AVON — For years, Vail downhiller Mike Brown looked forward to the 1988-89 season. For the first time since 1950, the world alpine championships were coming to the United States, they would be held in his hometown, and he would get to compete on a Beaver Creek course where he had “skied really well” in the past.
But that December, Brown herniated two discs lifting weights after an on-snow training session in Switzerland, requiring back surgery only six weeks before worlds. Coaches held him out of the downhill at worlds but let him race in the super-G. With the nerves in his left leg impaired, he finished 47th.
Brown couldn’t have known the back injury that ended his competitive career prematurely would affect him for the rest of his life, indirectly causing a disability that affects him today.
For years he couldn’t ski because nearly half of the nerves in his left leg were damaged by a botched follow-up surgery in 2002. His lower left leg is atrophied, noticeably smaller than his right. But thanks to more surgery in 2008, Brown now can ski with his wife, also a former ski racer, and their 8-year-old daughter.
On Friday night his family will get to stand and cheer when he is inducted into the Colorado Ski & Snowboard Hall of Fame. Here’s the irony: He is being inducted in part because of the seven years he coached the U.S. Disabled Ski Team — something he did after he stopped racing but before he was disabled.
“I never would have dreamed something like this would happen,” said Brown, who moved to Vail from Denver with his family in 1964, when he was 2 years old.
“I think he is one of the most deserving people,” said his wife, Jen, “and I’m incredibly thrilled because I know what his career meant to him. His entrepreneurial side, his passion and love for Vail and for kids, to see him coach his athletes — he is the sport in every facet.”
A new beginning after an end
Growing up, Brown learned to ski at Meadow Mountain, a tiny area just west of Vail that closed in 1969. It only had 570 feet of vertical rise, but it was great for kids. Season passes cost $25. It had a unique apres-ski amenity too.
“You had this really neat old A-frame lodge, and it was one of the only places in the valley that had TV,” Brown recalled. “Every Sunday night we’d get to stay there and watch TV. We’d watch ‘Wonderful World of Disney’ and have a hamburger.”
Skis were wooden and boots were leather, but not for long. Soon Brown graduated to Vail, which had opened in 1962. There was no Interstate 70, just a two-lane U.S. 6 where the south frontage road is now.
“I’m probably in the last group of people that started on wooden skis with screw-on edges,” Brown said. “It was hard for us because we could never lace our boots up tight enough. They didn’t have kids’ buckle boots back then. We’d always have our dad lace up our boots for us, which made for seriously cold feet.”
Brown would race five seasons on the World Cup, capturing six top-15 results, but didn’t race after the Vail ’89 world championships. The following winter a friend asked him to help set up a training camp for the U.S. disabled team, which was preparing for the 1990 world disabled championships at Winter Park.
Brown set up a downhill training course at Beaver Creek and helped the team at worlds, after which disabled team coach Homer Jennings asked him to remain with the program. At the time, Jennings was running the team out of the back of his pickup truck.
“They liked the work that I had done, so Homer hired me as a coach, which back then was maybe 11 or 12 days a winter,” Brown said. “There wasn’t a tremendous budget. More and more people started to move to Vail because of the coaching I was doing.”
Brown coached two of the most decorated racers in Paralympic history, Chris Waddell and Sarah Will. He also worked to get more funding for Paralympic skiers.
Finally at ease and back on skis
Still struggling with back trouble in 2002, Brown opted for spinal fusion surgery, but that made things worse when a screw was placed too close to his spinal cord.
“We thought this was going to be such a great thing,” said Jen. “To have such a shock — we really didn’t know what was wrong. It was very, very difficult.”
For years he couldn’t ski because of the disability caused by that botched surgery. Then in 2008, more surgery repaired some of the damage. Now he can ski with Jen and their daughter, Maddie, even though he still can’t raise his left foot.
“I had to figure out certain things I could do still and other things that I couldn’t,” Brown said. “The things I couldn’t, I had to figure out shortcuts or ways to get around not doing them but still accomplishing what I wanted to do. It took three, four years to really get a handle on it.”
Now he’s coaching Maddie in Buddy Werner League racing.
“She loves it, and emulates Mike to a T in her technique,” Jen said. “If she gets into a tuck, it looks exactly like him in her angles.”
John Meyer: 303-954-1616, jmeyer@denverpost.com or
Other inductees
Others being inducted with Mike Brown into the Colorado Ski & Snowboard Hall of Fame Friday at the Omni Interlocken Resort in Broomfield:
Jeremy Bloom
A three-time world champion in freestyle moguls skiing, Bloom is a two-time Olympian who also was a standout receiver and kick returner for the University of Colorado. In 2008 he founded the Jeremy Bloom Wish of a Lifetime Foundation, which grants lifelong wishes to elderly people.
John “C.J.” Mueller
He was the president of the bridge club at Littleton High School in 1969, but then he moved to Breckenridge to be a ski bum, ultimately turning to speed skiing. In 1987 he became the first skier to top 130 mph, and in 1992 he competed at the Albertville Olympics, where speed skiing was a demonstration sport.
Johnny Spillane
A four-time Olympian in nordic combined from Steamboat Springs, Spillane became the first American to win a medal at the world championships, taking gold in 2003. Seven years later he became the first American to win an Olympic medal in the sport, taking three silvers at the Vancouver Games.
Kingsbury Pitcher
He worked for the Aspen Ski School in the 1950s with the legendary Friedl Pfeiffer. Later he was involved in the planning for the Snowmass and Arrowhead resorts. He purchased the iconic Wolf Creek ski area in the late 1970s, and it remains in the family, operated by one of his sons.
Tickets: A few tickets ($225) remain for the gala, which begins with a cocktail reception at 5:30 p.m. Dinner and awards follow at 7:30 p.m. Reservations: 970-476-1876.
