Athlete profile: Betsy Shaw

Posted: Tue February 3, 1998 at 5:00 PM ET

Athlete notes

For Betsy Shaw, the 1997-98 season will be her last, but with snowboarding being contested at the Olympics, she hopes to go out on a golden note..."I've been ready to retire for four years now. It's been a really hard decision for me to stop - then the Olympics came into the picture," explains Shaw. "Two years ago I decided to keep going for another two years to go for the Olympics"...she is still uncertain, however, about the idea of snowboarding being an Olympic sport..."I feel like it still has a lot of growth, a long way to go. It seems like it hasn't really established rules yet"...her major concern, however, is not the rules of the game but the politics of the sport..."I liked it [snowboarding] because it was non-conventional. It's become big business and I don't like the big business aspect of it all. It's sad to me," she says but, "If I'm lucky enough to win I will be really psyched!"...Shaw is a veteran ski racer but began boarding in 1987 when the sport was still new, especially for women..."There weren't a lot of girls back then and it was a hometown thing," recalls Shaw...she began snowboarding at age 21 when she became bored with collegiate skiing, and in 1988 she started competing in the New England Cup series on weekends..."My first snowboarding competition I took second place and won money and that's what kept me doing it," she says. "Slowly it became more competitive"...Shaw explained that 10 years ago it was easier for a women to get sponsorship..."Everyone knew who I was at my local mountain because there weren't that many girls in the sport"...Burton Snowboards, the company she races for, was based in her hometown..."I worked in Burton's factory answering phones. It was a night job. I liked it because I could snowboard all day," but now, she admits it is harder to find a sponsor...Shaw has discovered that the females of the sport do not take as many risks as the men do..."I think a lot of it is mental. I think we could all do much better if we took more risks," says Shaw, before smiling and saying, "I'm focusing on threatening the guys a little bit"...following the Olympics, Betsy Booper, a popular nickname among friends, plans to spend more time with her husband Ean McKenzie and possibly finish school...she has three classes left to complete her undergraduate degree in German from the University of Vermont..."I don't know what I'd do with it," Shaw says about her major. "I didn't know what I was doing there [in college]. I've learned a lot more German from snowboarding and traveling then in school"...Shaw figures she will finish school then go on to graduate school...if nothing else she will go in search of powder..."I feel like I haven't had the chance to experience powder living here in the east. It is definitely the essence of snowboarding"...