Should Dallas Friday retire?

For those of you who follow hockey, you may have heard the rumors of Sidney Crosby retiring. For those of you who don't follow hockey, let's just say one of hockey's most decorated athletes may or may not retire at the age of 23 to avoid further injury.

Dallas is 24 and is wakeboarding's most decorated female of all time. Pictures of her floating with a freshly broken femur were horrific. Watching her blow almost everything in her other knee last year was depressing. She came back so strong and lost it all before the season even started. Dallas is amazing and I have a great deal of respect for her, but does she really need to prove anything? The bigger question is, if she does hurt one of her legs again (knock on wood) by competing would it be worth it?

Dallas on a cold day

crosby made it clear earlier this week that he's NOT even considering retiring.

and no, dallas friday should not retire. yes, she's had 2 bad injuries but she's proven that she could come back. if she sticks to her pt schedule, she'll come back stronger like she did the last injury. the sport is definitely better w/ her in it.

if you're old, don't rely on wakeboarding for income, keep getting hurt which affects your "real" job, then yeah, maybe you should reconsider another hobby.

DALLAS should be the one to make that decision.She is very experienced in wakeboarding and rehab.She also knows how she feels better than we do.She will make a decision that's best for her.

Cisco, I have to ask, do you try to make topics that are exceptionally flammable and sometimes just, dumb?

Why would you even suggest that she retire? She's the most well known name in women's wakeboarding. She is essentially the Parks of women's boarding. He was out of the game for 2ish years and he's not retiring, so it seems kind of dumb to ask that question. Anyone can severely injure themselves boarding at any time on a mere w2w jump, so to suggest that she should be retiring to avoid further injury just seems dumb.

Sorry, it's late on a friday night and I just find the number of inflammatory topics that you create to be mildly annoying. It's just that it seems dumb to ask questions like this.

And to answer your question, no, I don't think she should even be considering a retirement at only 24.

Originally Posted by wakeboardern1

Cisco, I have to ask, do you try to make topics that are exceptionally flammable and sometimes just, dumb?

Why would you even suggest that she retire? She's the most well known name in women's wakeboarding. She is essentially the Parks of women's boarding. He was out of the game for 2ish years and he's not retiring, so it seems kind of dumb to ask that question. Anyone can severely injure themselves boarding at any time on a mere w2w jump, so to suggest that she should be retiring to avoid further injury just seems dumb.

Sorry, it's late on a friday night and I just find the number of inflammatory topics that you create to be mildly annoying. It's just that it seems dumb to ask questions like this.

And to answer your question, no, I don't think she should even be considering a retirement at only 24.

I don't know who "Crosby" is and maybe he's a douche that has just stated under my radar.
But I don't think this is a bad question. Who cares if she's "the most well known rider in women's wakeboarding"? For the record I think she's one of the most recognizable faces in ALL of wakeboarding. Male or Female.

The question is - what would she do next? Has she peaked? Maybe, Surely nothing to leave she sport over. Maybe going the more lucrative route of the marine side is right for her. It's been right for ton of our heroes.

She's gotten hurt - a lot. She's been extremely tough through it. As a leg-broken (twice) rider, I can assure you that it isn't easy. Femur breaks can be bad but more recoverable to 100% than a tibia/fibula break. Both are still undesireable injuries.

Some of these guys will get hurt once or twice and say f**k it. Like Brannon Mark Johnson. Gets banged up a few times - says "fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu*********k this. See ya'all."

At least shes toughed it through some serious injuries and not a toe stub like some of these men. I'f she retired tomorrow I'd still be a fan and she would retire with a still intact body, a hugely successful career, and probably years of employment from her boat sponsor (ask Zane or Murray how that path has worked out for them $$$$$).

Let's not look down on her for this, if it happens. She's toughed it out more than most men would have, or - have.
Zane is the only one that comes close to "toughing it out" on this level.

oh......and me. I've toughed it out pretty hard despite my battles with the 2 tib/fib breaks.
But I am 1/10th the rider that Zane or Dallas are. But I haven't quit.

And I meant CISCO (GQ), not Crosby. I don't know who either are but I think the question at hand is whether or not Cisco (GQ) has a good question here.

my guess is in Dallas's situation, if she retired she would still wakeboard just as much - so by "retiring" she will work almost as hard and not get paid.... which ZERO people ever would do.

Wakeboarding is just plain old fun, I'm sure thats why she started, and if you retire, you push yourself anyway - i bet everyone here is always pushing themself (pro or not)..... far different than a hockey retirement - when you retire there you leave a world where monster guys are just hammering you multiple times a week - you can still skate and play in rec. leagues, whatever..... wakeboarding isn't like that at all. Kid riding day one has the same risks of injury (if not more than) Dallas, where Sid the Kid is in a whole other world compared to pee-wee hockey

Hockey hahahahaha

I hope she doesn't retire. I enjoy watching her ride. She's a hottie.

Originally Posted by sidekicknicholas

my guess is in Dallas's situation, if she retired she would still wakeboard just as much - so by "retiring" she will work almost as hard and not get paid.... which ZERO people ever would do.

Wakeboarding is just plain old fun, I'm sure thats why she started, and if you retire, you push yourself anyway - i bet everyone here is always pushing themself (pro or not)..... far different than a hockey retirement - when you retire there you leave a world where monster guys are just hammering you multiple times a week - you can still skate and play in rec. leagues, whatever..... wakeboarding isn't like that at all. Kid riding day one has the same risks of injury (if not more than) Dallas, where Sid the Kid is in a whole other world compared to pee-wee hockey

Nah - disagree. No offense. it just holds no water for a TOP SHELF wakeboarder and what's happened after their competitive peak. I'f we're assuming that she's reached that point - and I think it's dubious in and of itself but for arguments' sake...

Dallas has MAD name recognition. She's also gorgeous. She's got a reputation for being nice to fans (I hear one or two stories here & there about being provoked by other riders about smoking cigarettes at a cable park but seriously who cares (ok probably not the best thing for a rider to b e caught doing but do you want me to ratle off the list of riders that smoke cigarettes? I won't A lot of them do. Yeah. They do.) and let's not presume for a moment that we don't ALL have vices so let's move on). She's one of the best female riders ever, in this sport. If she's hurt that badly, and wants to go out and dick around on a wakeskate or wake surf behind a 247 or a 23LSV instead of practicing her competitive pass all the time - perfect - cool. Let her relax. It's hard to get away from the fun vibe of being on the water and I a sure that relates to her just as powerfully. And for me, as an injured bird, sometimes I'll tell the boat crew I am just going out for "spashy fun" as we call it. No inverts, no crazy stuff... and then the lack of expectation leads me to sticking a wrapped OA bs5 or a 7 without the handle but still I am mad close (and I am not a good rider - at least by today's "advanced" class in which I used to compete). Dallas's version of this "splashy fun" is probably crazy. KGB's, krypts... you know "easy stuff". "Easy stuff" lol. Stuff most of us can absolutely not do. Definitely not me!

Dallas Also has a far more likable persona than many other female athletes in the sport. Emily Durham Copeland has come a long way but for awhile every post-run interview or introspective thing was "stoked, cuz I stuck my run. stoked. rad" it all felt spoon fed and she seemed SO uncomfortable saying that stuff as a straight laced 3-event convert.

Regardless I think Dallas Friday could find a hugely lucrative career in closely associating herself with Malibu starting NOW. Like Zane did with MC, Like Murray did with Correct Craft. That's payed off in spades for them. They get sales commissions. They're set.

As far as I know Malibu doesn't have this kind of thing. Maybe Weddington but it's a stretch. I would love to see Malibu embrace her as their TOP spokesperson if she's done competing. Both her and Malibu would be mad to not look into this. They don't have this person and nobody's got a female. Huge win for everyone for this to happen if she's retiring from pro-level competition.

Originally Posted by Cisco

Dallas is amazing and I have a great deal of respect for her, but does she really need to prove anything?

Who says she's trying to prove anything? If I were being paid to wakeboard, suffered injuries, and still had my sponsorships, there is no way I would give up those sponsorships just because I didnt want to compete anymore. Its not that she would have something to prove, but may just genuinely enjoy wakeboarding, as wild as that may sound, and if you're paid to do what you love, why quit.

Erik...I honestly dont even know what point you're trying make with your super long posts.

should cisco stop commenting on wakeworld????

Yes.

Brannon got like numb foot from a motorcycle accident I believe.

Yeah Erik a long rambling post in which,for some reason, you decided to slag Emily off. What exactly was the point of that and why single one particular girl out for a comparison?

Dallas could still work in the industry without riding, and I don't even think she needs to stop riding entirely. I do believe that she should avoid wrecking herself even more for the sake of more competition glory. No one should ruin themselves for money. That's one of my biggest concerns with women in the porn industry. Look at how Parks whored out his knees and how it left him. I'm surprised he could still do a switch double roll 180 after all he's been thru.

I don't think this thread will affect Dallas' choice about competing, but I was curious to know if I am the only one who thinks it might be time for her to stop competing. I hope her pride doesn't corrupt her judgment and that she makes a good decision for the sake of her health.

Like Kenny says:

"You got to know when to hold 'em,
know when to fold 'em,
know when to walk away,
know when to run"

We are not playing poker.We are wakeboarding.In competition!GOOD LUCK DALLAS.

Glad to see you're also concerned about pornstars in your spare time.
I say again, you're making the assumption that she's competing for the sake of glory. You dont know her motivation, and neither do I. Maybe look into stuff like that before your next thread?

Dallas is obviously a competitive person. Try paying attention before you post on a thread.

Obviously a competitive person does not = in it for the glory/money/something to prove.

Another worst thread every by Cisco... Props Boyyy!

Glory can be defined as "A height of achievement" and Dallas has repeatedly expressed that she wants to be the best that she can be. I commend her for that cuz I want to be the best I can be.

["Gasp!" followed by "thud" as nickbot falls of her chair]

Originally Posted by xistential

Yeah Erik a long rambling post in which,for some reason, you decided to slag Emily off. What exactly was the point of that and why single one particular girl out for a comparison?

Yeah well Chirs Butler anything more than a short brainfart is subject to being called a "rabling" post on message boards and I am writer so... you do the maff. Maybe if I had added more carriage returns it would have made it easier to digest. But that would make it longer - and I think my point was made don't you?

I could of course pick other female riders to criticize but I know who you are and she's a doll and I'm not going to do that. I didn't "slag" Emily. For **explicative's**sake, guy. My point was that Emily has improved anyway. Read the post. And early on, at the beginning of her rise, she was quite uncomfortable to watch doing interviews. Now she's just absolutely fine. She can slang any interview like a arm wrestling match. Oh - I'm at my word count limit gotta go kthxbye.

Jeez,

I did not mean to link to Pusha-T's "My God" though it's a locomotive of a song.
I meant to link to an early Copeland interview (pre Durham) but selected the wrong link. I use this multi-clipboard application. It burfed.
But again that Pusha-T song is epic for what it's worth.

Aaaaand now I can't find the link I meant to post originally. Just my luck. I am doing great!
And while I am back in here... I just can't believe that when you say 19 positive things, and one arguably "negative" one, someone's going to go net-rage about it and "slag" you on a message board. 2 thumbs up for that age-old trend.

Also, Dallas is awesome and shouldn't retire (nor should Nicola or anyone else I can think of). If she does, she's still going to make loads of money in the sport doing other things so guess what? I am not worried about her. She's going to be fine. She has a great like-ability factor (purposely misspelled so you slags on here don't slag me. The real spelling for that looks...wrong. It's one misspelling on which I never mind being corrected), has been in the sport for a long time, and has broken down a lot of walls and hugely improved her corner of her sport and actions sports in general.

So... have I reached my positive-comment quota? Looks like I have. Ok!

Slag on,
Erik

One more. Like anybody wants to hear from my slag-azz month.

I just read a story about the original incident that started all this. The infamous femur break.

Good Lord. I've heard different arguments about what's worse - a femur break or a tib-fib break like I had, and like Zane had twice. I am a nobody now, and was even more of a nobody then except for some little successes up here in INT comps and that was an injury and recovery period which Zane Schwenk himself talked to me about twice over the phone, on my home phone, which in and of itself could make me cry but we'll get to the crybaby stuff in a moment - needless to say Zane is my #1 rider now and will be forever. I mean who does that? Who calls someone like me to offer sage advice - and it was sage. Zane is an ambassador to the sport in the realest sense.

But the Jury's out on which injury is worse, and it depends on how you look at it. It looks like 60/40 that the femur break is worse because of the life-threatening nature of hitting the femoral artery but the break itself often results in a 105% final healed strength in the bone. An open/compound tib-fib break is often a lifelong pain issue though (Sweet! Got that!) and if it doesn't rejoin at the right angle, a 100% effective recipe for early-onset arthritis (Bingo! Got that too! What's my prize? Nothing? Damn.) but a femoral break is far, far, far more life-threatening because of that femoral artery issue.

Thank God that femoral artery issue didn't play a huge part in the injury, per se - what did is that from what I read she suffered 7 fractures to her femur some of which sound like spiral/radial fractures which, as an amateur expert in bone breaks, is extremely bad: It means that torque and twisting caused that specific break - and it tends to splinter the bone which adds worry (in my 5-year-post-incident analysis) about one of those splinters hitting her femoral artery. Even a single nick would be instantaneously life-threatening. I hope someone helping her knew that - God I hope they knew that - other wise nobody thought about that till the emergency services in Singapore arrived. Someone on-staff had to know (they have medical professionals in the pickup boats, or even the towboat don't they?). I guess the femur break wins in severity just for that reason alone. About the incident, she said "it was a little process getting me back to shore and getting my bindings off...". Yeah - "little process" - she's so humble. They should not have TOUCHED her leg until medical experts arrived. When I broke my tib-fib (open, compound, bone exposed, right leg, lower, 65° out to the right) someone in the boat had the good sense to not try and remove my bindings - and those were pretty easily cut off when the EMT's arrived - they we're just foam, maybe even rubber. No idea what they do with these new styles of thick cloth & plastic boots. My guess is the medical-device equivalent to a small round saw attachment on a hand drill and I am 0% kidding.

I am so glad she's ok. I give her so much credit for returning to such a high-level of riding so quick. it was 5 years before I got my roll to revert back - which I broke, dramatically, on a very undramatic looking fall behind the biggest POS boat. When I got the trick back, I cried. Yeah. I'll say it, bawled like a baby. Boat pulled up, my best friend high 5'ed me, I said put it in reverse for a second. I put two fingers around the front bow hook, put my face in the water and bawled like a newborn baby.

The fact that she got back to doing that trick is AMAZING to me. And that's always been one of those tricks that when someone asks, what's one of the most impressive tricks to folks new to wake - even those familiar with it. Answer: Whirlybird. Good luck NOT impressing people with that trick. Even those who know what it is. Extremely impressive trick. You think not? Try showing your Grandma. She'll think you're Bruce "amazing-decathlete " Jenner. Pre-Kardashian, which is ok because it's unlikely that your Grandmother has "Kept Up".

Ok now I am WAY past my word count quota. And clearly I have been rambling, not checking sources, hell not even checking spelling so f*k it.

Post Quick Reply!!!!!

Sucky thread!

Go Dallas!

Eric, despite being a writer, in your last three posts you've written one relevent paragraph (and of that paragraph, one line is rambling). Your final post, while true and interesting, has almost nothing to do with this thread. Thats why I dont think your point did get across in your original post. Too much fun writing, not enough to the point. Nothing wrong with that I guess, as long as you expect to take some flack for it. And I still dont get your original point.

Originally Posted by benjaminp

Eric, despite being a writer, in your last three posts you've written one relevent paragraph (and of that paragraph, one line is rambling). Your final post, while true and interesting, has almost nothing to do with this thread. Thats why I dont think your point did get across in your original post. Too much fun writing, not enough to the point. Nothing wrong with that I guess, as long as you expect to take some flack for it. And I still dont get your original point.

Ok - done then Ben. Well said, despite critical, but I can take it and have heard worse, and heard it put way less concisely.
Maybe I could take a lesson don't you think? When I am passionate about a subject, I tend to run long. Again, taking that feedback seriously. I've gotten the "Enough!" signal before.
My point (you asked) is that it's dumb to insinuate Dallas should leave the sport because of injury. I was injured badly and kept riding. I had some ...let's call them... side effects, from returning to serious riding but I did it and love it and bought the good boat after the injury so...
The Emily thing - probably not needed - call it a brainfart more than anything else. I apologize - it came out wrong. It was also posted at like 3am.

I don't see how I rambled - I really read my stuff closely before I post.
I just read what I already wrote. Yeah, I ramble. Looks like I need to work on that.
But your point is taken ok? Sorry everyone...

Totally hope to see Dallas making podium chases for years to come! I happened across the video of her last knee injuring crash at the PWT... I hadn't seen the actual video and didn't realize that there had been such an extreme degree of dislocation associated with that crash. I had heard the details, but the image is grisly. Dallas doesn't mess around with the cringe factor, that's for sure.

http://wakeboardingmag.com/videos/20...fuel-tvs-slam/

andy thanks for posting. i've been wanting to see that episode just to confirm she will be returning to the sport.

Dude that was gross

Here is a pic of her other leg with a broken femur.



Note that her leading leg was injured in both situations. Also note that riders who have worn braces mostly on their front knee include: Byerly, Zane, Shane, Parks, Murray, Harf, Phil, Rathy, Webb, ect, so basically the majority of big name riders. Does this mean that we should expect our lead leg to be more at risk of injury than our rear leg?

Tore my ACL, medial and lateral meniscus and cracked my femur... and I'm overdue for a scoping for chondromalacia.... all on my lead leg.

My ACL and medial meniscus was lead leg as well. My video looks JUST like Dallas', just a little less twisting of the leg. My right shoulder nearly hit the tip of my board. I'm really lucky I didn't take out PCL and MCL, just a strain on the MCL...

You have to get hurt to wakeboard. Simple as that. Especially at a pro level. Hek, Murray killed his knee goofing around on a skate. Just rehab it and get at it

As for the original question, no she should not retire. She was riding so strong before this last injury. If she could get back to even 65% she'd still be a contender with Nicola and Hayley. Competing or not, I'm sure she has a future in the sport, so retiring from wakeboarding altogether wouldn't make sense. My guess is we'll see her compete again.

I did not realize her patellar tendon also blew in that injury. Very nasty....

Wish I could get paid as many injuries as i have had from wakeboarding...... All after the tender age of 37.....

Originally Posted by Cisco

For those of you who follow hockey, you may have heard the rumors of Sidney Crosby retiring. For those of you who don't follow hockey, let's just say one of hockey's most decorated athletes may or may not retire at the age of 23 to avoid further injury.

Dallas is 24 and is wakeboarding's most decorated female of all time. Pictures of her floating with a freshly broken femur were horrific. Watching her blow almost everything in her other knee last year was depressing. She came back so strong and lost it all before the season even started. Dallas is amazing and I have a great deal of respect for her, but does she really need to prove anything? The bigger question is, if she does hurt one of her legs again (knock on wood) by competing would it be worth it?

I'm sure someone who's worked their ass off, had a horrific injury and bounced back, then had another one would just love to hear this

This forum is supposed to be for discussing wakeboarding,not for being jealous of a woman who is 10 times better than you could ever even hope to be.The Cisco kid is not G Q or a friend of wakeboarding.He is full of bull and demented thinking.Try again Cisco when you get out of diapers.

Originally Posted by gene3x

Wish I could get paid as many injuries as i have had from wakeboarding...... All after the tender age of 37.....

Gene is old LOL!