Outside of your neighborhood garbage man, not many people can say that their career started on a pile of trash – except for snowboarder Steve Fisher. At the tender age of eight, Fisher dropped into a halfpipe cut into a former garbage dump in Minnesota, and from there was born one of the biggest names in the snowboarding game.
After such humble beginnings, Fisher’s career had no place to go but up; and up it went. After entering his first competition at the age of nine, Fisher qualified to compete in the USASA nationals. From there, he joined the US Snowboarding team in 2002, quickly becoming known in the professional ranks as a rider that goes big on his tricks but still maintains a smooth, aggressive style.
With a pair of Winter X Games gold medals in his trophy case from 2004 and ’07, Fisher is part of an elite group – only two other snowboarders can boast that they’ve achieved double gold in the X Games halfpipe, Shaun White and Todd Richards.
Entering the 2008-09 season as the top-ranked USSA halfpipe rider, Fisher claimed two second-place showings on the inaugural Winter Dew Tour and finished the season ranked second overall. And, after closing out the 2008-09 season tied with Louie Vito for the top spot in the Grand Prix rankings, Fisher matched his Winter Dew Tour performance from the season before, closing out the 2009-10 Tour in second place once again.
Pretty good for someone who can trace his success back to a garbage dump.
