A fateful dive helped Billy Demong rise to the top

Billy Demong went into the tattoo parlor with a simple request. Nothing gaudy, Gothic or garish.

All he wanted was a hockey puck-sized tattoo on his ribcage showing the universal “No Diving” sign, the one with the red circle and slash through the figure of a man plunging headfirst into the water.

Just like he did in 2002, when he cracked his skull on the bottom of a swimming pool in Germany.

“Everybody gets a good laugh out of the tattoo, but I think people that know me well know it’s more than just a joke,” Demong said.

Demong, one of the reasons the U.S. Nordic ski team is so excited about the Vancouver Games, has never looked back on his accident with regret or viewed his mishap as a misfortune.

“I don’t think I would have ever been able to continue as a skier for very long had that injury not happened. Or at least I wouldn’t have enjoyed myself nearly as much,” said Demong, 29. “Not only from a skiing standpoint but from a life standpoint. It was a really fortunate thing. Not only was I lucky in terms of not having any severe permanent impairment, but I was able to get a lot of perspective and change the way I felt about life in general.”

Along with Todd Lodwick and Johnny Spillane, Demong leads the U.S. team for Nordic combined, a sport that combines ski jumping with cross-country skiing. The three Americans have followed up their breakthroughs at last year’s world championships with more triumphs on the World Cup circuit this winter.

Once hopelessly behind the Germans, Austrians, Russians, Norwegians and Finns, the U.S. Nordic combined ski team is now considered a favorite for the podium next month.

Demong is certain he never would have been in this position were it not for the stupid mistake he made as a brash 21-year-old up-and-comer in 2002. He and some friends were horsing around at a hotel pool in Germany, and he decided to take one more dive into the shallow water.

His head smacked the concrete bottom of the pool, fracturing his skull. When he regained consciousness a few minutes later on the pool deck, Demong was terrified he had broken his neck. He was almost grateful to hear it was only a cracked head, which kept him out of competition for a full year.

When he finally got back on the slopes, Demong expected it to take a while to regain his mental edge on the ski jump hill, but struggled physically instead.

“In the beginning I jumped pretty well and then I tried to change my technique a lot and it didn’t end up working out. So, that definitely sidetracked me further for a year or two,” Demong said. “But in the long run, mentally I came back stronger.”

Demong won a silver medal at the 2007 world championships. He won a bronze and a gold at last year’s worlds, when the Americans won three of the four events.

The only disappointment came when Demong lost his bib in the Nordic combined team event and was disqualified from the ski jump, ending the Americans’ medal chances. But Demong bounced back to win the final individual event for his first world title, which reduced his bib blunder to a “tiny asterisk in our perfect week,” said team director John Farra.

Six months later, Demong found himself in the tattoo parlor, some friends gathered around.

“I’m not one of those people that never thought they’d have a tattoo,” he said. “But if there was a good enough reason …”

As the ink jackhammered into his flesh, he thought back to the year he spent away from his sport recovering from the seven-inch crack in his skull that snaked from his nose to the top of his head.

“I hope I always hold on to the lessons that I learned that year. That was a big year of personal growth,” Demong said. “I was 21 years old when I had the accident. I had no other skills, nothing else really going on in my life. And I had gotten to the point where when we got fourth place at the (Salt Lake) Olympics, I was like devastated for six months.

“And so taking a year off allowed me to distance myself from that a little bit and kind of go back to school and get some other skills and enjoy life for a different reason and realize if I didn’t make it as a Nordic combined skier, I’ll still be alive and I’ll still have plenty of things to enjoy.”

During that year off, he decided to work with his hands and be self-sufficient, both around his mountain home in Park City, Utah, and in the back country.

“What I really started doing after my accident was being a more informed person, figuring out more ways to do things,” Demong said. “So, I started investing and being in charge of my investments, I started working around the house, remodeling things. If I didn’t know how to do it, well I was going to figure it out. If I screwed it up, fine. Lesson learned.”

And no regrets.

“A lot of the reason is I’ve done stuff like that my whole life,” he said. “As winter sport athletes, I think we all grew up in little mountain towns where doing crazy stuff on frozen water was the thing to do. To be successful at that, you need to be a thrill seeker.

“But of course, I’d never do THAT again.”

Instead, he’ll heed the admonition that’s inked into his ribs.

“It’s a good reminder of not to take things too seriously,” Demong said, “but also not to take other things too lightly.”