The kid doesn't do anxiety. Sure, he recognizes danger, but even memories of a bruised kidney and spleen can be easily forgotten. No, there's no room for fear up here in the gate, high atop the beckoning ski run. Other skiers rock back and forth and bob side to side, but this 19-year-old is downright serene. It's as if he sees something they don't. Or maybe he doesn't notice anything at all.

Nothing sneaks into Jeremy Bloom's head up here -- not his last bad run, his favorite DMX rhyme or even the smokin' blonde who smiled at him at the bottom of the mountain. He stares out like he has no clue he's about to rocket down a 260-meter, mogul-studded swath of powder at 30 miles per hour, or that with the slightest flinch, he could smash his coiled 5'9", 165-pound body into bits.

The kid doesn't do anxiety. Oh, he's heard his body isn't built for crossing routes and slant patterns in the face of barking linebackers who want nothing more than to floss his teeth with their forearms. But there's no room for fear at the line, either. As DBs creep up into his face and whip linebackers point at him -- You're mine, punk! -- Jeremy Bloom is downright serene. He sees where the coverage is stacked, hears the quarterback's count and then, as if he's atop a mountain, he's gone.

Bloom is the wunderkind of U.S. men's freestyle skiing, arguably the most athletic American ever to strap on skis. But he doesn't just want to go big. He also dreams of going deep. Over the next seven months, he'll attempt the most eclectic double in all of sports -- winning Olympic gold on the slopes in February after playing wide receiver for the Colorado Buffaloes as a freshman this fall.

Football people have always been skeptical of "the skier dude." Of course, when you're built like a gymnast with skin as white as a Rocky Mountain peak, you get used to the smirks and head-shaking. Bloom silenced some gridiron critics when he blazed a 4.34 40 last summer at Colorado State's football camp. But it wasn't until Bloom opened the state 4-A playoffs by torching Lakewood on a snow-covered field for nine catches, 203 yards and 4 TDs that most scouts realized the teeny wideout had skills to complement those world-class wheels. Most of the recruiters had no clue that Bloom's record-setting game came less than 24 hours after a grueling 10-day ski camp with the U.S. national team. Keeping his two worlds apart is part of Bloom's M.O.

Three weeks later, Bloom led Loveland to the state title. Four days after that, he kicked off the winter ski season at the Grand National Championships. On Feb. 4, most football prospects held signing-day press conferences. Bloom faxed his letter of intent to Colorado coach Gary Barnett from a training session in Quebec City. He was getting enough attention on the Papa John's Bumps 'n Jumps Series, the world's toughest freestyle circuit. Bloom won the season title handily, taking home a $35,000 SUV and emerging as the favorite for Salt Lake City.

Bloom has been alternately carving up moguls and secondaries since he was a 15-year-old freshman, when he was picked for the U.S. freestyle team, the youngest male to ever make the squad. Back then, he was a scrawny 130 pounds, and relied on his speed to survive on the football field. On the slopes, his lack of mass kept him from going fast enough, and he got by with the flexibility and balance of an acrobat. "I thought about taping weights to my boots to get more speed," he says sheepishly.

With the cooperation of his coaches in both sports, Bloom mixed mogul training with football in the fall. From January through March (with the understanding of his teachers), he competed on the World Cup circuit, skiing everywhere from Finland to Italy to South America. Springtime meant back to school and track, where Bloom paced a state powerhouse. He's toying with running indoor track at CU, even as he admits to not fully grasping the intricacies of the sport. "I have to remind myself to keep it simple: 'It's just a race, so beat the other guy,'" he says.

That's usually not a problem. Bloom's get-off is legendary around Colorado. "His explosiveness is absolutely amazing," says ex-Loveland assistant football coach Tony Davis, a former NFL running back. "He reaches full speed in two steps. I've never seen anybody like that."

Clearly, Bloom has been blessed with muscles teeming with fast-twitch fibers. But it's his mindset that makes him special. "Jeremy is super competitive, but he has a real even keel and exceptionally strong focus," says U.S. ski team coach Scott Rawles. "It's a God-given talent." Apparently. Back when he was a toddler, little Jeremy would unnerve his parents by sitting quietly for hours just looking out the window as they drove to their ski weekends. While his older sister and brother would rifle off questions just to hear themselves talk, Jeremy would quietly content himself with passing trees, road signs and snow banks. His father, Larry, a clinical psychologist at Colorado State, was fascinated -- and, frankly, a bit worried -- by the way his boy's mind worked. "I thought something might be the matter with him," says Dr. Bloom. "He was different than my other two kids. I kept wondering, 'What is going on in his brain?'"

He had little need to worry. Jeremy, who graduated high school with a 3.2, just seems to exist in the zone. Dr. Bloom thinks his son's tunnel-vision focus is rooted in how his brain is wired. He says the vast majority of people are geared to be analytical, which creates a lot of noise in the thought process. "Jeremy's not like that," says his father. "He's a senser and a feeler who doesn't have all of the cognitive distractions."

Big-air moguls isn't Little League or Pop Warner, though; it's a solo flight, with everything depending on split-second decisionmaking. It's kind of like staring down a must-make 15-footer on 18 -- when you know that if you leave it short, someone will crack you in the face with the putter. As best Jeremy can explain, silence floats through his head as he hears the electronic ticker count down before the start of each run. "I'm totally clearheaded," he says. "A calm haze comes over me."

Most people can't relate. Others go to great lengths, from hypnosis to meditation, to try to get to that place. Oh, and if you're wondering if you're in that small percentage of "free thinkers" like Jeremy Bloom, you're not. You've already become too distracted by wondering.

***

The skiing community has known the kid's legit since he was in first grade. His mom, Char, an instructor at nearby Keystone, had all three Bloom sibs on skis as soon as they could walk. But Jeremy wasn't totally hooked until his grandfather, also an instructor, unveiled an ingenious motivational tactic. "His parents were health nuts," says Jerry Bloom. "So I'd throw Milky Way bars down the mountain. That little son of a bitch, in a big red Superman cape and a helmet bigger than his body, would come flying down and pick them up between his legs without a hitch. It was the most amazing thing you ever saw, like a dog catching a Frisbee at full speed."

It wasn't long before Bloom caught the attention of Scott Rawles, a coach with the U.S. ski team, who marveled at the way Bloom carved up Solitude -- the most treacherous run at Breckenridge. Bloom made it look like he was shussing down a bunny slope. He was 11. "You could just tell things came easy to him," says Rawles.

Bloom's grand plan came into focus a year later, in Mr. McCormick's sixth-grade class at Conrad Ball Middle School. The date was June 16, 1995. Most of the students couldn't have cared less when the principal told the teachers to turn on their TVs, but when the news anchor announced that Salt Lake City had won the bid to host the 2002 Winter Olympics, Jeremy began to bop around the room. "Now I get to win a gold medal in my own backyard!" he told his buddies. "This is gonna be way cool."

Of course, if you ask most people, especially in Bronco country, "cool" is more often a gridiron thing. And that's why growing up in football-crazed Denver, Bloom could be seen cradling a Nerf just about every second he didn't have his skis strapped on. He had it with him when the pediatrician giving him a checkup for midget ball mentioned that 75% of the kids were taller and heavier. The confident 8-year-old just smiled and said, "Yeah, but I'm faster."

There are three qualities essential to any great freestyler: explosiveness, fearlessness and flexibility. Coincidentally, these are the same qualities essential to a great football player. Coaches -- in skiing and football -- say Bloom is off the charts in all three. Eight years of tae kwon do training (starting when he was 5) certainly have helped his Jet Li balance. And he easily powers through the ski team training staple: a grueling rapid-fire leg circuit of 20 body-weight squats, 20 lunges, 20 step-up jumps and 10 vertical jumps.

Bloom says the fast-paced training system has prepared him well for CU's mind-bending off-season workout program and the one-on-one drills that began in June. "The football workout is 10 times harder," he says. "But I'm getting through it. It's gonna make me better in both sports."

For Salt Lake in February, Bloom is planning to showcase all his talents with an Iron Cross 720. The move -- in which he crosses his skis and does two complete spins -- could elevate him to superstar status. As Bloom likes to put it, he's angling to bust out "a Moseley."

Four years ago, freestyle legend Jonny Moseley, single-handedly made skiing cool again when he busted out a new trick at Nagano -- the 360 heli-mute grab. Moseley started into what looked like an Iron Cross 360, but midway through the move he reached down -- skateboard style -- and grabbed one of his skis. By the time he got back to the States, he was the god of all things cool. "He put freestyle on the globe," Bloom says. "ABC and CBS wanted to televise our events and people started to care about our sport." Moseley hung with the president, did Letterman and Oprah and became an icon. He also started dating Jeremy's sister, Molly.

Jonny and Molly broke up last year, but Jonny and Jeremy have stuck together, legend and prodigy becoming mentor and protégé. Moseley helped Bloom get sponsorship deals with Oakley, Dynastar and Under Armour. And he took him to jet-set ski parties, introducing him to all the right people. Now Bloom considers supermodel Christy Turlington a buddy. And he considers Moseley, still his hero, a peer.

Maybe the kid would get caught up in it all if he ever slowed down, but he knows a huge challenge lies ahead. Two teams want him badly. The Buffs are pushing him to get thicker; they'd love for him to bulk up another 20 pounds (165-pounders don't last long unless they're kicking extra points). Meanwhile, the U.S. ski team sweats every pound he puts on. "Right now, he's a good size for a moguls skier," says Rawles. "If he gets too big, whenever he gets a little off-balance, it will be magnified. This is like ballet. He needs to be supple."

Bloom smiles at the tug-of-war. He's comfortable with his start with the Buffs and feels more confident than ever that he can make an impact on the gridiron this fall. He won't compete again in skiing until the Olympic qualifying events in December. Of course, that's the heart of college football bowl season. "When the time comes, I'll see how things are going, and if I'm at a place where I impact the football team, well ..." He pauses a good, long time. "Oh, I dunno. I guess we'll find out then."

This article appears in the July 23 issue of ESPN The Magazine.