Words: Eric Jackson

Photos:
Eric Jackson
Davey O’Hare
Kristine Jackson
Peter Holcombe
John Rathwell/Red Bull Content Pool
Corey Rich/Red Bull Content Pool

We at the Paddler magazine were interested in a post on EJ’s FB page in praise of his son, Dane, who had just turned 28. We thought it would be interesting to draw parallels between the lives of this father and son who also just happen to be World Champions in freestyle and legends in the world of WW kayaking.

Parallels of Dane and EJ

Who is Dane Oliver Jackson?

A scrawny, barely viable baby, who weighed in at one pound and 10 ounces at the start of his life outside of the womb, Dane has made the best of his life to date.

Dane’s first kayak event was the 1993 World Championships on the Ocoee, when he was barely four pounds and just out of the hospital. It was my first World Championship win. Kristine watched over him while he wore his monitor to ensure he was breathing and his heart was beating.

On the ride back to DC from Tennessee, he got a hernia that nearly killed him. He was born into a life of pain from the beginning, but it never dampened his spirits.

Ear infections were common, and he never complained about them. One morning he came out of his room with blood and puss running from both of his ears. He was two years old and never even blinked an eye. No fussing, no crying, just wanted breakfast.

He took a long time to learn to talk, and we realised he had really bad hearing. He went to a specialist school in Bethesda for speech therapy, got hearing aids, and eventually, he caught up to everyone around him. Emily was his second mom, telling him what he was and not allowed to do. When we uprooted from Bethesda and moved into a recreational vehicle (RV) full time, Dane was four years old.

We brought his ‘puddle jumper’, and Emily had one too. Flatwater gates on the Chattahoochee in Atlanta, the Nantahala, the Kern River, Ottawa River and more were his schoolyards, along with Emily. We also travelled the world. In 1999 I took the family around the world with tickets that allowed us to circle the globe one step at a time.

World tour

We went to England, Africa, Australia and New Zealand on a three-month trip until we ran out of money, and Dane was quite at home in this environment. All of the kayakers were his parents – it was a tribe mentality. Kristine and I didn’t worry about him. He was always on his own, but never alone, playing with adults like Dan Gavere, Dan Campbell, Steve Fisher, Junior, etc. Foam boating with anyone who would help him make boats and play with them. At one point, he had four Team Wavesport top paddling girls in bikinis, making him foam boats at a picnic table with a sign he made, ‘Make me a foam boat – only $5’. Kristine would help him understand, “That isn’t how it works,” but I figured if he can pull that off, how awesome would that be?

My life was quite different but also similar. Like Dane, I spent some time in a narrow house, but mine was a single-wide trailer in a trailer park in Cincinnati, Ohio, with my dad, mom and sister. My dad is 30 years older than me, and my mom is 25, the same difference as Dane and me. My sister is five years older than me, while Emily is three years older than Dane, but the same idea. My first kayak experience was on Pine Creek in Pennsylvania, a class 1-3 run that took two days.

While my dad and I did it in a Grumman Canoe, I begged his friend to let me use his kayak for hours each day. I had four such springtime experiences from age 6-10 before moving to Florida, where there isn’t any whitewater. Unlike Dane, I had an organised, physical sport to participate in early on, a swim team, and I was trying to make the Olympic team from age eight. I found out at a young age that I was willing to train harder and endure more pain than most, and it was self-motivation. It allowed me to get physically fit easier than most and enjoy the process.

First roll

Dane never wanted to learn to roll until he turned eight, and Emily was 11 at Wausau, Wisconsin, in August 2002. It got cold in Rock Island, the year we bought our property there, and the kids didn’t paddle until March of 2003. Emily asked me to teach her to roll again, and Dane didn’t want to get left behind, so he joined the session. He and Emily rolled right away, and we ran the ‘Boat ramp run’ that day.

From that day forward, Dane and Emily paddled with me every day unless I was on a class 5 run somewhere. Dane didn’t like to paddle flatwater – anything that required physical effort without the recreational reward (rapids) put him in a bad mood. We would get to the last rapid on a river and hit a flat pool with a long paddle out, and he would go from zipping around to just giving up and sitting there. I tried everything from, “Come on, Dane, you have this,” with a smile on my face, to yelling at him to hurry up and stop whining, to strapping him to my boat and towing him. It frustrated me because I enjoyed hustling the flat water for a workout. “How will he ever be an athlete if he isn’t willing to push himself physically,” I thought.

At age 10, I got the 3D award for ‘Dedication, Determination, and Desire’ on my swim team. I always stayed to work out with the older kids to get in another hour on the water, and it paid off with me setting the pool and team records for the butterfly and freestyle for the 9-10 age group. My dad always told me you can beat 90% of everyone by working harder than they do. Of course, I also told Emily and Dane the same thing and believe that concept applies today.

Dane was nine. He only cried when paddling if I made him walk a rapid! Emily cried if I made her run one. They were both fantastic paddlers very quickly and seemed to love going out in any weather or water.

Dane didn’t race (we wouldn’t let him), but he wowed the crowd doing his first freewheel over the falls in his little orange Ace 2.1 (21 gallons before Clay cut the ends off of it and welded it shut). The Ace 2.1 was a boat I tried to get Wavesport to make, but the CEO of Confluence at the time said no to kids’ boats. After they also fired David Knight, I started Jackson Kayak, and my first design was the Fun 1 for Dane, who was now truly loving paddling every day and needed a proper boat. His Ace 2.1 was super low volume, and the Fun 1 would be a much better river runner, loop bigger, and he could still flatwater cartwheel it with a bit of practice.

The Fun 1 and Dane got along very well. Dane was able to run a ton of notable creeks and rivers with me in that boat. South Silver in California, for example, Cascades, Brush Creek, etc.

Home schooled

Dane didn’t seem to like school that much, certainly not in comparison to Emily. They were both home schooled, but Emily did her work, plus extra, and Dane was always trying to get away with doing less than requested.

It wasn’t long before Emily and Dane started competing and having fun doing it. Kristine and I organised the first ‘Cadet Rodeos’ to have a place to compete, and we started getting other young kids into it as well. Jason Craig is a good example who would become one of Dane’s best friends and his fiercest competitor. Jason beat Dane at the 2009 World Championships in the junior class. Nick beat me as well, but Emily won her first senior women’s class that year.

That same year, the top pros in the men’s class would keep tabs on who was left that Dane hadn’t beaten. At the Teva Mountain Games, it was only me and Jay Kincaid that were left! I won that event, Dane was third, and I was the last man standing whom Dane had not beaten. Fast forward, and the question isn’t who he hasn’t beaten; it is who has beaten him in any event? The list is short these days in who can compete in a kayak and have a chance of keeping up or beating him at a race, freestyle, or doing anything on the water in a kayak.

I moved back to whitewater territory when I was 15 years old. I got my first kayak that year and learned to roll it. However, my knowledge and skill in a kayak were that of a beginner. I was paddling a four-metre 1992 Olympic slalom kayak called the Lettman Mark 4, made of very weak fibreglass by Old Town in Maine. We had to patch the kayak almost every time we went out.

First swim

The first time I tipped over in whitewater, I swam instantly at Magic Falls on the Kennebec River. It irked me so bad I committed never to swim again. My next swim was in 1996, 16 years later on the Potomac due to being pinned underwater under a log at Great Falls.

I was on the Kennebec working as a whitewater photographer at age 16, and my life was starting to be a bit more like Dane’s. I was paddling every day and realised I could make money doing it. I became very good that year and learned that I could ender and pirouette better than anyone I knew, and I could hand paddle the Kennebec and surf all of the biggest holes and enjoyed it. I wasn’t afraid of anything I was experiencing.

I scouted and ‘almost’ ran Moxie Falls in my fibreglass kayak (1990). I cut the lock on the dam, open it myself and solo the run, but chickened out on Moxie, portaged it and completed the class 5 creek that flows into the Kennebec. The people living on Moxie Pond were not impressed when they saw the water levels dropping and closed the gate – I never got caught.

Dane got motivated. After Dane did his first expedition with me in Newfoundland in 2007 (he was 14) and had a close call with Nick Troutman (same rapid), he switched mental gears and got the drive he was missing. We had a long paddle on the Cloud River in the dark after a two-day mission that started with a floatplane into the put-in. He tried to keep up the entire time, but we had to hike into everything we were running, and he did his best to pull his weight there. He became a hard worker from that moment on, which started to complete his kayaking skill set.

However, what makes Dane unique isn’t just his skill, dedication, and hard work that he employs in his everyday paddling, but how he approaches the world. He is humble, helpful, and genuine in his desire to make the world a better place, making what he does look effortless. However, he is like the duck gliding smoothly across the surface but paddling like hell underwater. Don’t ever think it is easy for him; it isn’t. He could coast for a while, but he doesn’t – he drives hard, pushes harder, and expects himself to perform better all of the time.

My choice at age 20 to move to Washington, DC and start training for the USA slalom team was a lot different from Dane’s competitive career. I went straight to the top of the sport and trained with the USA team under Bill Endicott. After giving me five days to train in Washington the summer before and seeing my potential, he invited me. I moved to Washington to train twice a day and was also in engineering school.

Richard Fox

I was hungry to prove myself and over-trained the first week and created a terrible cycle of tendonitis that slowed me down. It was a long five years of financial ruin, dropping out of school, and laser-focused on making the USA team, but falling short year after year. Finally, I had the opportunity to train with Richard Fox in Brazil for six weeks. He wasn’t coaching me, but I was doing every workout with him, absorbing everything I could, and trying to beat him every day.

When I arrived, he would leave me behind on the one-hour endurance flatwater paddles, but I could beat him on those by the end. I got competitive with him in the gates, but he was still better when I left. However, I returned to the USA and won the first two races of the season – my first wins ever in slalom against the USA team. It was my birth as a contender on the world stage in 1989, and I made the USA team easily and had some good finishes in the World Cups, with a fifth, sixth, and seventh being my best ones.

I was so driven to want to win and also fighting to survive financially. Emily was born in 1990 and Dane in 1993. As a full-time kayaker, it was a roller coaster; I made the Olympic team in 1992, got 13th place out of the 105 competitors, and was the top USA finisher in men’s K1.

Dane’s rise to the top seemed effortless from the outside. At the same time, he learned his strokes and concepts (most important skills you can learn if you want to be the best at any event in kayaking) at an early age and paddle every day. It was up to him to decide if he wanted to be the best and keep breaking new personal ground every day. When we were on the Nile or Zambezi, it was how he ran a rapid or the tricks on a wave or in a hole.

Lapped it ten times

When we river ran, it was running new rapids or lapping a drop ten times if he liked it. Tallulah River – Oceana – the first time there, he must have lapped it ten times. “Dane, we have to go; the water is going to go off.” I have no way of knowing what was going on inside of his head, but it was undoubtedly a combination of “this is fun” and “I can do it better.”

With all of the slalom racing I was doing, I was still wearing my ‘Protrek’ helmet because it reminded me that I am a ‘Playboater’ first. I won almost any rodeo I competed in and everyone that had prize money. In 1993, the year Dane was born, I won my first World Championships in rodeo. It took me until 1996 to finally stop training for slalom in DC and move into an RV to travel and enjoy whitewater as a lifestyle sport, versus an Olympic sport, where you trained in an artificial environment, at one primary location and had a regimented schedule that wasn’t conducive for taking advantage of good water levels around the country and new river runs.

However, like Dane, I was the guy who ran Great Falls on the Potomac almost every day and lapped it endlessly, running it at the highest levels, new lines, backwards forwards, and more. Whatever made me want to do that every day was definitely in Dane, and Dane took that to the next level.

As an adult, Dane is my favourite person to play with. I want to hang out with him, compete against him, and enjoy his company. I like to compete and need an equal that knows he can beat me. Disc golf, kayaking, etc. – it doesn’t matter. I can go full out and not worry about hurting his self-esteem if I beat him. We approach competing differently, but the idea that we will try our best and if we are not doing it right, we will study the techniques to improve is the same with both of us.

Generosity

One of Dane’s best qualities is his generosity. He watches every ride in a major freestyle event and helps competitors of all classes from all countries. He cares about them and their experience at the event whilst taking care of his mom and dad. When we are struggling with something, he will help – there isn’t a selfish bone in his body. At the same age of 28, I was the hungry, hard-charging guy who felt he had a long way to go still to prove he was the best and my attitude was not as laid back as Danes.

Dane has a very non-threatening way of approaching a competition before he bests the competition. Only after I started Jackson Kayak and focused on my team, including Dane and Emily, did I make a competition about helping others do their best while also trying to win myself. Dane is very much like that today, watching every run at a world championships and helping anyone who needs help.

Now, at age 28, the thing that I care about with Dane is who he is and has become, not because of his paddling, but paddling was his vehicle to express his motivation, dedication, determination, and desire to be the best he can be while helping others become their best at the same time.

‘Extreme slalom’

I am 57 today and back on the USA team for slalom but in the ‘extreme slalom’ class. Boater cross was always a very strong event for me, so much so that the organisers would typically try to throw me off at the start, even at major events like the Teva Games, Gorge Games, etc.

I am now competing against racers that are faster than I am at the moment. However, I am training now, three weeks until the World Championships in Slovakia, and excited to line up against the ‘kids’. I hope Dane will do team trials and be on the slalom team with me, and we can race head to head on the world stage. Otherwise, I will have to wait until next year when Dane is 29 and ‘getting old’ and racing against hard-charging 19-year olds and a 58-year old.