Rebel on the Edge

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Ski racers--young, fit and famous--are not exactly strangers in the nightclubs at resorts across Europe and the Rockies. There's a reason the ski circuit is called the "white circus." Italian ski legend Alberto Tomba (La Bomba) kept the tabloids busy with his evening exploits. "If any of the sponsors didn't know what they were in for, that this is a part of the package, shame on them," says a Nike rep. According to Miller's agent, Miller just inked the biggest deal ever for a skier, with equipment maker Atomic. He also endorses Barilla pasta, among other products, the income from which provided enough money for him to buy a 600-acre farm in New Hampshire. To the Swoosh folks, who love edgy marketing and freethinking athletes, a jock with a party rep doesn't amount to a problem. In December, Nike launched a website for Miller carrying the tagline "Join Bode" that features the skier offering his philosophy on everything from mental training to retirement.

It's not that Miller, 28, was groomed for leading a movement. As a kid, he spent lots of time by himself, wandering the woods near his home. He didn't watch television because there wasn't one, which is generally coincident with not having electricity. That lifestyle was a choice made by his parents. His father Woody, a med-school dropout with no thirst for the professional life, found happiness working in the outdoors at a variety of hardscrabble jobs. His mother Jo worked at her father's sports camp. Miller has two sisters and one brother.

The Millers home schooled their children some years and sent them to the local school others. They lived so far off the beaten path that Bode had to trek through the dark woods to the bus stop. The many hours alone, he says, taught him to think. His parents were laid back, willing to let their children follow their own instincts. That led young Bode to the slopes of Cannon Mountain, an inclination that was no doubt heightened by his parents' split--although each of them lives in separate quarters at the family compound.

Miller's prowess as a skier and his reputation as a hard nut were already known in the area when he was offered a spot in Carrabassett Valley Academy, a prep school in Maine for ski racers. But coaches there couldn't tame him. They kept trying to alter his so-called back-seat style, and he resisted fiercely. If you want to ski on your ass, they finally told him, become a snowboarder. In his book, Bode: Go Fast, Be Good, Have Fun, he claims that another local coach even sabotaged his chance for the junior Olympic team. Then, when he was 19, a still unknown Miller skied his way onto the national team.

Experiences like those made him an iconoclast. He learned to appreciate the process of racing, not necessarily the result. And he learned to coach himself, because no one else could. You can hear the resentment in his voice today: "We should tell our kids to just have fun, participate and not get bent on winning or losing. But every coach, when they say that, they say it tongue in cheek, 'Don't worry about winning': If you win I'll get you ice cream, but if you lose I'm going to pout in the car."