Happy 40th birthday, Bode Miller!

Bode Miller, arguably the greatest male American alpine skier of all time, turns 40 today. To celebrate his career, here’s a gallery of moments from his 40 years of racing, innovation, controversy and partying. You know Bode’s is going to party at a world-class level for number 40.

Samuel Bode Miller was born Oct. 12, 1977, in the town of Easton, N.H. Miller grew up in a cabin without electricity or running water, but he nonetheless was using a homemade snowboard at age 2 and skiing by age 4. He was a home-schooled vegetarian whose parents split up when he was six years old, which just goes to show that champions can come from anywhere.

Skiing was in Bode Miller’s blood. The cabin was located near the Tamarack Lodge, a ski resort his grandparents founded on 450 acres on Cannon Mountain in the 1940s with a single rope tow. The small ski area shut down, but the lodge remains. Bode’s grandparents' main endeavor was the Tamarack Tennis Camp, which still thrives and is currently run by Bode’s sister, Wren.

Bode was a multi-sport star, excelling in tennis and soccer, and able to dunk a basketball, but skiing is what got him a scholarship to the Carrabassett Valley Academy (CVA). CVA is a prep school in Maine famous for training downhill skiers. Bode honed his craft there but also sowed the seeds of his iconoclastic nature. He defied the coaches with his unorthodox technique where he leaned back instead of forward. He snowboarded, skied off-limits trails while dodging the ski patrol and got kicked out of prom for wearing sandals. When an English teacher asked him to rewrite a paper on Toni Morrison, he refused and left without a degree — just a certificate of attendance.

Bode Miller burst onto the national scene with his performance at the 1996 Junior Nationals at Sugarloaf. He won the downhill, super-G and giant slalom, and finished second in the slalom. Miller stood out because of his aggression and speed, but also due to his skis — skis with wider tips and tails in an hourglass shape. In other words, he had skis shaped more like snowboards. These were K2 Fours, generally considered a recreational, not a racing, ski. Well, until Bode, at least.

His dominating performance at Juniors got him a spot at the U.S. national championships, which were also held at Sugarloaf. Among pro skiers and their fancy sponsored equipment, Bode competed with his same off-the-rack parabolic skis and his old beat-up speed suit. It didn’t matter. He finished third in the slalom, which meant he was a member of the U.S. ski team. Who needs a diploma?

At age 20, Bode qualified for the 1998 Olympics in Nagano, Japan, competing in both the slalom and giant slalom. The larger stage did nothing to dampen Bode’s usual balls-to-the-wall, speed-at-all-costs approach. This recklessness was part of what launched him to success, but it’s also what led to him crashing out of 14 of his first World Cup tour events. Nagano was no different, as Bode crashed out in both events, notching a double DNF: Did Not Finish.

At Val d’Isere, France in December 2000, Bode made a World Cup podium for the first time, finishing third in the slalom. At this point, he was more of a turns than a speed specialist, which was why his focus was on the more technically inclined slalom and giant slalom events, rather than the downhill. However, at the World Ski Championships in 2001, he only did the super-G, a speed event. He crashed out and tore knee ligaments, but he was on his way to becoming a five-event (slalom, giant slalom, downhill, super-G, combined) skier.

The end of 2001 was when Bode started to become truly elite. He won his first tour event in the giant slalom at his old favorite, Val d’Isere, and won a slalom event the very next day. This photo depicts a second-place finish from November 2001 in Aspen, but we chose it because the photos from his first wins do not feature glasses of champagne.

At the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Bode was in 15th after a fall during the downhill portion of the combined event. He roared back in the slalom portion, picking up a whopping 2.16 seconds on the leader to finish second and win his first-ever silver medal. After frustrating officials by leaving the Games to go on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," he returned to win another silver in giant slalom. He celebrated mightily, then complained at how underpaid American skiers were and claimed he could have been a better soccer player than Ronaldo (the original Brazilian one, not Cristiano).

Bode Miller’s final event at the 2002 Games was the slalom, and he entered his final run comfortably in second place. He had another medal virtually assured if he managed to merely finish the course. He’d be the first American ever to take home three alpine medals in a single Olympics. Instead, he went for the gold, trying to launch himself to victory by hitting the first gate as fast as possible. He missed the gate entirely, hiked back up the slope to complete it and ended up in 25th place. He expressed no regrets.

In the 2002-3 World Cup season, Bode fell just short of the overall title, though he won two giant slalom events and the season-long title in the combined. At the 2003 World Championships in St. Moritz, he took home gold medals in giant slalom and combined, and a silver in super-G. In 2004, he added a World Cup title in giant slalom and defended his crown in the combined but this time finished fourth overall. His title in giant slalom was the first alpine World Cup win for an American man in 20 years. He was dominating in certain events but wasn’t close enough in the downhill or super-G to catch his various Austrian rivals. Experts suggested Bode focus on the technical events where he dominated, and of course he did the opposite of what they said.

In the 2004-5 season, Bode became the second man to win an event in each of the four World Cup disciplines in a single season, and it only took him 10 races. He won six of his first 10 races, building up a huge points lead by December. Bode being Bode, this was followed by crash after crash, DNF after DNF, before he pulled it together at the World Championships. He won gold in super-G and became the first American man to win gold in downhill. And while it all resulted in his first No. 1 overall ranking, the most Bode thing about the championships was that he lost a ski 15 seconds into the combined and decided to finish the run anyway.

Miller was a star tennis player growing up, eventually going on to become state champion in New Hampshire for his age group. He kept playing as an adult and is shown here playing with Steffi Graf in 2004. In 2010, he even competed in a sectional tournament in Hawaii to qualify for the US Open — and lost in straight sets. Clearly Bode was great at skiing, but we think the straight-laced world of tennis with its white clothing and polite crowds doesn’t match with his rebellious aesthetic. Plus, on-court drinking is strongly discouraged.

Not only did Bode play tennis and ski, but he also proved he was a true "Superstar" by winning the ABC competition of that name in 2002. Skiers did surprisingly well in the later years of the show, with Hermann Maier and Jeremy Bloom also winning. Bode returned in 2009 for the show’s reboot, where athletes were paired with celebrities. Though he managed to drag his partner, "Extreme Home Makeover" host Paige Hemmis, to the finals, ultimately he couldn’t defeat the superteam of a freestyle skier and professional dancer.

In advance of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Bode Miller was the most-hyped American athlete. He was on the cover of Time Magazine, and he was interviewed on "60 Minutes." It didn’t go great! He admitted to competing while still drunk from the night before, after which the head of the U.S. ski team, Bill Marolt, flew to Europe and forced Bode to apologize publicly. Of course, Marolt also got arrested for drunkenly stealing a car during the 1964 Winter Olympics and got a DUI in Utah in 2010. So really, Bode’s main crime was admitting to what skiers have always done. He also controversially accused Barry Bonds and Lance Armstrong of using steroids.

While his comments were controversial, the truly unforgivable sin Bode Miller committed in 2006 was skiing poorly. He failed to even finish three of his five events, missing gates, losing control and getting disqualified while he was in first place in the combined. In his two remaining races, he finished fifth and sixth. Bode was photographed partying with a Playboy Playmate and flipping off a cameraman, Bob Costas eviscerated him with a televised editorial, and some called him the biggest bust in Olympic history. Bode’s comments didn’t help: “I just did it my way. I'm not a martyr, and I'm not a do-gooder. I just want to go out and rock. And man, I rocked here. It's been an awesome two weeks. I got to party and socialize at an Olympic level.” Gold medal for socialization; no hardware for actual skiing.

As part of the Olympic hype, Bode had his own video game for the PlayStation 2. Gamespot.com said, “Valcon Games matches Bode Miller's 2006 Olympic performance with this underwhelming skiing title.” It may have been the greatest alpine skiing console game ever… because it’s maybe the only one. Maybe if the designers had included a “wasted mode” the game could have taken off. 

After another World Cup title in super-G in 2006-7, Bode left the U.S. ski team to compete as a self-financed independent on his own “Team America.” He wanted to customize his own training, hire his own coaches and spend the season living in his own bus instead of hotels, without anyone hassling him. Crucially, this was also the point where he got his drinking under control. In his first year as independent, Bode won his second World Cup title, and only a weather cancellation kept him from winning another downhill crown.

After two ankle injury-riddled years — one sprain suffered in a ski team basketball game — Bode returned to the U.S. team and the Olympics for the 2010 Vancouver Games. There was much less hype compared to 2006 and much better skiing. First, Bode took bronze in the downhill, though he finished just nine hundredths of a second behind the winner. Then he won silver in the super-G, giving him the most medals of any American alpine skier in history. Finally, in typical Bode fashion, he came back from seventh place to win his first-ever Olympic gold in the combined, staking his claim as the greatest male skier in American history. Of course, he stayed on brand by failing to finish either of the slalom events.

In October 2012, Bode married pro beach volleyball player Morgan Beck in an understated ceremony that only featured the officiant, the photographer and the marrying couple. They didn’t party on an Olympic level or even a Junior Olympic level, reportedly going to bed at 9:30. Currently they have a son and a daughter.

Bode may have dropped out of high school because of an English class, but that didn’t stop him from becoming a published author. “Bode: Be Good, Be Fast, Have Fun” is reportedly full of his personal aphorisms, called “Bodeisms,” and is currently available from third-party sellers for 25 cents.

In 2013, Bode’s little brother, Chelone “Chilly” Miller, was found dead in his van at age 29. Chelone was a famous daredevil snowboarder who’d recently focused on competitions to make the Olympic team and follow Bode to the Olympics in Sochi. He suffered a traumatic brain injury at 21 after a dirt bike crash but spurned the anti-seizure medication prescribed to him in the aftermath. Later, Bode would break down in tears during a televised interview when asked about his brother at the Olympics.

Competing in his fifth Winter Olympics, Bode managed to pick up one more piece of hardware: a bronze medal in the super-G. In contrast to other years where he talked about just wanting to go fast or race well, this time Bode said, “Some days medals don’t matter. Today was one of the days where it does matter." At 36, he was the oldest alpine medalist in Olympic history.

Bode is a horse racing enthusiast and hasn’t missed a Kentucky Derby since 1999. If you had any doubts, the quality and ridiculousness of Morgan Beck’s Derby hat should relieve them.

Four months after back surgery, Bode Miller crashed out at Beaver Creek in horrific fashion. He got his arm caught in one of the gates and spun out, ultimately severing a hamstring tendon. That would be a tough recovery for a young skier; for a 37-year-old, it looked like a career-ender. Now, he hasn’t officially retired, but it’s hard to think he has motivation to rehab and return, especially with a nice family and his love of the ponies. But crazier things have happened with Bode Miller over the years, so he may hike up the slope and try to hit the gates one last time.