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Such pluck may come from growing up the only girl in her hometown of Triumph, Idaho (pop. 50). Her free-spirited parents named her after a nearby town; when neighborhood boys made fun of her name, she beat them up. Her father Ron, a brickmason, and mother Dee, a music teacher, couldn't afford many luxuries, so they lavished freedom and adventure on Picabo and her elder brother Roland ("Baba") Street. The family owned no TV set but took trips through Central America and skied at nearby Sun Valley.
From the start, Picabo was a misfit in the upscale world of ski racing. "We were poor kids, so we didn't have all the rad gear to wear," recalls Baba, now 28. "The rich kids' moms really couldn't deal with the fact that Peek could whop them." Despite her talent, early in her career on the national team she got in trouble for goofing off and staging temper tantrums featuring language unsuitable for the pristine slopes. "She likes to call attention to herself. She likes to be loud, and she takes up a lot of space in a room," recalls Hilary Lindh, an ex-teammate and Olympic medalist who feuded with Street but eventually patched it up. The team bounced Street in 1990 for being out of shape, an incident that inspired in her a boot-camp attitude toward training that has never let up.
It helped her recover from the knee injury, but so did a chance meeting last February in Maui, her favorite escape. Looking across a nightclub dance floor, her eyes met those of J.J. Lasley, a kindred spirit. Says he: "I was in Hawaii soul searching, having just quit my job in investment banking. She was soul searching and trying to get away from the world championships, which were going to be all over TV." Lasley, 27, a former Stanford running back who tried out with the Green Bay Packers and played briefly for the Minnesota Vikings, has more than a few things in common with Street. He grew up poor in South Central Los Angeles and endured a near crippling disease and three knee operations before the age of 21. Both boyfriend and girlfriend have a slightly unusual gait because each has one leg shorter than the other. "In fact," Lasley recalls, "it's when her knee healed that she started limping again. Then I knew she was walking right." Lasley, who once posed for the Stanford newspaper wearing only a strategically placed football helmet, is Street's karma companion, the rare person who can keep up with her nonstop personality parade.