Friday, January 14, 2011

Giving Back


Instead of flying clear across the USA after the Quebec NORAMS, we headed South to Virginia for a week of rest, recovery and repacking. Half of the time was spent at Bryce Mountain, where Scott first learned to ski at age two. It’s a great hill with only about 600 feet of vertical, but a dedicated 63 member alpine racing team. We spent four days there with two devoted to training with the local team and spending lots of time with kids and parents.

The head coach, Phil Perkins, is a long time friend of mine. He and his wife Karen head the staff and devote all of their time and energy to these kids. They had Scott and I work as guest coaches. The biggest challenge was ensuring Scott spent an equal amount of time with each group. The kids loved it and Scott got writer’s cramps signing autographs. Saturday night Scott met with the parents and athletes for a brief talk and Q&A session which lasted about 45 minutes. There were lots of good questions about everything from diet to training and ski preparation. They take their racing seriously down here.

Management also used Scott as the NASTAR pacesetter (like he did at Schweitzer in December), thus saving the mountain the expense of sending their pacesetter to trials at Round Top, Pennsylvania later this month. NASTAR at Bryce is a different bird. Instead of being open for a period of time with customers showing up whenever they wish, this mountain has always treated it like a race. An entire run is closed off, numbers are issued, lots of speed suits are worn… one guy even carried to the start line. Folks stop what they’re doing to watch the “race.” Good fun!

We ended the visit Monday morning with a private slalom training session on a slope all to ourselves. After two days resting and reorganizing in DC at my best friend's house, Scott boarded the plane to Munich on Thursday.

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