Coming off a second year that was anything but a sophomore jinx, this kid out of Colorado is poised to take the professional wakeboarding tour by storm. With a top ten finish at every tour stop in 1998 and a second place finish at the World Championships, he's proven that he can hang with the top dogs in the sport. We spent some time with him and he filled us in on his past successes, his preparations for the 1999 season and his aspirations for the future. Read on and find out more about Brannan Johnson…

WW: Where are you from?
BJ: Denver, Colorado

WW: Are you a Broncos fan?
BJ: Yes, I am.

WW: So you're pretty happy with the Superbowl outcome?
BJ: Indeed

WW: As a fellow pro athlete, do you hang with John Elway?
BJ: (laughs) It actually does get me to meet a lot of other pro athletes from other sports but I haven't met John Elway yet.

WW: Who have you met?
BJ:Tommy Moe, Scott Hamilton some snowboarders. I hope to meet some that are with the same agency as me like Tiger Woods and Ben Hinkley.

WW: When and how did you get into wakeboarding?
BJ: Just w/ my family when I was younger

WW: How old were you?
BJ:It was weird. I did it the first time when I was 13 and then I didn't do it for three years, until I was 15 or 16.

WW: What was your first board?
BJ: Hyperlite Pro

WW: Where do you board while you're at home?
BJ: A place called Aloha Beach. Really cool lake. Lots of shots of it in Switch 22. Here's something I want to mention because I know a lot of other kids have the same problem. The last lake I was on was called Riviera Circle. That was in Denver and I got kicked off the lake by court order. It was pretty much cuz it was a bunch of old people that just cuz they didn't wakeboard they didn't want other people wakeboarding and they kicked my boat off and made it so I couldn't use a pole or weight in the boat.

WW: They were complaining because of the size of the wake?
BJ: They complained that it was dangerous. And the fact is, that the president of the lake club drove his outboard boat drunk and like on drugs 40 miles an hour up a shore, almost hurting people. All my drivers, we're teenagers but they're safe, you know. They do it everyday. So it was frustrating when they say that it was dangerous and there are people doing this or it makes big wakes when there are guys out there with big outboard boats planing. So I moved off that lake and that was Riviera Circle lake. And the lake I'm on now, its called Aloha Beach, everyone there is great and they're all super friendly. I moved on and had a bunch of weight in my boat and after that first day all the other kids on the lake were asking where they could get fat sacks and stuff like that. So it's nice when you can see people that get excited about it and want to get involved instead of just complaining about it.

WW: What do you do for fun in the off-season?
BJ: Snowboard, dive, video games, fly

WW: So are you a pilot or do you just like collecting frequent flyer miles and eating those yummy meals?
BJ: No, I'm a pilot.

WW: What do you fly?
BJ: A lot of stuff. My favorite thing to fly is aerobatic airplanes. And then once in a while we fly jet fighters.

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