Name
Teacher NAme
Tom Sims
11 December 2012 ` Ever wonder who revolutionized downhill snow sports? I can tell you that. One day in school Tom Sims was in his 7th grade shop class and he had to do an engineering project and he wanted to make a skateboard that you could use in the snow. If it wasn’t for Tom Sims I don’t know whether or not there would be snowboarding or even skiing. He is the godfather of snowboarding and aggressive downhill skiing. The way he thought of it is when he couldn’t skate in New Jersey in the winter and that frustrated him. So he invented a ski board, which is a snowboard just with a different name. So that winter he had something to use in the winter and then it just hit. He had owned his own skateboarding shop for a while after he got out of school, and Tony Hawk road for his skateboards, but then he wanted to add his invention in 7th grade to his production list. So he tried to get them on their in the late 1970’s but he didn’t have enough money for it so he had to put it off for awhile, but he didn’t tell anyone about it. Because he wanted it to be a surprise. So then in the early 1980’s he put them on his production line and they called “Sims Snowboards”. It was basically a huge hit when he produced them. People loved it, it was Americas next big thing. After the snowboards came along in the mid 1980’s Tom Sims decided he wanted to spice things up with them. So what he did was wanted to make jumps so u could get big air just like if you where on skateboard, so he thought why not be able to do that on a snowboard. So he made some big jumps for them and landing ramps for them. Then when he got ambitious he wanted to make a ramp where you could go back and forth on, he called it a half pipe. That is what made the sport take off because you had jumps, ramps, and which allowed you to get huge air. This is why I think Tom Sims revolutionized the world of downhill winter sports. Because he invented the snowboard and all of the ramps, and jumps that are for it. If it wasn’t for him I don’t know where or how snow sports would be, or if there would be any at all. Then in 1985 he became a world champion in snowboarding.