Old Snowmass – “Johno” McBride tried to quit. After 10 winters zigzagging around the Alps as a U.S. Ski Team coach, helping Daron Rahlves and Bode Miller become top-flight downhillers, McBride wanted to spend more time with his wife and two little girls at their restored homesteader’s cabin here on the family ranch.
He quit, but not for long.
Miller urged McBride to reconsider, and they worked out a compromise last spring that allows McBride to come home from the World Cup once a month to see his family.
Officially, McBride will coach the men who compete in combined. Unofficially, his job is to make sure Miller maintains his fitness, which has been a shortcoming in the past.
“It was his idea to hire me, and he pushed me hard through the spring,” said McBride, who grew up in the Roaring Fork Valley. “He called me a lot and I told him I would entertain the idea, but I would have to be able to write my own rules.”
One stipulation was being able to come home monthly. Another regarded Miller’s attitude.
“I told him I had no interest being on the tour to be on the tour,” said McBride, 41. “I said, ‘If I’m going to come back and work for you, I want a commitment you’re going to perform at the highest level you can.’ I think he has done that, to this point.”
Miller is one of the most talented athletes on the tour, and he tends to begin the season among the fittest.
In recent years, though, his conditioning deteriorated as the season wore on.
Two seasons ago he piled up a huge early lead in the World Cup overall standings but barely held off Austrian Benjamin Raich to win the title. Last season he appeared out of shape at the Olympics and was shut out of the medals.
“It’s clear his conditioning falls apart in the winter,” head coach Phil McNichol said. “He doesn’t have the personal motivation to do it. He gets distracted. He’s got other stuff going on. He’s a flighty kind of guy in that regard. We have to provide a little more attention to him.”
Miller’s agent, Lowell Taub, concedes his client’s fitness has been a problem but insists it’s not because Miller is a slacker.
“As a four-event skier, he doesn’t have as much time for weight training and endurance training in-season, because he’s moving from race to race and city to city and is mixing in some social life,” Taub said. “I think he’s made the mental commitment to himself this season to fully max out his athletic potential and focus on in-season training to see what his absolute athletic potential can be.”
Miller concedes conditioning is the primary reason he urged McBride to return.
“He’s valuable because I’ve worked with him for 10 years. We know each other and have good rapport,” Miller said. “He knows a lot about the World Cup, so there’s never any rookie issues.”
McBride said Miller is fitter than he was a year ago going into the Turin Olympics.
“I think last year he had some real motivational issues,” McBride said. “I think conditioning has absolutely been a part of his breakdown through seasons. I don’t think you’d have too many people arguing with that. He might.”
While conceding Miller’s condition is his priority, coaching the combined athletes means McBride will be able to help Olympic combined champion Ted Ligety improve his downhill skills.
Ligety won the gold medal in Turin despite having scanty experience in downhill.
But it also means McBride will spend most of yet another winter eight time zones away from his wife, Sunni, their daughters Ruby, 3, and Lucy, 1 1/2, and their homestead with two dogs and two dozen chickens in a gorgeous valley near Aspen.
“I’ve always enjoyed it, but you get to a point where you have kids and a family and you start thinking about other priorities,” McBride said. “It’s been brutal.
“I love watching them grow up and develop, cry and laugh, whatever they do.”
For Sunni McBride, her husband’s extended absences were easier to take before the kids were born and she could travel on her own when he was away. At least he will be home more often this winter, if not full time.
“I’m not going to tell him he can’t do it,” Sunni said. “I want him to do what he loves. We’re trying to work this out, and we think this is a better way.”
This week’s schedule
Birds of Prey men’s World Cup at Beaver Creek
* Tuesday and Wednesday: Downhill training, 11 a.m.
* Thursday: Super combined, downhill 11 a.m., slalom 2:30 p.m.
* Friday: Downhill, 11 a.m.
* Saturday: Giant slalom, 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.
* Sunday: Slalom, 9:45 a.m. and 12:30 p.m.
Staff writer John Meyer can be reached at 303-954-1616 or jmeyer@denverpost.com.
