On club skiing (vs. high school skiing):
I skied on a ski club in Austria last season and it was pretty insightful to compare their club system with the strong high school system found in my native Minnesota. I definitely see some advantages to the club system. First, it was a more integrated system- everything from J2’s to Masters racing at the same races. It made the Pipeline so clear it was Painful. you could see your whole ski career mapped out on one result sheet all the way from J3 to Master. 2. The race season was longer. I think this is a huge and a point no one has brought up yet when talking about Junior hours. Racing in Austria mirrored the world cup and it was assumed that we would race from Dec. through mid. March. In MN. if you are a high school racer your season ends with state championships (if you get that far) the 2nd week of Feb. That is practically 4 weeks of training and racing that European Juniors have over US Juniors EVERY year. Forget about summer hours- its winter hours where we are losing out. This may just be a Minnesota problem as Junior Nat’s is in March, but it is a problem nonetheless. And anyone who has tried to get a Junior skier to care about skiing after the big race knows; it is a tough sell. Third, with a European club, one has the same coach to train with year round. Once again a HS ski coach has 13 weeks in the winter to coach and other than that they are not allowed to coach.

That being said, there are a number of advantages that US has. The sheer number of skiers that a HS system produces is awesome and something that Europeans would be jealous…I remember thinking when I got out of the van at the Austrian Nationals Championships, that any short notice citizens race in the Twin Cities could turn out more people than this. This is a huge asset not to be overlooked. We have seen that Minnesota does produce a especially large number of skiers to go ski in college and beyond. Second, the economic barriers on HS teams to entering the sport are often very low. Teams usually provide some equipment for beginning skiers, wax paid for, trail passes are paid for, race fees and transportation are all pretty much paid for with a nominal team fee. Even training clothing in the form of team jackets and race suits are often rented out to the students.

There was no denying that government subsidies are a huge thing keeping the clubs going in Europe…I paid 28 Euro to join the Skiverband for my year of racing! Until a US club can offer that same kind of subsidy, I hardly see it working as an alternative to HS skiing as far as getting involved on the entry level of the sport.

So the question becomes is there room for a club system, in addition to the high school system in the US? I’m not sure. In my opinion to be successful it would have to be able to take the best/most dedicated of the high school skiers and progress them into skiing more without becoming just a “country club”. It would also have to be something truly American and not just follow the country club model. hmm..

The same people that brought dumb-ass sports like mass-start ski-cross and snowboard-cross into the Olympics are the ones that help to decide what the latest xc ski racing format will be. Essentially – this ski race format du jour is sport “fashion”. It’s cool today and gone tomorrow (where is pro dual format with jumps slalom racing today?) If the xc skiing community honored standard events, like zillions of other sports do, then the xc ski racing would gain understanding and respect over time from viewers outside of the sport.

You want concrete suggestions – Ok: xc skiing should be 4 events in the Olympics where both sexes do the SAME distance: 1) 50 km classic. 2) 30 km continuous pursuit, ½ skate, ½ classic, 3) A 1.2 km skate sprint race using current WC format. 4) A 4 x 10 relay with 2 classic and 2 skate legs. Cast these events in stone. Don’t succumb to network execs’ brain farts of the moment that change the sport. And one day the sport will be understood and heralded by the masses.

Unfortunately, I find its parents and high school counselors who are the biggest contributing factors to the over involved student athlete. I watch these kids kill themselves to build their resume for college. Some how running yourself ragged for two years is worth it if you get a local scholarship for $1500 at the end of your senior year. I don’t understand this and I am not sure what lesson these kids are really learning from it. Being well rounded is one thing, but getting so involved in school activities that you don’t give yourself a chance to excel at any one is senseless to me. Moreover, in some cases I think sport becomes another activity to be completed in the day and I wonder sometimes if the love for sport is lost. Somewhere in all the madness these athletes might still find time to be a kid.

Today a rational-national voice representing XC skiing at land use and planning meetings is essential not only to create more trails but also to stop the loss of many trails to resort and urban development. The USSA could promote the sport of skiing in a way that the the Cross Country Ski Areas of America can not by promoting free skiing on public land.

The promotion of XC skiing to the public is a function that the USSA must return to if gains are to be made on the recruitment of racers and expanding funding options. Elite skiing should sit on top of a far broader base of general participation in, and excitement about this great sport. The prospects for funding race programs from a broad based USSA might be quite good.

- swimming is a huge sport in the US and many other countries, relative to XC skiing (300,000+ swimmers and 40,000+ registered masters swimmers)
- swimming is the most measurable sport, the conditions are always the same and for every age of swimming specific standards are set for times in every event. it is very easy to know what is required and what level you are swimming compared to everyone else in the world. it is really hard to not know what is required to be top international swimmer.
- swimmers start very young, as early as 7-8 in formal competitive programs training daily. certainly by age 14 they are training 7-9+ times per week year round (20+hrs/week)
- swim programs tend to burn out many, many swimmers before they ever hit an age where they could actually be good
- NCAA swimming is a big deal and almost every area of the country is represented at NCAA and all the major conferences. lots of money for scholarships and coaching.
- swimming is a professionally coached sport at virtually every club in the country from the very youngest ages. very few swim programs have volunteer coaches running anything except for assisting a full time paid coach. NCAA coaches are very well supported at the major programs.
- swimming can be done in almost every city in the country, all you need is a pool and a coach. almost every university and college has a pool on campus so no need for an athlete to travel any distance from training to class and back to training.
- swim workouts fit in with a school schedule on a daily and yearly basis. workout 1 before classes start and workout 2 after classes end. swimming is year round not focused on the winter season like skiing

So, compared to skiing that makes a few good points for why swimming has achieved success overall and in the NCAA system. I think one of the biggest areas that skiing can work towards is promoting a better understanding of what it takes to be an international level skier. We don’t have the advantage that swimming and track have, we can’t time a person and say that you are on track. The best we can do is running tests that don’t directly measure skiing ability or ski TT’s and races against known skiers and then try and compare to an international level. In swimming any small town kid with access to a pool can jump in and swim a 100 and see how their time compares to the national standards. It makes it very hard to pretend that you are going fast and working hard if you know what your times are. In skiing we can all pretend that we are doing the work but we don’t really know until its too late and the skiers arrive at the National level and can’t keep the pace needed to be competitive.

In the end I don’t know if collegiate skiing is the answer to the lack of depth in the USST and the development system. I’m sure it can play a role, but if all the efforts going in that direction I think some other critical areas are being neglected.

From the sounds of many comments and JC’s original comments and articles of a couple years ago, I would say one of the biggest issues is the mudslinging that is aimed at the USST. Not very healthy to just throw comments around and bash the people that are in charge of running the organization at a National and International level. Come up with ways to help instead of taking pot shots like “That’s OK. The USST reaction to my stuff was one of my accurate predictions anyway. Hahah!”

Athletes and event orgainzers that are used to sports with static formats (soccer, track, swimming, baseball, basketball, tennis, hockey, even alpine skiing, etc.) must wonder: what the heck IS cross country skiing. Is it a sport trying to figure out which end is up? What attraction to serious career athletes is a sport that can and does change overnight? It’s easy to explain to a kid how to play basketball. But how do you explain to a kid that xc skiing is cool when it will be different game tomorrow?

Actually, IMO xc skiing figured out what it should likely be quite a while ago. But now the sport, at the elite level, seems to dance too often to the puppet strings of major television networks. And the FIS does the bidding of these networks. Shouldn’t xc ski racing be for athletes? Shouldn’t xc ski racing be defined by the cross country skiing community and not the whims of network execs?

While I’m on a roll: Speaking of events being for athletes … will we ever see sexual equality in the Olympics? How silly it is to think women and men can’t do the same events for the same distance. That’s simply troglodytic logic. But what is really sad is that you don’t hear or see much in the way of elite women athletes complaining about this inequality or making a stand (other than women jumpers which is cool to see). So, IMO again, women should become much more proactive in defining xc skiing and Olympic sports in general.

I gotta laugh. The articles on FS with the most posts seem to always be JC’s. Someone from the USST/USSA should offer up an FS opinion article (oh yeah, that will be the day). We could then compare the number of posts and determine who is the more influential force in US xc skiing – JC or them.