On the other side of the V-Boards

It’s been a long time since I’ve gone a winter without suiting up to compete almost every week. As far back as I can remember, winter weekends have always been spent either running gates, chasing jumping meets, or generally cruising around the northeast race circuits. This winter was no different, except for this time I wasn’t the one doing the racing.

My first winter of full-time coaching was a big learning experience. Jumping from the EISA to the USCSA level opened my eyes to what the other side of collegiate racing is like: wide ranges of attitudes and abilities, teams ranging from the lone Marlboro and WPI skiers to UVM and Clarkson rolling up with 20+ athletes every weekend, and a much more laid-back race organization that values effort over results and ritual.

That last bit is what took the most getting used to. Having raced EISA and USSA, we always took it as SOP to have fully marked courses, a maze of fencing and V-Boards in the stadium, and race officials around every corner. At this level, teams run their own races, each one with their own standards (though technically under the same rules as USSA and FIS). It wasn’t uncommon this season to have athletes warming up backwards on course, something that the next level would’ve been a disqualifiable offense.

The other big change for me this year was how race-days went from a preparation standpoint. With 24 skiers almost every weekend, classic races were very much a race to get skis prepped in time for everyone's start. The skiers were more than willing to help, but at a point it gets to be too much when eight or ten people are testing waxes and they all say different waxes work (or worse, the same wax works for one person but doesn’t for the next).

That being said, my biggest fear this season was not being taken seriously by the athletes, but as it turned out, I had nothing to worry about. everyone on the team was more than helpful with anything I asked of them, including driving personal vehicles through horrid lake-effect snow storms to deliver equipment on less than an hours notice. While the team captains were my primary source of team information, my real brain-trust this season have been the sophomore and junior classes, who have been more than open with me, expressing concerns and changes they’d like to see in the coming years.

The team was very accepting of me as a new (young) coach, to the point where many were looking to me for personalized training plans to supplement/augment the ones provided by the head coach. A majority of them have even asked me to step in as the head coach next year after the current one retires at the end of the season (We’ll see guys, we’ll see).

So far this season has exceeded my expectations immensely, and I can’t wait to see how it concludes. Yesterday, we arrived in Jackson Hole for the USCSA National Championships, which start for us on Tuesday.