WEB EXCLUSIVE: A talk with Paul Casey Puckett on retirement, and the transition to coachingPaul Casey Puckett left the U.S. Ski Team in March. Since then, Puckett has moved home to Aspen, Colo., and, in May, began coaching with the Aspen Valley Ski Club. In June, he worked with the club’s FIS-age skiers at Mt. Hood, “focusing on the fundamentals and getting to know the kids.” In August, he took the group to Bariloche, Argentina, where Ski Racing caught up with him for this interview.

Puckett is extraordinarily optimistic. You don’t have to spend much time with him before you’re infected with the everything-is-possible attitude of the U.S. men’s technical team. It’s the outlook Puckett wants to carry over into the Rocky Mountain Division this year; he talks about transforming athlete development in a way that gets young athletes focused on fundamental skills, rather than points. This idea isn’t exactly new, but it might win more converts if kids see one of their heroes promoting it.

So like it or not, Aspen athletes can expect a lot of drills and wacky exercises this season; Puckett wants to see athletic proficiency from his charges before he puts them into gates or rigorous racing schedules. Still, it may be hard for him to keep his athletes’ minds off FIS points when their coach has single-digit points in slalom.

Ski Racing International: What about the sport do you see more clearly now that you’re coaching?

Paul Casey Puckett: I can see how difficult it was for the coaches; this job doesn’t let up. I can sympathize with the coaches more now that I’m in their shoes. Figuring out what works for a particular athlete and coming up with a good plan — I have more respect for that now. And I have more compassion (laughing) for coaches dealing with athletes who can be a pain in the ass.

SRI: Have you set out with a coaching philosophy? Or did you start out thinking you’d imitate any particular coach’s style?

PCP: I’ve worked with a number of coaches over the years, and I’m sort of taking all the positive things from each and trying to apply them to my own coaching. There’s a lot that I take from Jesse Hunt (USST), Crawford Pierce (Burke Mountain Academy) and Jalle Svanberg (USST), the Swedish coach that worked with us in 1998 and 1999.

SRI: For example?

PCP: There’s one particular thing that I take from Jalle; I try to have my athletes speak in a positive manner about their skiing and about everything they do. And he put a lot of emphasis on the fundamentals — parallel skis, moving down the hill, edging.

SRI: Why Aspen?

PCP: Dave Hjerleid (Aspen’s program director) and I had been talking for some time about this. (Aspen) has some of the best mountains in the world, an amazing training facility. They haven’t developed a lot of good talent, or athletes. High-level athletes come out of Aspen, but not often enough. There should be more, considering the resources, and I’m hoping to help that happen.

SRI: Have you bought a drill yet?

PCP: I’ve been borrowing Aspen’s.

SRI: The object with which one screws in a gate — does one call it a “gate wrench” or a “gate key”?

PCP: I like to call it a “tool.”

SRI: Your brother retired from the USST two years ago, and started coaching at Steamboat. Did he give you any advice about coaching?

PCP: Chris really enjoyed his first year of coaching, and he encouraged me to do the same. So I took his advice. Mainly I just felt that it would be really good for American skiing if the athletes, when they retire, could give back right away by going to their home programs and passing on the knowledge that they’ve gained.

SRI: Why do you say “right away”?

PCP: Because they have a really good feel for what’s current. I mean that both in technique and in everything else. The team athlete is working on every aspect of the sport, from psychology to conditioning.

SRI: Do you think that ski racers in general hit an emotional low when they quit? Is that a pattern?

PCP: What I’ve seen with a lot of my teammates is that they get really burned out while they’re skiing, or while they’re on the team, or while they’re trying to make the team, or make different teams. If things aren’t going well, sometimes they can’t wait to get out. They’ve had enough. But then I talk to them later, down the road, and all they really want to do is ski. They don’t want to be working 9-5, or having a normal job … I believe that most jobs out there come in a distant second to racing. I think you get out there into the real world and it’s a bit of a letdown or a disappointment. That’s until you can find something else to focus on. I think ski racers are really good at focusing, and if they’re not doing something intense then they sort of go bonkers.

SRI: Has it been at all difficult for you?

PCP: It’s difficult to go from ski racing for 23 years, and having one goal in mind, of being the best in the world, and to work toward that the whole time, and then to go from racing on the World Cup and really enjoying that, and then just stop. And drop everything. That’s really difficult. I think coaching helps the transition. I’m not away from it completely. I can still keep my mind on skiing and enhance it by trying to get it across to someone else.

SRI: Over the years, as you watched a lot of guys stop racing and move on, did you watch them move on and think, “That’s going to be me some day”?

PCP: Well (laughing), Schlopy just came back. Casey Snyder applies it on the golf course or in other games. Yeah, definitely, I watch the other guys and ask them how things are and what it’s like away from skiing. There have also been a lot of ski racers that have quit and don’t want anything to do with the sport and the industry. They won’t read Ski Racing. They’re just gone. That’s not going to be me. I’m into it.

SRI: But was there anything that you saw yourself doing as soon as you stopped skiing and had the freedom?

PCP: I used to see myself quitting ski racing and going straight into college, getting that done as quickly as possible, and then moving on from there. But I took classes at CU (the University of Colorado) in the summers while I was on the team, and what I found there was that most kids go to college simply because that’s the next step, and they really didn’t have any focus. They were there to do the work that was required of them and then, you know, party. Very few people knew what they wanted, and I felt a sort of pride in that I knew exactly what I wanted.

SRI: Have you been keeping in touch with your former teammates?

PCP: Yeah, definitely. We were a pretty close group — the tech team — compared to years past. Generally pretty good friends with a lot in common. I’ve been fairly busy though.

SRI: Your brother organized some cash prizes at Rocky races, and it seemed like that was serving a similar vision. Do you see yourself as being that kind of coach? Trying new things?

PCP: Yeah, I think so. Chris wanted to promote local interest, and usually there’s not interest unless there’s money on the line. He wants to generate fans. And when people are interested, kids get fired up. When there’s approval and there’s people at these events, kids really get into it. Then you develop a bigger talent pool. So, yeah, I’m just as interested as Chris in developing a broader talent pool in the U.S. Another thing Chris was very excited about was getting athletes who’ve retired to keep racing. Chris knows that even if you quit racing, you still want to race, so why not go to some races and help the younger kids, and try to get the points down. I think that was his ide
a in establishing that incentive: to get older racers to come back.

SRI: So are you saying that improving American skiing might be as simple as trying to manipulate the points a little bit?

PCP: No, definitely not. The points are just a product of how fast the skiers are, but if you’re skiing fast enough to get good points, you should be able to find them and get them. And one of the problems with not having good enough points is that you miss some opportunities.

SRI: What kind of opportunities?

PCP: Opportunities to get better equipment. Opportunities with the U.S. Ski Team — to use their resources. Getting spots in Europe. Making quotas and what not. I want to see America do really well. I want to see American kids do really well and take down the big dogs like Austria and Switzerland. I want the U.S. to be a player, and I want to keep it going. I think we’ve made a lot of gains in the last five or six years. I don’t know how we’re going to do it, but I also want to see a bigger talent pool, like the Austrians have, where there’s always a group of younger racers coming up, competing for spots. The U.S. doesn’t have that depth to select from.

SRI: Imagine this scenario: It’s the last night in a race series and you’re traveling the next day. You’ve set a curfew of 10 p.m., but it’s midnight before your athletes come back. You’re in your room and you hear them noisily enter the hotel. What do you do?

PCP: I won’t have to deal with that one since my kids are so good.

SRI: You were there for the whole renaissance of U.S. tech. What was it like being a part of that and what was it like walking away from all of that?

PCP: My first years on the ski team were not very good memories. For the most part it was a fairly negative environment. A lot of the guys weren’t happy to be there; they weren’t happy with how they were skiing, or they didn’t want to be in Europe. And I was completely excited. But older athletes have a big influence over the younger athletes and the whole environment was negative for a long time. And we didn’t ski well, of course. We did terribly. But now we have such a different environment. Everyone’s pretty much friends on the team. We support each other and have fun together. And we ski well. So I’ve seen both sides. I’ve seen a really negative environment and I’ve seen a really positive environment where people are having fun and winning. It was really neat to see Bode (Miller) win the GS last year at Val d’Isere. It was a really cool moment to see that happen, finally. And the whole time I wanted it to be me that was the first one to win a World Cup in so many years. But I was just as happy to see Bode do it, or any one of us, just because I’d seen so much struggle. It really meant a lot.

SRI: What will you be doing in November when all those guys are heading out for the first World Cup of the year?

PCP: When the guys are in Park City, I’ll be cheering them on from Aspen. And I’ll be cheering on our girls when they start up in Aspen. It’ll definitely be difficult for me to watch everyone start up their World Cup season, but I’m ready for it.