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More than a decade after playing her last soccer game for the Lakers, two-time Olympic skier Shannon Bahrke remains repulsed by her old rival's rally song.
“I think we got beat every year by Truckee (in the state championship), which was just awful,” Bahrke said Thursday from her Olympic training grounds in Park City, Utah. “That ‘T.N.T.' song (by AC/DC) was their school song, and still to this day it makes me cringe.”
Some things never change. Like the 1970s rock tune Truckee adopted as its fight song — it's still blasted before the start of every home football game — as well as the still-simmering North Tahoe-Truckee soccer rivalry Bahrke remembers so well.
“I ran track for a year, too, but I was terrible,” Bahrke, a 1998 North Tahoe grad, said with a laugh. “And then I played softball, and I was terrible at that, too.”
But she was darn good at soccer — starting on varsity all four years — and even better at skiing. That hasn't changed, as the former Squaw Valley Freestyle Team member enters the 2010 Olympic season fresh off her sixth National Title in moguls.
Her most recent title, captured in dual moguls, was a particularly memorable one for Bahrke, who threw down in front of her hometown fans when Squaw Valley hosted the U.S. Freestyle Championships last March.
With Squaw slated to host the event again in 2010, Bahrke said it's tough to decide which has her more excited — her third Olympic Games, now fewer than 100 days away, or another Nationals at her home mountain.
“I'm pretty stoked about them both,” she said. “Obviously making a third Olympic team is a huge goal, but I look forward to the party at Squaw. It's going to be awesome. They did such a great job last year, and so many of my friends and family came out to watch, so it's going to be really fun again.
“I hope both events will be, in some fashion, highlights of my career.”
She also looks forward to competing at the same venues as her younger brother Scotty, an aerialist who graduated from North Tahoe about five years after his sister.
To keep tabs on the Bahrke siblings and the rest of the U.S. Ski Team as the Olympic countdown continues, check out www.nbcolympics.com for updated photos, videos and broadcast schedules.
“I think we got beat every year by Truckee (in the state championship), which was just awful,” Bahrke said Thursday from her Olympic training grounds in Park City, Utah. “That ‘T.N.T.' song (by AC/DC) was their school song, and still to this day it makes me cringe.”
Some things never change. Like the 1970s rock tune Truckee adopted as its fight song — it's still blasted before the start of every home football game — as well as the still-simmering North Tahoe-Truckee soccer rivalry Bahrke remembers so well.
“I ran track for a year, too, but I was terrible,” Bahrke, a 1998 North Tahoe grad, said with a laugh. “And then I played softball, and I was terrible at that, too.”
But she was darn good at soccer — starting on varsity all four years — and even better at skiing. That hasn't changed, as the former Squaw Valley Freestyle Team member enters the 2010 Olympic season fresh off her sixth National Title in moguls.
Her most recent title, captured in dual moguls, was a particularly memorable one for Bahrke, who threw down in front of her hometown fans when Squaw Valley hosted the U.S. Freestyle Championships last March.
With Squaw slated to host the event again in 2010, Bahrke said it's tough to decide which has her more excited — her third Olympic Games, now fewer than 100 days away, or another Nationals at her home mountain.
“I'm pretty stoked about them both,” she said. “Obviously making a third Olympic team is a huge goal, but I look forward to the party at Squaw. It's going to be awesome. They did such a great job last year, and so many of my friends and family came out to watch, so it's going to be really fun again.
“I hope both events will be, in some fashion, highlights of my career.”
She also looks forward to competing at the same venues as her younger brother Scotty, an aerialist who graduated from North Tahoe about five years after his sister.
To keep tabs on the Bahrke siblings and the rest of the U.S. Ski Team as the Olympic countdown continues, check out www.nbcolympics.com for updated photos, videos and broadcast schedules.
