Broomfield – The men inducted into the University of Colorado’s athletic hall of fame Thursday night included the school’s most successful football coach, Bill McCartney, and one of its greatest football players, Bobby Anderson.
But none of the inductees could have enjoyed the gala more than Bill Marolt, who was a CU skier, ski coach and athletic director.
The 1959 ski team coached by Marolt’s mentor, Bob Beattie, earned induction for winning CU’s first NCAA title in any sport. Marolt, who was an All-American in 1967, coached the team to seven straight titles from 1972-78.
Marolt took over as athletic director in 1984 after completing a successful stint as alpine director of the U.S. Ski Team. Marolt’s decision to give McCartney a two-year contract extension that year when the team was 0-4 and on the way to 1-10 proved pivotal in the program’s turnaround, which led to a national championship in 1990.
Also inducted at the Omni Interlocken hotel were runner Adam Goucher, who came to CU when Marolt was AD and won CU’s first individual NCAA cross country title in 1998, and Fred Casotti, who spent five decades at CU as sports information director and assistant athletic director.
“This one is particularly meaningful to me because of ‘Beats’ (Beattie) and the ’59 team, and Casotti,” said Marolt, now chief executive of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association. “When I came to school, Casotti was the sports information director. He was with me through my entire career as an athlete, coach and athletic director. Then you put Mac (McCartney) in that deal. Clearly he made a huge difference in my life and my career.”
The 1959 ski team went into the NCAA championships as a heavy underdog to its rivals at the University of Denver, which had won four straight NCAA titles beginning in 1954, but pulled off the upset.
“We thought we had died and gone to heaven,” said John Dendahl, now the Republican candidate in the New Mexico governor’s race hoping to unseat incumbent Bill Richardson. “They (DU) were legendary. They had a lock on it. In 1958 Dartmouth was the host and Dartmouth won. The next year we won, which was mighty fine, but it would have been better if we’d been the first ones to knock off Denver.”
The Buffs, who also won in 1960, were particularly proud to be a home-grown team. DU’s team was predominantly Norwegian.
“It was a very proud moment for all of us,” Beattie said. “The thing that was most important was that these were only Americans. I have a lot of great Norwegian friends, but we felt we were going to have an American team.”
That also has been a point of pride for the CU track and cross country program. Coach Mark Wetmore has chosen to recruit American runners who routinely compete against talented foreigners. Goucher was the first American-born runner to win the NCAA cross country title since Bob Kennedy did it six years earlier. He became the foundation for a program that now boasts four NCAA individual champions, two men’s team titles and two women’s team titles.
“It meant a lot to me because I’m diehard,” Goucher said. “I’m proud to say I was an integral part in the continuing success of the program.”
