Picabo Street likes being mom even better than being an Olympian

SNOWBASIN — Picabo Street is acutely conscious that she remains a "brand" after a stellar decade-plus in the limelight for her skiing skills in the downhill and Super-G.

The resume's a good one: She was the first American to win a World Cup season title in a speed event, capturing the downhill in 1995. She's also an Olympic gold medalist and veteran of three different Games.

She retired from professional skiing after the Salt Lake Games in 2002 and was inducted into a National Ski Hall of Fame a couple of years later. But she still endorses products — "If I believe in them. I'm pretty picky," she says.

Street made that comment in December during an interview right after she demonstrated a device she's endorsing from Launch Pad Gear called a Hookease, designed by an Ogden dad to help teach kids to ski.

"This is one," she said. "It gives me much less anxiety about teaching my boys to ski."

Street is also a motivational speaker, does color commentary for sporting events and is working on a TV show called "True Champions" that she hopes will be picked up by a network.

But the most meaningful moments these days are the homey ones, when she's rocking Roen, who just turned 1, or goofing off with Eli, 8, Trey, 7, or Dax, 2. While Olympian is a great moniker, she's even fonder of "mom."

"I have a very separate family life and I try to keep it that way," she said. "When I'm at home (the family divides time between Alabama or Utah), I'm mom, hair in a ponytail and maybe with my jammies on."

Most people have heard a little about her background — born in tiny Triumph, Idaho, in the shadow of Sun Valley, with no TV and, thus, "no false image to follow. Just me and my brother and my folks." She taught herself to ski after her dad and brother went, leaving a furious little Picabo behind. She sulked and raged and when her dad came home from she didn't know where, she demanded to know why she didn't get to go. He'd take her, he said, when she could ski.

So when the guys went inside to get warm and ready for dinner, she strapped on her brother's red, white and blue too-big K2 skis, no poles, and dragged herself up the hill behind the house, then slipped and fell her way back down, doing it again and again. When her dad called her for dinner, she made him watch what she'd just taught herself.

She got to go with them the next trip. She was 5.

Keeping lives separate