretchen moved her back flips (tantrums in wakeboard language) and variations from the trampoline to the water.

Pros recognized her talent and worked with her. As she refined her technique, sponsors began calling with offers of equipment. Wakeboarding is such a young sport that female competitors are pioneers. Gretchen wanted to test her talent before committing to anyone.

The pros pointed her to Orlando’s Jennifer Leachman Training Center, run by its nationally ranked water-skier namesake. The school could teach her the whirlybirds and mobes - complicated spins - she’ll need for the pros, they told her.

Gretchen plans to take a year off college and trade work at the center for lessons. Her family encouraged her to jump at the opportunity.

“I’ll go as far as I can toward professional wakeboarding, give it a try,” she says, as she pops out of her VCR a videotape of her skills for potential sponsors.

“It scares me a little, but I know my family will always accept me back.”

Winning spirit

Since Kellogg’s Pat Rummerfield’s remarkable recovery from a potentially fatal car accident 23 years ago, he hasn’t slowed down. Doctors predicted then the 21-year-old would be a quadriplegic who would probably die from organ failure within five years. Boy, were they wrong.

He worked diligently for 17 years to stand again, then trained and raced in the Coeur d’Alene Triathlon. He left Kellogg a few years ago for Illinois to train as a race car driver. Last month, he was clocked unofficially at 237 mph in “White Lightning” at Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats.

The electric car world speed record is 183 mph and Pat plans to break it officially at Bonneville next month. Not bad for a guy who should be dead, eh?

What have your Panhandle neighbors accomplished that amazes you? Share your awe with Cynthia Taggart, “Close to Home,” 608 Northwest Blvd., Suite 200, Coeur d’Alene, ID, 83814; FAX to 765-7149; call 765-7128; or e-mail to cynthiat@spokesman.com.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo