Ten-year-old Ben Ferguson was facedown in the lake, dreaming he was in a tunnel.

When he finally came to and raised his head, he threw his hands in the air and gasped for breath.

Last year on his wakeboard, young Ben was knocked unconscious twice. This was one of those times.

”You’ve got to take hard falls,” Ben says. ”It doesn’t come easy.”

The practice that comes with those hard falls may just be worth the risk for Ben. Last month, he placed second in his age group at the Pan American Wakeboard Championships in Florida, and he was third at the Wakeboard Nationals in July in Wisconsin, qualifying for the World Championships in Australia this month.

But Ben, a fifth-grader at Lava Ridge Elementary in Bend, does not limit himself to a wakeboard. As a snowboarder, he claimed the combined freestyle title in his age group at the United States of America Snowboard Association Nationals in Colorado last April. And he’s also an avid skateboarder.

Basically, Ben never gets bored of boards.

”I don’t really have a favorite,” Ben says. ”I like all of them so much. In wakeboarding, you’re really concentrating on what you’re supposed to do and linking tricks together. In snowboarding, you don’t want to run into a tree.”

The youngster had an inauspicious start to his snowboarding career when he was 5. Like most beginner snowboarders, he spent more of his first day on his bottom than on his board. At 5 years old, that can cause some tears.

”The first day I went out, I started crying,” Ben admits. ”But by the end of the day, it was fun.”

Ben says that participating in one sport – whether snowboarding, wakeboarding or skateboarding – often helps with the other sports.

”I think skateboarding helps a lot with snowboarding, and wakeboarding does, too,” he says.

Being active in all three disciplines also helps prevent a 10-year-old from getting bored with one activity. Though Ben cannot wakeboard year-round in Central Oregon, he’s eagerly preparing for the upcoming snowboard season, and he plans to make a smooth transition from water to snow.

”It is a disadvantage he doesn’t get to ride (wakeboard) year-round, but he’s itching to do something else so he doesn’t get burned out,” says Branden Ferguson, Ben’s father. ”It keeps him kind of fresh.”

Ben benefits from having a solid group of friends in the 10-to-12 age range who are also exceptional snowboarders, though Ben is the only one of the group who wakeboards.

The young snowboarders ride for the Mount Bachelor Ski Education Foundation.

”They all kind of feed off each other and help each other out,” Branden Ferguson says. ”Mount Bachelor does have some incredible snowboarders that are Ben’s age.”

As far as wakeboarding, Ben has learned many skills from other Bend wakeboarders, including 15-year-old Alex Scagliotti, who rides in the Pro Wakeboard Tour’s junior men’s division, and Sean Charlton, who runs the Gravity Wakeboard School in Central Oregon.

Ben spent much of this past summer perfecting a 360-degree maneuver and a tantrum (back flip) on his wakeboard.

”He likely threw a tantrum a hundred times before he landed it,” says Ben’s father. ”He’s taken some pretty hard falls.”

Ben also has an interest in another contact sport: football. In his last game, in a flag football league, he had two touchdowns and two interceptions.

Ben says he ”kind of wants to play college football,” but he also would not mind eventually turning pro in snowboarding or wakeboarding.

When asked about becoming a professional someday, Ben responds with an answer his parents love.

”I think it’d be really fun to be a pro. You’d get paid to ride. But I do think I might get an education, too,” Ben says, glancing at his father. ”I probably can’t do it forever.”