USST Staff Changes are expected after an Olympic Year.
What does the massive change in alpine staff say to you? I decided I needed to leave the ski team fold a year ago. It was not easy but definitely a good move for me and my family. A few weeks after that, Jesse Hunt left to take over the Park City Ski Education Foundation. It was probably a position he could not afford NOT to take. He wanted to be home more often, his wife wanted him home more. But if you look at it closely, they have not and will not replace the Alpine Director position. And while I have a great deal of respect for Luke, Sasha and Alex; they do not have the time or collective experience to run the alpine side of things without an Alpine Director. In short, having no one in that position allows each group Head Coach to run with whatever they want with very little check from above. It puts the VP Athletics (Luke Bodensteiner) in a position where he needs to be the Alpine Director along with overseeing the other sports. It is a very difficult place for him.
If I get away from alpine for a minute, here are some other departures that have happened in the last year or so: Trish Worthington left the Foundation side of things. Trish was a huge loss because she turned the Foundation into a fundraising machine. She took a tiny drop in the bucket department and turned it into a major contributor to the athletic budget. Once she left, the glue fell out of that department and all the infrastructure she had created fell apart. Most of the staff left soon after she did. Now Trish’s husband Trace has been hired to pull it all back together. But it was 3 steps back and now they are trying to make up ground. In Sport Science, Andy Walshe, the Director, left to go to Red Bull. This winter, Head Strength Coach, Per Lundstam left to join him at Red Bull. The Sport Science Department is probably the most indispensable department at USSA. They cross all the sports and all disciplines. They work extremely hard and try to deliver the highest quality and most cutting edge technology and physical programming in the world. And they largely succeed. When Per and Lesli would come on the road with us the level of professionalism would go through the roof. The buy-in among the athletes was huge. With Per leaving, it leaves a big hole in the conditioning program. Not that a new strength coach cannot come in and do a great job, he or she can. But that person will need to earn the respect of the athletes at a very high level as all the athletes respected Per and looked forward to Per pushing them to new heights. He will be missed in all the sports.
But back to Alpine. On the Men’s side, Sasha Rearick still is the Head Coach. Rudi Soulard is gone from the tech group Head Coach Position to be replaced by Mike Day. He has Josh Applegate and Ben Black working with him. Chris Brigham still runs the Men’s Speed Program and he is assisted by Mick Branch and Pete Korfiatis. Pete moved over from the World Cup Tech group to pick up Rewk Patten’s place in that group. Rewk has left to go to work for John McBride in Canada on the Men’s Speed side. So let’s go there for a minute. Johno left the US Ski Team a couple of years ago for many reasons. Maybe some philosophical differences with the team, some personal and the need to stay home more. But he was lured back to coaching by Paul Kristofic to work with the Canadian Men’s DH program last year and when Lionel Finance, Canada Head DH coach, was let go this spring, Johno was offered the job. And PK pushed hard to get him. Johno eventually took the position and has now hired Rewk away from our team. Rewk played an integral role in the DH team and was the conditioning coach for that group. But he has become increasingly disenchanted with USSA leadership and frustrated by staff pay cuts, removal of bonuses and raise freezes. Not everyone is aware but Canada routinely out-pays the USA for coaches and with the Canadian dollar at 98 cents right now, it’s a pretty good deal.
The World Cup Tech group still looks a little unstable. I know Mike Day pretty well and he is a good ski coach, without a doubt. But those group head jobs are not always about coaching on the hill. It is a lot of busy-work and scheduling as well as creating an atmosphere of fun, positivity and work-ethic, all at the same time. You have to do it without creating added stress on the group and without creating more work for an already over-worked and under-paid staff. For those of you who don’t know, Mike was with the Fischer race department for the last few years and was a coach at Park City before that. Mike was the World Cup Tech group assistant for 1 year in 2001-02. Anyway, I am sure Mike will do a good job once he gets his feet wet but it will take some time to earn the trust of all the guys and his staff. That is certainly not a jab at Mike, it is just a reality. The boys have been together with their 3 coaches for 2 seasons and will need to adjust to a new style. They also lose Korfiatis who has a great knack for keeping things light and humorous, even when things aren’t going extremely well. It will be important for Mike, Josh and Ben to stabilize that group as quickly as possible so they can get down to business.
And on the Women’s side, there was much more movement. Gone is Jim Tracy from the Head Coach position, replaced by Alex Hoedlmoser who was the obvious choice based on experience and success with the DH team. Chip White was named the Head Coach of the WC Speed group which again was logical. But they lose a very experienced coach in Frank Kelble who has gone to Canada as well. No doubt for a better pay-day. I can’t help but wonder if Frank also left because he felt passed-over for the Head DH job? Just speculation on my part, there. Chip will be helped by Chris Knight and Jeff Fergus who have been with the Tech groups in the past. Trevor Wagner will still run the WC Tech Group with Roger Bay on the staff. Roger was the Program Director at Bridger Bowl, Montana for the last few years. This might be Roger’s 3rd stint with the USST? The girls also lost coaches John Hale and Kraig Sourbeer from the Development Team. Seth McCadam has moved from the World Cup Tech group to run the Development group and has hired Mike Prado from Squaw to assist him.
How can we tolerate coaches leaving every couple of seasons because we don’t pay well and our benefits package consists only of an extremely expensive health plan? Bonuses have gone away, 401k matching has all but disappeared. So the most experienced and qualified national team coaches constantly leave to find more lucrative Program Directorships or leave to go coach the Swedish women’s tech team? Or they go to Canada because they pay a decent wage and their organization values their work. It is backwards. NFL coaches get paid more than college and down the line. The same hierarchy exists in every sport on the planet. Alpine ski coaches in the USSA system get paid less and work harder than their home program counterparts. They are away from home from 180-200 days a year, sometimes destroying families. It is something that needs to be addressed so we can attract and retain the best American coaches to coach the best American athletes.
So, obviously I have not mentioned the Europa Cup group. Because there will not be one on the girls’ side. This leaves a gaping hole in the program and will cause the World Cup training groups to have a much larger group and a much more diverse level of athlete to work with. It will challenge all of the coaches to do their best job while doing the most running around they have ever done. It’s going to be a tough year for all of them to get their jobs done and the money is just getting tighter. There needs to be a better answer than just not having a whole
level of athlete and coaches in the program. It will leave all of us wondering sometime in the near future as to where the program has gone. We have a false sense of security because 2 female athletes raked in the medals. And with Stacey Cook, Alice McKennis, Leann Smith and Chelsea Marshall doing a great job on the World Cup DH tour, we feel comfortable with where we are. But the tech team has struggled (aside from Sarah) and we see what an injury or two can do to the program when the depth is not there. But if we start to lose athletes to retirement without reloading at the Europa Cup level, we will eventually be asking juniors who have only raced Nor-Ams and European FIS races to jump straight to the World Cup without getting them the exposure they need to be prepared for the big show. I know that Alex, Chip, Trevor and Seth are all concerned about this too and I am not criticizing them at all. They are doing their best to make an unacceptable situation acceptable and they will likely make it work. But band-aid after band-aid, year after year, just makes a gooey mess. There will be more to come on this topic.
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Alpine Race Consulting
Greg “Grande” Needell grew up ski racing at Stratton Mountain,
Vermont. After graduating from SMS he skied for NCAA Division 1 St.
Lawrence University in Canton, NY where he was co-captain in 1986. Greg
returned to SMS to coach there for five years serving as the Head
Women’s Coach as well as the Head J2 Men’s Coach. He then moved to
Mission Ridge in Wenatchee, Washington in 1992 to become the Program
Director and Head Coach of the Mission Ridge Ski Club. In 1997, Greg
became the Head Coach at Mammoth Mountain, California.
In 2002 Needell was asked to join the U.S. Ski Team staff as a World
Cup SL and GS coach. From 2002 to 2008 Needell helped lead the U.S. Ski
Team Men to 43 wins, 105 podiums and 264 top ten finishes. Now at the
helm of Alpine Race Consulting, Needell offers his knowledge and
experience to clubs nationwide.
About the Author: Eric Williams
