If there was a fire in your house, the three things would you save: Anyone who’s in the house, cats and my knit hat.
The afternoon sun glints off Jeremy Cline’s tinted Dragon goggles as he stands atop the 40-foot-long tabletop jump he helped build.
He wipes some snow off his spring gloves as a light wind blows open Cline’s zip-up hoodie, which reads Monument
Snowboards.
The Harrisonburg native looks like every other kid in Massanutten’s terrain park with his board pants covering all
but the toes of his boots. But he’s not the same. He can’t hear a thing.
Jeremy Cline is deaf.
Top of his game
Yet this 28-year-old from the ‘Burg is in his prime, as snowboarding goes. He’s been sponsored by snowboard megalith
Ride for five years; he’s out west filming movie segments for snowboard videos whenever he can; he’s won medals in
competitions in Lake Tahoe and Sweden.
Cline still competes some, but doesn’t like standing around. “You wait and wait,” he says, glancing down at his
watch, tapping his booted foot in feigned impatience. “You take like two or three runs all day.
“But I will try to get into the U.S. Open,” he says, of the top snowboard competition in the states – the ’06 prize
purse will exceed $200,000.
Entrance isn’t easy, though. The U.S. Open Snowboard Championships, held in Stratton, Vt., in March, accepts about
150 riders out of thousands of applicants worldwide. Riders must register on the company’s Web site, which is
clogged with contenders.
“That’s why I like photo shoots and filming,” he says. “You build a hit in the backcountry and ride all day long.”
Cline spends roughly five months a year at western U.S. resorts filming session segments and pulling tricks such as
cab, corked 7s and backside rodeos for the cameras.
“Over Surveillance” is his latest video title, available from a Cline sponsor, the ’Burg’s Function4Sports.
“I always visualize myself in the air,” says Cline, who used to lie in bed when he was younger, practicing moves
with his snowboard strapped on his feet. “I’d close my eyes and practice grabs and spins in my head,” he says. “I
used to do it for hours.”
That kind of drive caught the attention of some big names in the snowboarding world.“Jeremy has a smooth style and a
unique attitude,” says Pat Bridges, editor of Snowboarder Magazine, a publication out of San Juan Capistrano, Calif.
“He has gained respect amongst the other pros by having fun and by succeeding out here as an East Coast rider. And
he shows that you don’t need hearing to be good.”
East Coast pride
Snowboarding has been Jeremy Cline’s form of expression for the last 15 years. He has topped podiums in competitions
and dropped jaws in photo shoots and video segments. He works part of the season at Massanutten’s terrain park,
building the features: rails, hips and tabletops. The rest of the season, Cline rips up powder hits for the cameras
in Cali. But his climb to the top hasn’t been easy.
When he was 9 months old, Cline was diagnosed with an unusual form of meningitis, which cost him his hearing.
“We knew he couldn’t hear as soon as we got home from the hospital,” says Diane Cline, Jeremy’s mother.
She’s one of his key influences, according to Cline. Mrs. Cline says school officials wanted to group Jeremy with
mentally handicapped students. But she wanted Jeremy in public schools and not at the Virginia School for the Deaf
and Blind in Staunton. “I stood my ground,” she says.
“Jeremy’s mother really put up a fight with the Rockingham County Schools to get Jeremy in the system,” says Linda
Vaught, a special education teacher for hearing impaired students at County schools.
“It was a hard time,” says Vaught, who taught Jeremy from third grade through graduation. “There weren’t many deaf
students in area public schools at the time.”
Actually, Cline was the only deaf student in McGaheysville Elementary in the mid-80s to be “mainstreamed,” according
to Vaught.
Cline spent the day in the classroom with hearing students and his interpreter.
“Mrs. Cline wanted Jeremy in public schools because she thought it would be more of a challenge for him,” says
Vaught.
And it proved to be just that.
Getting the message
While attending Montevideo Middle School, Cline began experiencing difficulties.
“It was hard at first,” he says, mouthing some words, and writing some down. “Ordering from fast food places was
tough. We’d go to McDonald’s and I would be like …” Cline purses his lips and looks down, in a defiant scowl. “But
now,” he says, raising piercing blue eyes, “they understand me.”
Cline’s friends have always understood him. He follows their conversation with an uncanny ability to read lips.
“He’s really good at reading lips,” says Shawn Tysinger, who grew up with Cline. “He’ll know what someone’s talking
about from across the room.”
Living in silence has sharpened his other senses. When he was 12, Cline and his mother arrived at their home in
Broadway to find they had been robbed.
“I knew something was wrong when we walked in,” Cline says, his words interspersed with writing on a sheet of paper.
“I could smell someone else’s skin and hair,” he says, brushing a shaggy lock of his own away from his face.
Cline then told his mother to call the police. “When I got to my room things were messed up and missing,” he says.
“I knew I was right.”
The next year, when Cline was 13, he started working at Massanutten, handing out rental poles to guests. There, he
honed his skills and four years later began working at the terrain park.
Topping the podium
In 2001, Cline made it to the finals in the Vans Triple Crown Big Air competition at Sierra-at-Tahoe.
Two years later, in 2003, he won the bronze medal in the 15th annual Deaflympics, held in Sundsvall, Sweden. The
medal was for the halfpipe competition.
“I never ride the pipe,” he says, laughing. “I’ve only done it three times in 15 years.”
Cline was sponsored by Ride Snowboards for five years, but began to feel stagnant.
“Being in the Harrisonburg area, it’s hard to get the respect that you can get out west,” Cline says. “I wasn’t able
to move up with Ride. Plus a lot of the riders were [jerks].”
Then, a snowboard rep told Cline about Monument Snowboards, a locally owned company.
“He text messaged me,” says Monument owner Dave Tran. “And wrote, ‘I don’t know if you know me, but I’m the deaf
snowboarder at Massanutten.’ ”
It was on from there. Cline had a two-page ad for Ride in Frequency Snowboarding Journal, then left Ride for Tran’s
Monument boards.
“I told him he’d have much more say with Monument,” says Tran, 30.
And Cline does – he designed his own pro model snowboard according to his likes and dislikes. “I ride a soft,
freestyle board,” he says. “It’s more responsive for park riding.”
Cline hasn’t faltered in his climb to the top.
“Jeremy’s the epitome of an underdog,” Tran says. “He’s overcome so much and still has a great attitude and style.”
And Cline’s reputation is beginning to precede him. “Whenever we’re at mountains for promos, little kids always come
up to him for autographs,” Tran says. “We always joke with him, like, ‘Can we get your autograph too?’ ”
Must Come Down
Cline reaches for the j-bar lift at the base of Massanutten’s terrain park. He glances back and flashes a smile.
There is sincerity to Cline’s demeanor. He is expressive. But he has to be. His facial expressions and hand gestures
clarify responses to questions he can’t hear. But his snowboarding speaks for itself.
Riding the lift up, the Harrisonburg native surveys the park. A park he helped build. A park that helped build him.
Cline lets go of the j-bar at the top of the terrain park.
“Warm-up run,” he says, pulling his goggles over his multicolored knit hat. He claps his hands once and points his
custom board downhill.
Cline’s “warm-up run” through the park is more like a competition run. He 50-50s the first flat rail, butters the
flat-to-down and approaches the final kicker.
Cline streaks into the jump with a steady scraping sound like static on channel five, then – silence.
He’s airborne, spinning in slow motion, 20-feet above the deck. Sound doesn’t matter up here…
The static sound returns as Cline lands a massive cab 540.
Riders in the park cheer from the j-bar, but Cline can’t hear their applause. And he doesn’t need to. He knows his
style and smiles like he is 13 again, like he just linked together his first turns.
Being deaf in his sport is not a problem. “I let my riding do all the talking,” he says.
Jeremy Cline
Age: 28
Zodiac sign: Taurus
Birthplace: RMH
Your dream date: Demi Moore
The best birthday you ever had: Too many great birthdays to choose from
Movie you secretly like: I don’t think I like any movie, but my favorite comedy movie is “Dumb and Dumber.” Really,
I have too many movie favorites.
Lucky number: 7
Best vacation spot: Any beach like Miami Beach, Nags Head, etc.
Favorite cartoon character: Stewie in “The Family Guy”
