by J. Brooks Terry
Staff Writer
Civil litigator Michael Whalen takes a deep breath; the wind rushing at his face. Without over-thinking his next move, he makes the jump, rushing towards earth at over 120 mph and loving every minute.
Before long, his parachute opens and Whalen is safely back on the ground. Though he has close to 1,600 jumps, Whalen said the excitement surrounding skydiving has yet to leave him.
“For your first 40 or 50 jumps, I think there is still that fear of getting hurt, but after that it’s more about skill,” said Whalen, who has never been injured, but he has had to open his backup parachute three times. “Skydiving, for me, is fun on so many levels. Obviously there is the adrenalin rush, but it’s more than that. It’s more like a skilled sport.”
Eleven years ago, Whalen, of Bedell, Dittmar, DeVault, Pillans & Coxe, was sitting in the office of one of his clients, an avid skydiver who had photos from a recent jump on display.
“I thought about it for a minute, then I told him I wanted to try it some time,” said Whalen. “I figured I would probably like it, but I never would have expected that I would love it as much I did or that I would still be doing it today.”
Oddly, Whalen said he was “an avid golfer” before taking on the new hobby.
“It’s funny,” he said. “At the end of the day, I feel more relaxed after jumping than I do after a game of golf. Golf can be stressful, actually. It has definitely taken a back seat to skydiving.”
In the time following that first jump, Whalen has managed to take a casual hobby and turn it into a way of life. Aside from jumping almost every weekend, he is part of a five-man jump team — The Art of Skydiving — that regularly performs demonstration jumps at public events including eight Jacksonville Jaguars games and even the Pepsi 400. Most recently, the team dropped in on the Jacksonville Suns first home game at the Baseball Grounds of Jacksonville.
“The best thing about the demonstration jumps is the sense of team work that comes with them,” said Whalen. “It can add a new level of stress because you really want to perform well together, but we’ve been lucky to get a decent amount of word-of-mouth advertising, which is great. Demonstration jumps provide a whole new level of satisfaction.”
Skydiving has even become a family affair.
“Both of my children jump and so does my wife,” said Whalen. “I actually trained my daughter. My wife loves it as much as I do. Actually, I’d say that about 98 percent of the people who try it walk away saying it was most exciting thing they’ve ever done.”
Whalen is a certified accelerated free fall instructor who’s trained everyone from teenagers to the elderly.
“When I see someone in their 80s jump,” he said, “I know I definitely have a few years left in me.”
And how, exactly, does a busy attorney balance heavy case loads with extreme sports?
“It’s not that difficult, really,” said Whalen. “The nice thing about jumping is that you don’t have time to over analyze the situation. Skydiving is black and white and you have to act quickly. It’s a totally different mind set and you use a totally different group of skills. That’s why it’s good for me.”
Perhaps strangest of all, Whalen isn’t exactly at home in high places.
“I’ll be honest, I’m not very comfortable on top of a roof,” said Whalen. “My palms do get a little sweaty. But when you’re jumping out of a plane, you relate to the ground differently. It’s not like you look at it and it starts getting bigger right away. If it does, you’re in trouble.”