I was told from a very young age that I wasn't gonna be anything. That I wasn't gonna amount to a single thing.

I was told from a very young age that I wasn't gonna be anything. That I wasn't gonna amount to a single thing.

I know my family and I would always go up to the mountains just for fun. We always skied. Then, all of a sudden, my brother started snow boarding. Older brother thing, I had to do what he was doing. So I started snow boarding.

You show up at the Olympics, and you're no longer you; you're an American Olympian. You're part of this greater whole, and the individual doesn't matter.

Games have always a big part of my life. I was that kid freaking out over his new Nintendo.

My mom was a waitress, and my dad was a plumber who worked for the City of San Clemente fixing mains breaks, so not too glamorous.

It was hard to find a board my size. I was tiny.