Legends in their own right.
It’s 2015, so I thought it was safe to assume that anyone who frequents a major snowboard publications website knows that there are two professional snowboarders who share the name Jeremy Jones. After perusing a few articles about Burton’s recent cut one of the Jeremys, specifically Jeremy Jones (Jib), I realized that there is still confusion surrounding these two icons.
So I have done my best to explain the two Jeremy’s and put an end to the confusion.
Name: Jeremy Jones
Age: 39
Hometown: Salt Lake City, Utah
Best Friend: JP Walker
Preferred Terrain: The Streets
Political Affiliation: Republican
Rival: Bode Merrill or Anyone Who Beefs with JP
The first Jeremy Jones that was wildly popular in the professional snowboard community was a young man from Salt Lake City, Utah who is well known for being part of the iconic Forum 8. This Jeremy Jones — alongside his brother from another mother JP Walker — pretty much revolutionized the urban jib scene; in fact, they took urban jibbing so seriously that they even dressed like rappers whenever they hit the streets.
Known in snowboard circles as Jeremy Jones (Jib), he was recently dropped by his main sponsor Burton Snowboards. Although the exact details are still shrouded in industry secrecy, the most common assumption is that Burton didn’t see Jeremy Jones (Jib) as a viable investment any longer and therefore chose not renew his contract.
At 39 years old, Jeremy feels strongly that he still has a lot to contribute to the world of snowboarding and seemed somewhat miffed that Burton had made the decision not to renew his contract. This sentiment was expressed in a recent interview that featured almost no controversial or thought provoking questions on Snowboard Magazine’s website. Jeremy Jones (Jib) voiced his discontent with the apparent ageism at Burton including this line “Tony Hawk just dropped a hammer video part a few months back, and the homie is something close to 50!” Jeremy Enthuses. “If that doesn’t say keep going, then nothing will.”
Of course Jeremy Jones (Jib) surely realizes that Tony Hawk was brought to the edge of bankruptcy during hard economic times in the skateboard industry while he was much younger and actually in his prime, and without owning his own company and becoming a world ambassador for skateboarding culture his relevancy would have likely evaporated like most other vert skaters in the early nineties. In short, Tony Hawk has transcended his own freakish skateboard talent by giving back to skateboarding through running his own brands and philanthropy efforts like the Tony Hawk Foundation.
Jeremy Jones (Jib) is clearly still an insanely talented snowboarder and thanks to the man who is single handedly saving everyone’s career, mister Pat Moore, Jeremy Jones (Jib) will have the chance to prove his worth on film once again this season as he has been filming for Pat’s most recent project Blueprint.
Name: Jeremy Jones
Age: 40
Hometown: Truckee, California
Best Friend: Anyone Psycho Enough to Ice Climb to Their Next Line
Preferred Terrain: Nut Shrinking Alaskan lines
Political Affiliation: Anyone Not Trying To Kill The Environment
Rival: Climate Change Deniers
The second Jeremy Jones, who is fondly referred to as Jeremy Jones (Big Mountain), has never back lipped a street rail in his entire life. He has, however, charged the most spine tingling big mountain lines humanly possible, and at the tender age of 40 he doesn’t look like he’s slowing down.
Jeremy Jones (Big Mountain) was raised on the East Coast doing the nerdiest thing possible, racing. While the rest of us were wearing XXL pants and sawing off our highbacks, Jeremy Jones (Big Mountain) was learning how to use his edges, which would come to serve him later in life when he was racing down death defying mountain chutes.
This Jeremy is also well known in large part due to his efforts to combat global warming. In 2007, Jeremy Jones (Big Mountain) founded an organization called Protect Our Winters, or POW for short. POW’s mission is to unite the snow sports community to fight global climate change.
In 2009 Jeremy Jones (Big Mountain) founded his own snowboard company, which he creatively named Jones Snowboards. Jones saw a need for a niche brand that could cater primarily to backcountry and powder enthusiast. Where other snowboard manufactures tried relentlessly to be everything to everyone, Jones directed his site on the growing backcountry category.Jeremy Jones (Big Mountain) also recently completed his film trilogy that has documented his big mountain exploits since 2010 and includes the popular films: Deeper, Further, and Higher. Which, when read in successive order sounds sort of like a porn about stoners, but is in all actuality some of the most insane snowboarding ever caught on film.
There are two very different professional snowboarders who are named Jeremy Jones. Jeremy Jones (Jib) is trying to stay relevant in a category of snowboarding that has always catered to a younger audience, and while he might be a good guy at heart he has continually induced eye-rolls with his suspect behavior, including his pro Iraq War stance, talking shit in print about all around nice guy Bode Merrill, and referring to himself as “the real Jeremy Jones.” Jeremy Jones (Big Mountain) has found ways to reinvent himself and stay relevant through his big mountain exploration, growing snowboard label, and environmental advocacy. And form all accounts is a pretty nice and humble guy, who while a family man, is still wild enough to hangout with that other psycho Travis Rice.
Both of these men have been generous enough to risk injury and death to progress the sport of snowboarding, however if you look at their legacies, only one is really walking a similar path to that of The Birdman. And while both of these men will be remembered as snowboarding icons, one is sure to garner Higher amounts of respect.
