Steamboat Springs – After spending most of February watching Bode Miller turn complacency into an Olympic ideal – at least in his mind – it was a treat to see the NCAA ski championships last week in Ski Town USA.
The racers gave it their best, which is more than you could say for Miller’s Sestriere Shutout. The top teams dearly wanted to win, an impulse Miller apparently regards as a character flaw.
“It means a lot,” Colorado coach Richard Rokos said Saturday after winning his fifth NCAA title in 16 seasons. “You dream about it for years, and then in four days it happens.”
As Rokos spoke, his skiers sang the CU fight song in the rodeo arena where the cross country races started and finished. Never mind that of the 11 CU skiers who qualified for the meet, nine were foreigners and only one hailed from Colorado. The team’s spirit, sense of shared accomplishment and collective relief for having performed well under considerable pressure were fun to watch.
“It’s a big responsibility,” said Lucie Zikova, who won Friday night’s slalom under the lights at Howelsen Hill to help the Buffs into the lead after they trailed for two days. “When you are doing well, it just multiplies the happiness. It’s really cool.”
Zikova, like Rokos a native of the Czech Republic, had a Buffalo pasted on one cheek and a #1 on the other while watching the nordic racers wrap up the title on Saturday.
Lisa Perricone, a freshman who finished fourth in slalom and fifth in giant slalom, grew up racing for the Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club. She wore a T-shirt that said “One Team, One Goal” underneath her racing suit.
“I love it,” Perricone said of skiing as a team sport. “You motivate each other, and if one of your teammates beats you, you’re genuinely happy for them. It’s cooler to work together, feed off each other’s energy.”
Winning the title – and denying the hated University of Denver Pioneers – clearly mattered to CU’s racers, fans and alums. Bob Beattie, who coached the Buffs from 1957-65, drove over from Woody Creek and was not bashful about reminding folks how much he hated DU. Beattie had an intense rivalry with the late Willy Schaeffler, who coached the Pioneers to 13 NCAA titles from 1954-70.
Jimmie Heuga came up from Louisville to cheer on his old team with his 1964 Olympic teammate, Billy Kidd, who attended CU from 1964-68 but did not compete for the Buffs. They saw a terrific show.
Nordic racer Kit Richmond of Red Deer, Alberta, shocked himself “unequivocally” by winning the men’s 20-kilometer freestyle Saturday as the CU men went 1-2-4 to take control of the championships.
“I don’t really know what the individual title means yet because this is a dream, it’s crazy,” Richmond said. “A team title, it’s the epitome of college racing. It’s the mark of excellence.”
Stefanie Klocker of Alaska- Anchorage had a nasty crash in the second run of the giant slalom Wednesday, severely spraining her left elbow and hurting her right knee. But she gathered herself and painfully hiked to make the gate she missed. The run took her 5 minutes, 40 seconds, but she hiked because finishing was worth nine points to her team.
“On our team, we have three girls and just one guy,” said Klocker, an Austrian who went straight to the hospital after her run. “I had to do it for the team.”
Miller shirked his responsibility to be a positive role model at the Olympics, but the kids from the Winter Sports Club saw plenty of athletes like Klocker to emulate during the NCAAs.
More than 60 alums of the Winter Sports Club have competed in the Olympics, but having the NCAAs in town gave the kids other aspirations to consider.
“This is a powerful message, this Olympian historical message for Steamboat, but we would be doing our athletes a disservice to not aim them at college,” executive director Rick DeVos said. “About one-tenth of 1 percent of the kids actually become Olympians. That really makes our main responsibility to the other 99.9 percent.”
From what I could see, using ski racing to get a good education can be a very good thing.
