Profile: Joseph Briscoe
The Carolina Paddler Profiles are the stories of unique paddlers in the Club. Some are new, some are distinguished, some are civic minded, some are just plain interesting. If you know someone who you think has a good story, please contact us at editor@carolinacanoeclub.org
Joe is an NC State Grad and a Support Technician for the NC Dept of Commerce. He is one of those that still do not have a Facebook in the year 2022 but he does have a very generous wife who watches the CCC Facebook group for him! So if you ever see a Kathryn Boone posting that would be Joe’s awesome wife. They also have a daughter, Emory, who I am sure we will see out paddling a kayak at some point as he seems to have found a new passion.
He started out with an inflatable kayak paddling lakes but soon realized that is not what he wanted to do and bought his first whitewater kayak in 2018. That kayak was his now boiling hole famous Perception Amp. He is now also following the trend of every whitewater paddler and has bought a second kayak, a blue Dagger Code which some of you may have seen out on the rivers in the last month.
Joe was introduced to the CCC by a member out during role practice on the lake and since then he has been trying to get out whenever he can. I met Joe when he was paddling the Haw with a rather large group and I helped him recover from a swim. I did not know him at the time and due to the fact that there were about 40 people out there that day I did not remember even helping him. I was able to get to know Joe when he showed up for a combat roll practice session at Campbell’s falls in Erwin. He had taken some roll classes and it definitely showed as he started nailing combat rolls left and right that day. Most of them were not intentional practice rolls as he was still learning his basic maneuvers but that made them all more realistic. In addition this was all without a back band and with no foam in the foot brace area.
I was teaching an L3 RSR for a private group the following day and invited him to join and he eagerly accepted. I was glad to see that as he was starting off his paddling career in the right direction. He also ended up attending the Joint Cold Water Classes that we hosted at the beginning of this year.
Joe showed up again for another underwater session at Campbell’s Falls on New Year’s Day and this time with a drysuit, another great sign for a new paddler. He had also gotten himself a nice back band put in and was still knocking out some good combat rolls. Its great to see newer paddlers having all the right gear and making an effort to improve, even in the cold water!
A few weeks later he became almost famous courtesy of another Joe, the great Joe Berry who started asking who the guy was that nailed his roll on the Boiling Hole rapid during MMRT. Apparently all the practice had paid off and he got many good reviews on his roll. Too bad he isn’t on Facebook so he couldn’t see it!
I decided to profile Joe Briscoe as he is one of our newer members getting out there and doing all the right things. With that being said, when you see him out there on the river make sure you strike up a conversation with him, help him improve on his skills, give him some little nudging to try new things, and lets keep this guy around for a long while so we can con him into taking a role on the board some day.
Written by
William Holman