Jewell not dulled by showing

BARDONECCHIA, Italy -- Tyler Jewell cannot stop talking, enjoying the moment a bit too much to let it go. He stands, easily, with one arm draped over the blue-netted barrier, his words a font of unbelievable stories. Up above, 13 family members and friends sit, finally subdued. They have stood all afternoon, their ''Tyler Jewell Fan Club" shirts rising behind a bright red Switzerland banner.

No longer visible above the railing, they have given in now, ceded the cheers to someone else's fans. Their son and brother and nephew and cousin finished 11th in his first Olympic trip, the lone American man in the snowboarding parallel giant slalom, an event dominated by a pair of Swiss brothers, Philipp (gold) and Simon Schoch (silver), with Austria's Siegfried Grabner taking the bronze.

So, his day over after the first heat past the quarterfinals (a loss to Slovenian Dejan Kosir by mere 10ths of a second), Jewell seems to want to make the moment last. Because, despite his insistence he will try for Vancouver in 2010, he turned 29 Tuesday and is no longer young.

He flows through the days again, his words wandering from his summer in a tent in Steamboat Springs, Colo., to his sausage-selling in Albuquerque -- he picked up $5,000 in two weeks manning a booth at a state fair -- to the results-related loss of his job with Home Depot, an Olympic sponsor.

''It's been a very difficult road and that's what makes it so special for me to be here right now," the Sudbury native said. ''To me, I think if everything happened so easily, I think it would just be another day . . . Just getting here, everything I had to do financially. To me, the coolest thing is I follow my heart through thick and thin, and everything worked out."

Snowboarding came first, after the kid on the hill at Nashoba Valley decided skis weren't for him, not the choice his father, Ed, would have preferred. (Though, to hear Ed tell it, the story goes slightly differently: ''I've always thought snowboarding was a wonderful new sport," Ed said. ''When he was small, I always thought, if he thought that was rebellion, in the back of my mind I always thought it was kind of cool. So I let him think that was rebellion. It wasn't exactly honest, but it wasn't bad.")

The son joined the junior circuit, then took four years off and played lacrosse at Boston College. He graduated, with a degree in education. And, of course, promptly ignored his surgeon father's entreaties -- some of which still come -- to get a real job.

''It broke my dad's heart," Jewell said of his switch from skiing to snowboarding. ''He wanted ski racers. Now he's 100 percent come around. I don't know if he's said the words 'I'm proud of you' yet.

''I call him 'Tough Love Ed.' He was very demanding. When we would rake the yard, he would look out and say there were three more leaves and we had to go rake again. Now I realized what a gift I was given. He installed some good values and work ethic."

It's clear, from what he says and how he got here, that those sentiments are true. He fought for his spot, and had to wait for the results of an arbitration hearing after 2002 Olympian Chris Klug appealed the initial placement of Jewell on the team, challenging the selection process. Jewell said he no longer respects Klug, sighted in the packed stands yesterday, for his decision. It was hard, fighting for a spot he believed he deserved, but, in a way, it fit.

Jewell wears a red bandana, nothing special, tied around his neck. He has raced with it on, a symbolic ode to a former college roommate and lacrosse teammate, Welles Crowther, who was working in the south tower of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 and pulled people out -- the red bandana he always carried covering his mouth -- at the cost of his own life. Jewell flew over the towers that day, saw the smoke, on a flight from Atlanta to Logan, coming home from Chile, never knowing the truth on the ground.

Jewell's father tells his son's tale proudly, though he isn't sure of all the details. He understands what his son is doing. The man has, perhaps, relented, and emphasizes his toughness was a bit overstated. He's still the doting father. He just wants his son to have a real job. That's not too much to ask, he figures.

But, in this moment, his son has reached the Olympics. Little else matters. Not now.

''However he's done in this is fine with me. He's already done . . . " Ed says, trailing off. He nods. The father, who paid his son's college tuition and sent him off into the world, nods again. His eyes are hidden behind a pair of sunglasses, obscuring all emotion. He doesn't say anything else.

He doesn't need to. There's nothing left to say.