Legend

Don Mixon Jr.

 DMJ

 Written by Teri Jones AKA "Teri Larson"

Interview by Scott W. Jones AKA "Jonesy"

My memories of the1985 US Nationals at McCormick lakes in Tampa, Florida are fuzzy at best. But some of the weirdest tournament stories I tell came from that year. That was the first time I ever saw a “water balloon launcher,” and the first and only time I saw one launch a cat into a lake by the McCormick boys. Another fond memory from that tournament was hearing gun shots in the far lake, and seeing a very large shirtless man wading out of the lake with a .357 magnum in one hand and a 3ft long water moccasin in the other. That was the first time I saw Russ Connolly. Later that evening at the hotel I saw a group around a very large boom box blasting Run DMC. In the center of the group was a kid break dancing: that was the first time I saw Don Mixon Jr.

Don’s first barefoot competition was the 1979 Southern Regional tournament at the naval base in Orlando, Florida. His first tournament would have been the 1978 Nationals, but his father’s skiing injuries postponed Don’s debut. His father had competed in an endurance tournament for their ski club a few weeks prior to the 1978 nationals, and had burned a hole in each heel from hanging on too long in his win over a kid from the ski club. Don’s last serious tournament was the 1996 worlds, but was coaxed into skiing a couple of tournaments by Brent Benoist in 2001.

Don had countless pending world records, of which four slalom records were ratified between 1985 and 1989. He had a world record in starts, but someone on the world council tucked it into their briefcase when they were asked for any world records…However, since the person is deceased they will remain anonymous.

After retiring from barefooting, Don earned a degree in electronics and worked for IBM until three years ago when he began his own lawn care service. When not at work, Don enjoys most of his free time with his family and leads the men’s ministry at his church.

Don is a Florida native, living most of his life in the Tampa area. Currently, he lives in the area with his wife Debi, whom he married in 1996. In 2000, Don donated one of his kidneys to Debi. Two years later, Don and Debi adopted their daughter, Madison Grace, on October 31st.

We had the pleasure of meeting with Don in Winter Haven, Florida at Jim and Jen Taylor’s house.

 

 

Jonesy:  How old were you when you started skiing, and at what age did you start barefooting?

DMJ: I first skied on wooden disc on Lake Padgett when I was five, and began barefooting at age 11.

Jonesy: Who did you admire the most or look up to when you first got started in the sport?

DMJ: My Father.

Jonesy: Would you be willing to tell me about your dad breaking his neck?

DMJ: I was 14years old. My father and Al Keifer were planning to host the National tournament. Two weeks before Nationals, my father had a photo shoot for the Unique Marine  2001 wetsuits from New Zealand that he was selling. During the shoot he fell while doing a teeth hold. In the fall he had turned his head to the side and broke the bridge out of his mouth. I believe that was the beginning of his neck damage. The weekend after Nationals, we went skiing with some friends. My father used to do back step-offs, so after a pass I said “Hey old man, get back in the boat. You’re tired.” But my dad wanted to ski back to pick up his step-off ski. He did a front tumble-up, and then hit some rollers. He went out the front but didn’t let go of the handle, and ended up cracking his 4th and 5th vertebrae. They had to take a piece of bone from his hip and fuse it into his neck, which led to more problems with his hip than his neck. Last year he had another neck surgery, where his 4th vertebrae was replaced with a metal plate, and now has a bar connecting C2, C3, C5, and C6 because they are all cracked. He only skied once after that fall. 

Jonesy: There has been some debate about the neck and teeth tricks. What do you think about these tricks?

DMJ: I never particularly cared to do them. My father liked them, but what happened to him wasn’t because of the trick; it was what he was trying to do with the trick. That is the only problem with those tricks. People see skiers like Andre who does side slides with the trick, so they want to go and try to do something like that. They don’t have the skill level that Andre or another top level skier would have. I don’t have a problem or any safety issues with straight neck or teeth one-foots. They are basic tricks that a new skier can easily learn and get points for.

Jonesy: Do you still barefoot?

DMJ: Very rarely. Jim Taylor keeps inviting me but it’s hard to find the time because he’s 40 minutes away.

Jonesy: Do you ever think about competing again?

DMJ: I may get back into it, but I doubt I will ever be serious about it again. If my daughter ever shows any interest in it I’ll try to buy her a set of golf clubs or a tennis racket.

Jonesy: What do you miss about the sport?

DMJ: The people. As much as I gripe, or didn’t care for a lot of them, the relationships I developed along the way, like with “Foot”, or with Ron Scarpa were meaningful. Even though I had battles on the water with Ron, I really enjoyed going out with him and having a good time. We would go out to dinner and talk about everything and anything, and he’s five years older than me. I miss those things.

Jonesy: Tell Me about the dynamics of the US teams you were a member of.  

DMJ: Punky Forgiana and Rick Powell were the ones I had the biggest rivalry with. Mike Seipel was a machine. We were all individuals, but we were all rooting for each other. We all want to beat each other, but we all wanted everyone to do well. Our goal as a team back then was to win (I was on the first team to win the gold 1985), so it was like a work dynamic.

 

Jonesy: What was your favorite event and why?

DMJ: Jump. Bar none. Nothing feels like being lifted up in the air like that. Especially on a jump that you know is big. I remember a jump in Bell Lake when Chuck Alleger was driving. Some rollers were at the base of the jump that made me pause, and then I hit the jump and went straight up. Suddenly, my feet went behind me, and I was lifted higher. It felt like I hit an air pocket! Nothing compares to that feeling. To me, slalom is about body position and rhythm, and tricks are too much work.

 Jonesy: What was your favorite trick and why?

DMJ: I like multiple turns, whether it was on one foot or two. When they are done right they look effortless and pretty. When you see someone do more than a 360 it just looks so sweet!

Jonesy: Which trick do you think is harder, multiples, toe turns, or line-steps?

DMJ: Line-steps. I won’t do them. I never learned them and never wanted to. It may not be that much harder than a one foot turn, but I was never comfortable standing there with the handle between my legs.

Jonesy: Why did you do a front to back 540 before your back wakes?

DMJ: My father used to make me do a wake front to back before doing back slalom when I trained. We had a mile long lake with a 40 second pass on one side and a 30 second pass on the other. I used to do front to backs or 540s for slalom because I hated to do back deeps. For me to get into the position I wanted to be in for slalom it was easier to do it from a front to back position than it was from a back deep. At tournaments it was about the challenge. Jim Taylor would be on the dock telling me there was no way I would do a 540 before my second pass on slalom. He’d say “You’re chicken if you don’t.” After I did it the first time, it was more of a “Hey, he’s playing here.”

Jonesy: Why do you think we aren’t seeing any one-foot 360’s anymore, let alone 540’s or 720’s?

DMJ: With the new scoring system they should be easier. It was hard to get credit for them back when I skied. I think you don’t see them as much because it is a hard trick to get consistently. They take a lot of energy.

Jonesy:  When you look back, what accomplishments stick out the most?

DMJ: The first time I beat Ron in slalom I realized I could beat him every time I skied. It was at the Alabama state tournament in 1988. Beating him or Mike Seipel back then was a very tough thing to do, plus I’d learned from both of them. Being taught by them, and then finally beating them and realizing it was one thing. Another was the Florida state championship in the late 1980s or early 1990s; I won two or three of them in a row. It was a big accomplishment because just about every top skier competed in Florida at that time. They gave an overall trophy that stood about three feet tall, and is one of the only trophies that I still have.

Jonesy:  How did it feel to have your World Record broken?

DMJ: Records are made to be broken. I don’t think anyone was any better at slalom than I was. It is a matter of being in the right frame of mind on the right day, with the right conditions.

Jonesy: How do you think the boat change and points to crossings change affected the record?

DMJ: Not really. I was doing 19 behind a Barefoot Nautique back in the early 1980s. It makes a difference as far as the wake height, but I think once we went to the outboards I think everybody started to jack the speeds up to narrow the wakes. The narrower the wake is, the less time you take per crossing, plain and simple. Then it becomes an issue of who has a better transition or who has better control of their slowing down and speeding up like a slalom skier does.

Jonesy:  Who was your toughest competition when you where competing?

DMJ: Punky Forgiana. He was around my age, and I competed with him from 1979 until he was gone. I looked up to him, but he was also my competitor. He had the talent to do anything.

Jonesy:  What do you think is the hardest trick in barefooting?

DMJ: A one-foot 720. As I said earlier, when you get into multiple one-foot turns it is hard to get them consistent. Learning a front to back is probably one of the hardest tricks you can learn, but you can get it fairly consistent. It is just a “pounder” when you are learning it; your head hurts, your back hurts, your arms hurt. Your body just aches.

Jonesy: Tell me how long it took you to learn inverted jumping?

DMJ: We (Jim Taylor and I) did it over the winter of 1993. We jumped every day. We had a little canal and my Falcon that could get 43 or 44 mph. We had enough space to nail the boat from the start and chop the throttle as the skier stood up after landing. We trained there for three or four years. The day I decided to go inverted, Jim had a “motivational speech” with me and from that point on I jumped inverted. The “motivational speech” included Jim hitting me upside the head (I had a helmet on) to get me to go for it. We did trial and error for awhile, but when we decided to go for it, it was pretty much right there. Jimmy was my best training partner ever.

Jonesy: Not many people remember this, but you used to jump with a cape on. What brought that about?

DMJ: Nobody was out there doing anything exciting. It was boring going to tournaments. At one point I used to cut at the jump to do something to make it fun. The cape brought in an element that gave people something to start talking about. Nobody does anything like that. I wasn’t even jumping inverted then-I was jumping 52 feet traditional.

Jonesy: Do you follow the sport at all any more?

DMJ: A little bit. I use the internet or talk to friends.

Jonesy: Is there anything you would have done differently if you went back and did it again?

DMJ: I would have had more attitude. My nature is pretty easy going. It wasn’t until I met Jim Taylor that it changed. I learned that to win consistently, you have to be able to say “screw it.” I look back on my world team experiences and I was the social butterfly; I was “the glue” on some of those teams. If I could go back, knowing what I know now, I wouldn’t have taken that role. I would have worried more about my own skiing rather than boosting someone else up if they fell.

Jonesy: What advice would you give to a young person just getting into the sport?

DMJ: Enjoy yourself. Have fun. If you’re not having fun it isn’t worth being there. When I did junior clinics I realized it is important to make barefooting fun because kids don’t have the attention span or the drive to do it like an adult. Although my father is the person I look up to the most in the sport, there were some things he could have done different. I remember him throwing me in the water kicking and screaming sometimes. I also think it is important to let people develop their own styles.

Jonesy: What made you stop competing in the sport?

DMJ: Getting married and going to school in 1996. I looked at my life, and the sport wasn’t financially stable. It was fun, but it wasn’t a real job. I spent 10 years after high school graduation traveling the world skiing, teaching, and working odd jobs. When I met the right woman I skied my last worlds, and knowing that, it ended up being my worst tournament ever. Looking back, I should have quit before then because my head wasn’t into skiing at that tournament.

Jonesy: Do you think the sport is dying?

DMJ: I don’t think it is dying, I just think there isn’t enough interest in it. Barefooting used to be on ESPN, but you don’t see it anymore except for the Water Channel.  You see wakeboarding and some skiing. Wakeboarding is an easy thing to get involved and started in. Everyone thinks they can wakeboard when they see it. Barefooting is thrilling to see, but is something people don’t think they can do until they try it. The lack of cash prize tournaments hurts the sport too. A few sponsors put money into the sport, but there aren’t any cash prize tournaments anymore. People like George Blair paid for the first world team to go to Australia. I hardly spent any money when I would travel to world tournaments, but now I understand that team members only have their airfare and hotel paid for. And the teams we sent were almost twice the size of the teams we have now.

Jonesy: Do you have any funny dock or boat stories?

DMJ: The best story was from the 1985 World Championships in the slalom finals. After the prelims I had the highest score, something like 1200 points, Ron Scarpa was at 1190, and Mike Seipel was at 1185. And you want to talk about Ron psyching people out? Here I am, 14 years old, sitting on the starting dock at my first worlds, and in the finals the three of us were on the dock at the same time. Mike took off for his pass, so I’m sitting there with Ron and I asked him “Any words of advice for the rookie?” And he goes “Yeah, I have words of advice. You can either play it safe and take second place, or you can go all out and beat me.” Then Ron left to ski. The funny thing is that there was nobody out on the dock, no dock starter or anything. So here I am, 14 years old, at my first world championships sitting on the starting dock by myself, and it just got to me.

One of the funniest stories I have is about my hair in 1993. I had a flat top haircut that I let grow out for three or four months. I had it combed over to the side, but it was thick. My father told me I needed to get it cut before I went to nationals. Well, I was skiing with Jim Taylor and Chip Alleger, and Chip had some clippers that he’d been using for his own hair. So Jim said “Why don’t you let Chip cut your hair?” So I said “Sure! Let’s go!”  This resulted in what I call my “last of the Mohicans” haircut. He basically shaved my head all the way around the sides except for the top. And then I spiked it. It almost looked like “Play” from Kid-n-Play, but it was spiked like porcupine needles. It stood up a few inches, and it was how I appeared on ESPN. And this was all because my father told me I had to get a haircut.

Jonesy: Is there anyone you would like to thank?

DMJ: My parents for all the support they gave me. Not only for the monetary support, but all aspects of their support. I was trying to get out of barefooting when my father broke his neck, but his injury kept me in the sport. I stayed in it because it was his life; it was what he wanted to do. I then began to love the sport he loved so much.  I thank the Lord for all the talent He gave me, and all the people I skied with; especially Jim Taylor and Chip Alleger. I’d also like to thank Mike Rogers, one of my training partners who stayed with me when my father broke his neck.

Don can be reached at xtremists@verizon.net

 

On a separate Toesup note, we would like to thank Jim and Jen Taylor for their hospitality and for setting up this interview.

 

 

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