Presented by COMMERCIAL TIRE.
This Day In Sports…February 23, 2006, 20 years ago today:
Probably the most anticipated Olympic day in Boise to that point, as native son skier Jeret Peterson goes for a gold medal in freestyle aerials at the Winter Games in Torino. Speedy would unveil his signature “hurricane” jump, with the highest degree of difficulty in the history of the sport. It was awesome in the air, but Speedy would be late on his landing, dragging his right hand. The markdown cost him a medal, and he finished seventh.
Peterson’s Olympic experience ended abruptly less than 24 hours later when he was asked to leave the Games after a drunken fistfight in public with a friend. In this feature a year ago marking the 15th anniversary of his silver medal at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, I talked about the many difficult turns Peterson’s life took after Torino, leading to a hiatus from competitive skiing. But Speedy quit drinking, returned to the World Cup circuit, and qualified for the U.S. squad at Vancouver. Then, with five twists and three flips, he stuck the hurricane to make the podium.
Peterson, who grew up skiing at Bogus Basin and graduated from Timberline High, had a resume that belied his journey. It’s a difficult story to tell again here in what is normally an upbeat feature. Peterson had openly spoken about his battle with alcohol and depression through the years. His mother had told him about being sexually abused as an infant, and protecting sexually-abused children became a cause he would champion until the end. His sister, Kim, was killed by a drunk driver in 1987. And in 2005, he witnessed the suicide of a childhood friend. After the 2010 Winter Games, alcohol found him again.
Peterson’s story would end tragically exactly 17 months after his silver medal when he took his own life in a remote Utah canyon a few days after being arrested for DUI near Hailey. His cousin, Shannon Decker, created the “Speedy Foundation” later that year to magnify Peterson’s mental health challenges and provide resources to address suicide prevention.
The foundation’s first achievement was the reinstatement of the Idaho Suicide Prevention Hotline in 2012 after it had been dormant for six years. The foundation now hosts events throughout the West—more information is available at TheSpeedyFoundation.org. And if you or someone you know is struggling, you can reach out to what is now known as the Suicide & Crisis Hotline by calling 988.
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.)
