STEAMBOAT SPRINGS — Andy LeRoy is in an awkward position. He’s a fan of the Colorado Buffs ski team and an admirer of its beloved coach, Richard Rokos. LeRoy skied for CU — winning an NCAA slalom title in 2000 — and spent two seasons as a volunteer assistant coach for Rokos.
“I love that guy,” LeRoy says.
But LeRoy is in his second season as head coach at the University of Denver, like CU a perennial NCAA power. The CU-DU rivalry has been a fierce and often feisty one since Bob Beattie showed up at CU in 1957 to challenge DU’s dominance under the legendary Willy Schaeffler. To this day, Beattie enjoys taunting DU folk, as he did last November at the CU Ski Ball, when he was given CU’s “Mountain of Honor” award.
LeRoy, being a former CU skier, was in the audience.
“During his speech, which is five minutes-ish, there’s probably four minutes of DU bashing,” LeRoy recalled with amusement last week while driving a team van to Winter Park for a training session. “I’m just sitting there shaking my head like, ‘Oh, no.’ ”
LeRoy knew what was coming, since the master of ceremonies was a close friend, former CU racer Greg Buchheister.
“He (Buchheister) grabs the mic and it’s like, ‘Everybody, I’d just like you to know we’ve got the head coach of DU here, Andy LeRoy. Go ahead and stand up, Andy.
“Why don’t you give him a boo.’ ”
DU’s coaching lineage is a storied one. Schaeffler, a German who sabotaged Nazi forces in the Austrian Alps during World War II, won 13 NCAA championships from 1954-71. The university dropped skiing as a varsity sport from 1983- 92, but the program was rebuilt by LeRoy’s predecessor, Kurt Smitz, who added four NCAA titles.
In his debut season as DU coach last year, LeRoy guided the Pioneers to a runner-up finish at the NCAA championships behind Dartmouth. CU was third.
This past weekend was a special one for LeRoy. A product of the venerable Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club, LeRoy made his first trip to his hometown as DU’s head coach for the Colorado Invitational. LeRoy is a former U.S. Ski Team racer who made it to the 1998 Nagano Olympics in slalom but never really broke into the big time, spending most of his career racing NorAms and Europa Cup. He left the national team in 1999, disillusioned at age 24, and enrolled at CU.
“I got to the point where I hated ski racing,” LeRoy said. “My dream wasn’t to go to the Olympics, I was supposed to win. I had such grander goals than when I left the ski team, and all I’d done was win Nor- Am titles and competed in the Olympics. I’d reached very few of the goals I’d set.”
LeRoy decided accepting a scholarship to CU was a good way to cash in on all those frustrating years with the national team.
“That was going to be the first thing I’d done right in the sport,” LeRoy said. “I’m like, ‘Finally the sport is going to give a little something back to me.’ ”
He had only one year of eligibility but made the most of it, winning races with ease and thoroughly enjoying campus life.
“It was an ego trip,” LeRoy said. “Rokos had such a wonderful team atmosphere, and the school — the way they support skiing — it was wonderful.”
LeRoy went back to the national team, blew out a knee, endured his fourth knee surgery and went back to CU to finish school and assist Rokos. After graduation he spent three years coaching at the Winter Sports Club in Steamboat before taking the DU job.
At the Winter Sports Club he sent several promising young racers to CU. Some of them helped CU win the 2006 NCAA title — in Steamboat.
“I took the job at DU about three months later,” LeRoy said. “It was like, ‘Oops, I just loaded (CU) with all these kids I believed in, now I’m a traitor, coaching for the ‘other’ school.’ ”
Rokos is one of the most fun-loving and warmhearted coaches I’ve met — in any sport — in more than three decades as a sportswriter. It’s no wonder LeRoy loves the guy, although Beattie might come unhinged at the notion.
What did LeRoy learn about coaching from Rokos?
“You’ve got to love it,” LeRoy said. “If you can help them see, at all times, the fun in the sport, they will continue doing it, they’ll enjoy it and they’ll be successful. If it’s not a struggle, if it’s not a job, this is awesome.”
