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WEST ALLIS, Wis. (Jan 11, 1998 - 07:48 EST) -- Forget the wholesome, flag-waving image portrayed by the likes of Dan Jansen and Bonnie Blair. Meet the new face of U.S. Olympic speedskating: KC Boutiette.
Don't like rainbow hair colors a la Dennis Rodman? Tough. Think the pierced tongue and multiple earrings are a little much? Too bad. An Olympic tattoo not your style? Get over it.
Boutiette, an inline skater who stunned the ice world by making the 1994 Olympic team, has matured into one of the leaders for the American team in the post-Jansen era and is a medal hopeful in Nagano.
"You're seeing a bunch of different cultures in this sport now," said Boutiette, a 27-year-old native of Tacoma, Wash., who will skate as many as four events in Japan next month.
"Before, everyone wanted to follow in someone else's footsteps. There was a right way to dress, a right way of doing everything. People were just robots. Now, people do what they want to do."
For Boutiette, that means a pierced tongue, two earrings in his left ear and one in his right, a tattoo of the hallowed Olympic rings on the inside of his left calf, hair that changes colors depending on his mood and a unique style of dress.
Last year, for instance, he attended a speedskating banquet along with teammates Dave Tamburrino and Tim Hoffman. The group showed up wearing 1970s-style outfits -- complete with bell bottoms and wide-collared shirts -- and drew wary looks from Blair and Jansen.
"I think something was said along the lines of, 'Everything we've worked for over the last 10 to 15 years, you guys just destroyed in 20 minutes,"' Boutiette said, his hair a snowy blond on this day, his eyes gleaming with a look of satisfaction not unlike a child defying his parents.
But don't get the impression that Boutiette enjoys stirring up Rodman-like turmoil on the ice. Once he laces up his skates, he's not concerned with knocking over cameramen or mocking his competitors.
"I work with him on a daily basis and I know him from the inside out," said Gerard Kemkers, coach for the American team. "I don't care what's on the outside. If he skates a world record, I don't care if he shows up with dyed hair or purple suits or even more piercings."
Boutiette has made a remarkable transformation over the past four years. In 1994, he was a brash inline skating star who, after taking a 30-hour bus ride to Milwaukee so he could cross-train on ice, wound up staying long enough to enter the Olympic trials.
There was a great deal of resentment when Boutiette won the 5,000 meters only three months after strapping on ice skates for the first time. He had cost someone a trip to Lillehammer, and the fact that Boutiette was a top athlete in a similar sport mattered little to the close-knit fraternity that is American speedskating.
"I was like an outcast," Boutiette remembered. "I was this kid who came in and beat everybody else that had been in their program. I just came out of nowhere. Once I got to the Olympics, it was just a big party for me. I didn't know what was going on. I had never raced internationally. I had never seen anybody internationally. It was a shock."
At Lillehammer, Boutiette didn't get to skate in the 5,000 because his qualifying time wasn't fast enough, but he wound up in the 1,500 when Jansen skipped the race. He was 39th out of 41 finishers.
Looking back, he can understand the bitterness he faced from those who took a more conventional path to speedskating.
"It's got to be tough," Boutiette said. "Imagine if someone comes and takes you're job, it's not going to make you feel too good. That was kind of like what I did."
That doesn't mean Boutiette was willing to accept a permanent cold shoulder.
"People got to know me and they knew they couldn't push me around," he said.
No one tried. Boutiette earned respect by sticking with his new sport and developing into America's best male prospect for a speedskating medal at Nagano. He took fourth place last year at the World Allaround Championships and for one day actually held the world record in the 1,500 meters. At the Olympic trials, he qualified for four events at Nagano ranging from the 1,000 to the 10,000, making a relatively seamless transition to the clap skate.
With Blair and Jansen in retirement -- and another top U.S. male skater, Casey FitzRandolph, struggling on the clap skate -- much of the American spotlight in Japan could be focused on Boutiette.
"I'll take the pressure," he said with a shrug. "It's no problem for me. Pressure doesn't get to me very much."
That carefree attitude was honed during his years on the inline skating circuit, a haven for Generation Xers who can't compete for Olympic medals and, frankly, could care less. Boutiette's girlfriend, Jennifer Rodriguez, remembered the first time they met.
"He was just the grossest guy I ever saw," said Rodriguez, who wound up following Boutiette from inline to speedskating and also made the Olympic team this year. "He used to walk around doing all these weird voices and moves. He was so gross, so gross."
Boutiette said he's changed a lot over the past four years. He admits to being a cocky, reckless kid who expected instant success no matter what he pursued. He was unwilling to listen to anyone when he first took up speedskating (he watched a videotape of Norwegian great Johann Olav Koss to learn his technique on ice).
"Back then, life was just falling into place for me," he said. "I was on this high horse and I couldn't get off. But that summer after the Olympics, reality hit. It got harder and harder before it got easier and easier. I've been on the way up for a long time, but there's been some peaks and valleys since 1994."
Now, he feels total acceptance from his teammates -- it helps that several of them are former inliners like Jondon Trevena, who calls Boutiette "my idol" -- and a relaxed confidence as he prepares for his second Olympics.
"I just want to be happy with how I skate," he said. "I don't really care about placements. Four years ago, I had nothing. Now, if I come home with nothing, I didn't lose anything. Actually, I'll still be winning. Even if I don't win on the podium, I'm still winning in life."