WSCA – FasterSkier

Women Ski Coaches Association Launches GearUP, Pairing Women Coaches with the Connections They Need to Outfit Their Programs

Ben TheyerlDecember 5, 2022

Formed in 2019, the Women’s Ski Coaches Association (WSCA) has been a consistent and ardent supporter of creating gender equality in all areas of North American skiing. With WSCA founders—St. Scholastica Head Coach Maria Stuber and Staffer, Craftsbury Green Racing Project Biathlete (and former St. Scholastica skier) Kelsey Dickinson at the organizational core—a strong actor-network has been formed to advocate for women in the ski coaching profession. This has included some notable partnerships with...

News

Women Ski Coaches Association Announces GearUP Program (Application Open Now)

FasterSkierOctober 6, 2022

The women Ski Coaches Association is excited to announce our new GearUP program. This program is designed to help reduce barriers for women ski coaches by partnering women coaches with an equipment brand rep to outfit them with gear, provide brand specific knowledge, and create industry connections. Madshus, Fischer, Rossignol and Salomon will each work directly with two women coaches for the duration of the 2022-23racing season.* The eight coaches selected for this program will...

Community Feature News

World Cup Development Opportunities: an Interview with Rising Coach and Tech, Kristen Bourne

Rachel PerkinsDecember 27, 2021

In November, FasterSkier interviewed Kristen Bourne, assistant coach at the College of St. Scholastica (CSS) in Duluth, MN, after she was selected as a Women’s Sports Foundation Van DerVeer Fellow, which came with a grant totalling $17,500. The objective of the fellowship is to improve representation of women in elite level coaching by supporting the development of rising coaches at the college level. The majority of the funds from the VanDerveer Fellowship went directly to...

Community Feature General News

CSS Assistant Coach Kristen Bourne Recognized with Women’s Sport Foundation VanDerveer Fellowship

Rachel PerkinsNovember 11, 2021

Kicking off her second year as assistant coach at the College of St. Scholastica (CSS) in Duluth, MN, Kristen Bourne was recently named one of ten recipients of the Women’s Sports Foundation VanDerveer Fellowship. The program, named for revered Stanford University Basketball coach, Tara VanDerveer, aims to increase representation of women in coaching at the collegiate level through the development of the rising generation. This is the first time that the award has been granted...

Community Feature

Lifelong Learners and Waxing Skis with the Women Ski Coaches Association

Jason AlbertNovember 4, 2020

The magic brew. The secret sauce. The omniscient wax-tech with encyclopedic knowledge of all things ski wax and the ability to bestow the goods onto a ski base. Ah, those slick and slippery skis. And that bite of kick in slush. The mythology of wax in this sport looms large. And the few wax-mixologists of note live among their peers as deities. The popular myth is this: some are gifted with the wax gene, most...

Community Resources Waxing

WSCA Announces Webinar: Waxing Skis and Waning the Gender Gap (Press Release)

FasterSkierOctober 6, 2020

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: The WSCA Announces Webinar: Waxing Skis and Waning the Gender Gap Today, the Women Ski Coaches Association (WSCA) announced it will host a Webinar to connect and educate women coaches, and redefine ski waxing culture and opportunities. The webinar, Waxing Skis and Waning the Gender Gap will take place on October 21st. “The ski coaching world is going through a big shift with the ban on fluoro waxes and we see...

Community General

The Importance of Women in Coaching with Dr. Nicole LaVoi

Rachel PerkinsOctober 21, 2019

On the last weekend of September, U.S. Ski & Snowboard held the annual National Cross Country Coaches Symposium in Park City, UT. This year’s event included a keynote presentation from Nicole LaVoi Ph.D., co-director of the Tucker Center at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Dr. LaVoi is a professor of sport psychology and sociology at UMN and leads research in “the structural and personal barriers experienced by female coaches, relational qualities of the coach-athlete...

Community General News

The Women Ski Coaches Association Launches a Grassroots Mission Toward Gender Equity in Sport

Rachel PerkinsOctober 10, 2019

In August, the Women Ski Coaches Association (WSCA) set forth to balance the scales of gender equity in coaching. With Maria Stuber, head coach at the College of St. Scholastica (CSS) and former member of the Craftsbury Green Racing Project, at the helm, the WSCA strives to be “the voice and future of women in coaching.” According to surveys conducted by the Tucker Center for Research on Women and Girls in Sport, since Title IV...

General News

Welcome to the Women Ski Coaches Association (Press Release)

FasterSkierAugust 12, 2019

Press release Welcome to the Women Ski Coaches Association WHO WE ARE AND WHAT WE’RE DOING According to a recent U.S. Ski & Snowboard membership newsletter, men outnumber women by 2:1 in cross country ski coaching positions in the United States. At the head coach and program leadership levels, that ratio skews even further away from equal representation. Five out of 25 head cross country coaches in NCAA skiing are women. At the post-collegiate...