Last May, FasterSkier wrote about the retirement of University of New Hampshire’s (UNH) legendary ski coach Cory Schwartz, who had been with the University for 42 years. This summer, UNH named Shane MacDowell— the team’s former assistant coach— as Schwartz’s replacement. Following in the footsteps of a person whose career stretches back to the Reagan administration is a daunting task. Doing so at a university which has a dedicated and passionate alumni base is even more of a challenge. Shane MacDowell was generous enough to take time to speak with FasterSkier about taking on the challenge of following the career of a legend, and the difficulties involved in coaching a high profile ski program.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

FasterSkier: First off, congratulations are still in order. You’re still kind of in the early honeymoon phases?

Shane MacDowell: Thanks. Yeah, summer was kind of the perfect time for this to happen. So, it’s kind of easing into it before the chaos begins.

FasterSkier: Shane, where do you call home?

Shane MacDowell: The past three years my family and I’ve been back and forth between Lake Placid, NY and New Hampshire. But now we’re going to be living in Somersworth, New Hampshire.

FasterSkier: Let’s start with one of the harder questions right off the bat. You’re obviously following in the footsteps of Cory Schwartz, who was at UNH for over four decades, and that has to be a challenge— following in the footsteps of a person who has become pretty much an institution. So how are you approaching that aspect of it, if you’re even considering that aspect of it?

Shane MacDowell: Yes, I’m considering that aspect of it. I’m definitely trying to be my own person, and my own coach, with that thought, I feel as though I’ve had an incredible experience running up to this point. Right out of college I worked for Boulder Nordic Sport with Roger Knight and that set me up on the waxing side of things. From there I worked at Green Mountain Valley School and then at Northern Michigan University (NMU) which gave me some really unique perspectives on coaching and leading a program, especially with Northern Michigan under Sten Fjeldheim. I got to really see what a top tier program is like, and then obviously working with Cory (Schwartz). Like you said, he’s an institution, and I had the pleasure and ability to ski for him when I was in college and then to come back and to be able to work with him and see how things work on the other side from being an athlete. I think that helped. It really set me up to be in this position because at UNH it’s not just about being a coach. We do a significant amount of fundraising, and our alumni outreach and alumni engagement are a huge part, which is great. I think what makes the entire ski program unique is because all the alumni are so engaged with the current team and how the program is doing. They want to give back and they want to still be a part of the program. Following in Cory’s footsteps is my goal, and not disrupting the foundation that he has laid, but also adding my own layer to it or my own character to it by doing things just a little bit differently. I think if somebody would come into this program after everything Cory has done to make it what it is — saving it on several occasions—and then to change everything about it, would be making a massive mistake.

FasterSkier: Whenever there’s a coaching change in any collegiate sport program after a long term coach has left, there are inevitable comparisons which get made and you’re going to face that as well. Is that something you’re prepared for?

Shane MacDowell: I think I’m prepared for it, and I think it makes it a little bit easier in that transition because it’s not like I’m coming from the outside as a new hire. This will be my 4th year coaching with UNH. I wouldn’t say it’s as stark as like, a Division One football program coach coming in from a whole different program and those comparisons being made … I’ve been part of the program.

FasterSkier: So you think having been an assistant coach at UNH for the last three years, is going to make the transition easier for you?

Shane MacDowell:  I think that makes it a little bit easier. There’s obviously a lot more things that I need to take on, with being a program director as well, that it’s going to take me a little while to get up to speed on. Cory did an amazing job of that alumni outreach that I spoke of before. And, getting up to speed on that and keeping that engagement going is definitely going to be one of the biggest … I hesitate to say hurdles to overcome, but it’s a big step to add on to, trying to run the Nordic program and oversee Alpine as well. So yes, on some of it, it is going to make it easier to transition, but there’s definitely going to be challenges along the way as well.

FasterSkier: Let me follow up with that. Your official title is director of Skiing and Head Nordic coach, which is the same title that Cory had. That includes directing and supervising downhill as well. Do you feel that position holds or creates any tension between the downhill and cross- country programs, especially when you have the head coach whose background predominantly is cross country?

Shane MacDowell: I don’t think it creates tension. There are a couple of other programs around the country that do it the same way and in certain cases, the Alpine coach is the director of the Nordic program. When Cory was in the position, or when I’m in the position, it’s not like we’re telling the Alpine program what they can or can’t do or how they should be training or anything like that. We’re one team that is headed by the director of the program. We’re not looked at as Alpine and Nordic. So to have one person, whether it be the Alpine head coach, or the Nordic head coach be the lead on that, I think it’s beneficial. Because I think when you separate the two, we would start competing for fundraising dollars within our alumni base and this way, when it’s looked at as one program, we’re doing it all as one unit.

FasterSkier:  In your position, will you actually be involved in coaching the Alpine athletes at all or working with them in any capacity?

Shane MacDowell: Coaching No. I won’t be on the hill coaching them, going through gates, that’s what Brian Blank and Parker Costa are doing. Interacting, yes. I said we’re one team, so we certainly interact as a team. Our Alpine and Nordic are very close with one another. Sometimes we’ll have training sessions together for dry-land, usually like our more explosive workouts, doing plyometrics, or sometimes we’ll get a speedball game going. I’m not sure if you know what speedball is?

FasterSkier: I don’t.

Shane MacDowell: It’s kind of a combination of two hand touch football and soccer. But you know we have those engagements where we get the two teams together and it keeps the team close and reminds them that we are in this together. It’s not just one team or the other. So, in that regard, I hesitate to call it coaching, but definitely coordinating to get together and keep that initiative going that we are one team working towards the same goal.

FasterSkier: In your remarks at your introductory press conference, you mentioned the time you spent at NMU (Northern Michigan University) under Sten Fjeldheim— who I think it’s fair to say is another legendary coach. You’re in a unique position where you’ve worked under both of these legends. Can you expound a little bit on what coaching lessons you learned from Sten and maybe if you can make a comparison of Sten’s methods versus Cory’s?

Shane MacDowell: I strongly believe that when I went and worked with Sten at Northern Michigan, I very much went to school with him on training methods, and technique. Sten is a technician when it comes to all of that, and I had the opportunity to work with him, who I think was probably one of the most successful coaches that the U.S. has ever had— so many national champions and some pretty incredible teams. Let me go on with Cory before I kind of compare the two. With Cory I had the background of the training and being able to write plans and have confidence in it and evaluate technique when I came to UNH. But with Cory I think I learned— and this isn’t to say I wasn’t learning it under Sten either—I learned how to find my coaching style a little bit more, work on the coach-athlete interaction, a little bit more patient scenarios and how to approach certain situations. And then also the other aspect of the program too is with fundraising, and I keep coming back to that which for our program is just huge. They have two pretty distinctly different styles, but I think it’s by necessity of the program. With UNH, fundraising and alumni engagement is huge for us because it has to be. Fundraising and alumni engagement was present at Northern Michigan, but it wasn’t as much of a must, so you could certainly focus a lot more time on the training aspect of things.

FasterSkier: I think it might be fair to say that NMU might have a little higher name recognition when it comes to attracting international athletes? Is that something that played into how the coaches handled athletes or affected the coaching at all?

Shane MacDowell: It’s actually kind of funny because it surprised me when I was working for Sten that his first international athlete wasn’t until when I was actually skiing in school in 2005, 2006. Up until then, he had only had Americans. And even when I was working with him, we had a couple of foreign athletes, but I would say the majority of the team was all Americans. My first year there, we had the best men’s team in the country at the NCAAs and they’re all from the Midwest which is pretty unique. You can’t take anything away from Sten and Northern on how successful they were. But to compare the Northern program to the UNH program or any program that has an Alpine team as well is like comparing apples and oranges. Because when you have an Alpine team as well, all of a sudden, your scholarships get cut in half for both programs. You’re allowed to have X number of scholarships, but then that gets split between Alpine and Nordic. With Northern they’re allowed the same number of scholarships, but it’s only for Nordic, so the power of having that many more scholarships just on the Nordic side, might play into being able to entice that foreign talent a little bit more.

FasterSkier:  NMU has an Alpine program but it’s a separate entity, right?

Shane MacDowell: Yeah, it’s a club team, so they don’t even compete in the same league.

FasterSkier: Working with Sten, can you put your finger on one or two major takeaway coaching lessons that you learned from him?

Shane MacDowell: The biggest takeaway from him was writing a training plan; writing one that can help the athletes be successful and improve throughout their time on the team. He was just incredible at knowing what an athlete needed and prescribing the right training and holding them to it and making them accountable. So, I would say, a combination of knowing training, but then also having that ability to get the respect from the athletes because they know that you know what you’re talking about and holding them accountable to get that work in to reach their best potential. And then the second is probably his ability to analyze technique and really hone in on where an athlete’s deficiencies are and being able to relay that in a way that the athlete understands is probably another big take away.

FasterSkier: Moving back to something else that you were talking about earlier regarding the importance of alumni outreach. UNH’s Nordic fan base is different than it is at a lot of other schools—it’s more involved. The importance of fundraising is high on the list of things that you have to do. As the head coach having to be involved with the fundraising, the training of athletes, and the administration of the program … it’s a lot for one person. What’s your strategy for tackling all that, because it seems like it’s just so much?

Shane MacDowell: It’s not really just all on one person. For the Nordic program we just hired a new assistant coach to replace myself with Brandon Herhusky, who was the assistant at UVM the past few years. So, it’s not all just falling on me. As mentioned before, we’re working as one team so we’re not engaging just the Nordic program, we’re engaging all of our alumni. Having our Alpine staff there to assist with that and help our program to have even greater outreach is great because then all of that responsibility isn’t necessarily just falling on one person’s shoulders.

FasterSkier: When you were an assistant at UNH, were you able to kind of sit back and watch how Cory processed and worked with the alumni and alumni relationships and saw how he managed it?

Shane MacDowell: Yes, and I think that’s been one of the biggest advantages of stepping into this role. I’ve had that experience of being able to see how Cory engaged with the alumni not only through email and social media, but to try to have at least one alumni event a year. During the Carnival season this past year we had it at the Dartmouth Carnival. So, we had as many alumni that wanted to come and had sort of a little banquet style dinner with everybody, and they actually got to come and watch the races as well. So just having that sort of engagement with them, keeping alumni involved as much as possible and up to date with who’s on the team, what the team’s doing— their successes both on the ski trails and in the classroom goes a long way. Our alumni obviously look at the team and their time on the team as being very special and still want to be involved with that and give back in in any way that they can.

FasterSkier: You don’t see it as quite the same daunting task as an outsider does looking in terms of managing all these different aspects of the program. It seems that there is an infrastructure in place, with people, to help manage all that?

Shane MacDowell: There’s definitely the infrastructure in place and like I mentioned earlier, Cory did an amazing job of laying that foundation. I would be sorely mistaken, if I were to say I’m not going to screw this up a little bit at one point or another. There’s going to be growing pains for me because it is new, but there are those other aspects to the program that help you tackle all the tasks that we do have.

Please revisit FasterSkier for part II of our interview with Shane MacDowell.

Mission: It is the mission of the NYSEF PG Program to bridge the gap between high school/ collegiate/national teams for athletes who have demonstrated a desire to focus on cross country ski racing preparation and competition at an elite level.  

Program Overview: The NYSEF PG Program provides the opportunity for post-graduate athletes to strive towards reaching their full potential on the race circuit regionally, domestically and internationally. Sport becomes the primary focus for the athletes in this high-intensity program. 

Housing: PG athletes will have lodging at a private residence in Lake Placid with a NYSEF staff member/family. They will be provided with limited supervision yet a level of independence along with a bed, access to a kitchen and waxing/equipment space in a garage. Space is limited, first come first serve. 

PG Academics: Athletes will have an opportunity to continue their academic  journey through local North Country Community College. NYSEF will provide an academic liaison to facilitate this process – working with the athlete to find the best program/s that align with their academic goals and fit within their athletic calendar. Additional fees are determined based on course selection and not part of NYSEF program fees. 

Expectations: PG athletes are the role models in the program – they have a responsibility to serve as mentors to younger athletes in the program by acting professionally and will be held to the highest standard. They represent the ideal athlete due to their disciplined schedules, motivation to compete at the highest level and dedication to instill a love of the sport in the next generation. We encourage PG athletes to engage in volunteerism while with us at NYSEF.

Eligibility: Must have graduated high school and demonstrated a commitment to pursuing competitive ski racing at the collegiate or national team level. 

Facilities: NYSEF Cross Country and Biathlon utilize the new World Cup venue at Mt. Van Hoevenberg. This venue features over 6k of rollerski loops and closed roads, full weight room and field house, rollerski treadmill, 5k race loop of automated snowmaking. Beyond our home base our program takes full advantage of the Adirondack experience around us on a daily basis.

Program Fees: 

• Base Athletic fee: Full Year 6-8 training session/week ($5500) +($875 for Biathlon)
• Fall/Winter: 6-8 Training Sessions/week ($4000) +(600 for Biathlon)
• Housing at private residence with supervision: $600 per month 

Scholarship: NYSEF programming has scholarship opportunities. Please apply for scholarship through this link.

Included: Professional coaching, personalized training plan, rollerski treadmill usage, video analysis of technique, strength training at Lake Placid Training Center, Lactate threshold testing, ORDA rollerski loops, Range usage (biathlon), ammo (biathlon), and the Adirondack High Peaks as your training “backyard!”

Not Included: Additional training camps, academic programs, competition fees, and travel expenses (including athlete/coach lodging/meals and out-of-region travel), membership in NYSSRA/US Ski and Snowboard/FIS.

Questions? Please contact Shane MacDowell at shanem@nysef.org or fill out an application online!

On a humid fall Sunday in northern New York where temperatures reached an uncharacteristic 80 degrees, Jake Brown of the Craftsbury Green Racing Project and US Biathlon Development Team and Tara Geraghty-Moats of USA Nordic won the 2018 Climb to the Castle.

Brown’s time was 35:40.7, while Geraghty-Moats finished in 45:03.

Big Gaps and Clear Wins

On the men’s side, Brown’s Craftsbury teammate Raleigh Goessling finished second in 38:16.6, and Erikson Moore of the Fondeurs-Laurentides team in Quebec was third in 39:00.3.

Among women, Jackie Garso of Saint Lawrence University was second, in 49:24.1, and Nakkertok’s Zoe Williams third in 49:40.6.

This year was a high water mark for attendance, with 102 athletes finishing.

While a few degrees cooler than last year, dank humidity settled like a blanket over the five-mile climb, with athletes moving through a couple of patches of dense fog on the higher reaches of the mountain.

“It was a hard one today,” Brown said following the race. “Last year, I felt like I went a little too hard off the line, and kind of buried myself early. So I wanted to be a little more conservative and finish strong today. I tried doing that and it felt a lot better, and I skied a little faster. I was on different rollerskis, so it’s hard to be able to compare it to last year. I was happy with my effort and it was a good push today.”

This year was Brown’s second consecutive win, and he beat his 2017 time of 39:01.9.

“It’s always a tough race, but I’m happy with how my summer training has paid off,” Geraghty-Moats said. “I felt strong and I had a good race.”

Asked if the race was part of her training plan, she replied, “I just finished competing in the Ski Jumping Grand Prix in Russia, so I’m still pretty jet-lagged. I love this race, NYSEF puts a lot of energy into putting it on every year, so I figured I’d make the trip over. It’s really fun and I enjoy racing with a good crew.”

A ski jumper winning a cross-country ski competition? For those not in the know, Geraghty-Moats is one of the pioneers of the developing women’s nordic combined.

“I’m on the women’s ski jumping team and I’ve been to a World Championship in 2015 and on the World Cup team for the past 4 years,” she explained. “Before that, I was a biathlete, so nordic combined was sort of a natural step for me. FIS has put in a lot of resources to developing women’s nordic combined. This year, they’ll have a Continental Cup circuit; next year, there’ll be a World Cup circuit; and the following year after that, there’ll be a World Championship. I’m starting to learn how to compete in nordic combined and I’m really enjoying it.”

Zoe Williams, along about 60 other athletes, had participated in the previous day’s Doubleday events at the Intervale Ski Jump. (for more on the Doubleday, keep reading!)

“I felt a bit tired in my warmup,” Williams said. “By the time I got to the start line and the race started, I didn’t feel as bad as I could have. My legs for sure felt tired in the first kilometer, but after the first k, I started settling into that rhythm and I ended up feeling pretty good for the rest of the race. Climb to the Castle, you just have to find that gear and grind away.”

 In 2017 she was fourth overall, five seconds behind biathlete Deedra Irwin.

“This year, I ended up leading the group that I was with, which was kind of a fun change,” Williams said. “But the whole time I was thinking ‘what did Deedra do here? We one-skated [V2’ed] here. I can one-skate here!’”

Asked if Climb to the Castle was a good fitness benchmark, Williams said, “Because the next couple of months are where you start getting the really high intensity zone four, this is a really  good indicator of the base level fitness that you have, because of the endurance focus of the race.  But I’m for sure looking to find my top end gear in the next couple of months.”

Full Climb to the Castle Results

Doubleday Takes Off: New Events Added to the Climb to the Castle weekend

On Saturday, the New England Nordic Ski Association (NENSA) and the New York Ski Education Foundation (NYSEF) collaborated on a new event held on the rollerski loop at the Intervale Ski jumps.

The Lake Placid Doubleday started with a three-kilometer prologue; after a break, there was a 1.5 kilometer sprint time trial. The results of the two races were aggregated to determine winners.

Nicholas Clifford of Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, was the open men’s winner, while Nakkertok’s Williams was the open women’s winner before going on to be the runner-up in the Climb to the Castle.

“We’ve had the  Climb to the Castle for 11 years, and this year we wanted to expand it to a full weekend,” NYSEF head coach Shane McDowell said. “We started talking with Justin [Beckwith, NENSA Competitive Program Director] ] in the spring and he proposed the idea of trying [NENSA’s] new format of the doubleday, which will be used at the Eastern Cup scheduled for 23 February at the Dublin School.”

“The format came out of discussions this spring,” Beckwith said. “Three kilometers is a national junior relay distance and we were valuing shorter, sprinting efforts in the results because we were usually a little heavy on the distance qualifications for our Junior National team in New England. When partnering with Shane and ORDA [the Olympic Regional Development Authority] to make it a reality, for us to test out the event which has a physiological effect of doing the 3k prologue in the morning and do a prelim in the sprint, the 1.5, would be the timing of a typical quarter final.”

The roller ski loop at Intervale is serpentine and narrow, with fast downhills. In the pre-race meeting, Beckwith admonished the athletes to be conservative as they warmed up. As they warmed up, the rollerskiers gradually became more aggressive in their approach to the course.

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The race started and finished at the biathlon range located midway through the long climb from the lowest to the highest sections of the course.

Clifford is the coach of the Carleton University ski team, located in Ottawa, Ontario.

“It was really exciting,” he said. “It was the first time I’ve skied at [Intervale]. I’ve heard a lot about some of the sketchier downhills but it was actually really well done. It was just like ski racing.”

Asked how he planned his races, Clifford said, “Not so much. I’m not a shorter distance guy, so the Climb to the Castle tomorrow is the real show and this was just a bit of a tuneup to get some speed in the legs.”

Of the Doubleday format, the consensus was that it was tough.

“The course here… It’s pretty much straight up and then you go down and come back up,” CSU’s Alex Burt said. “For the 3 k, you do it twice. It’s a lot more brutal. I had to actually pace it. For the1.5 k, my strategy was to go out as hard as I can and just keep it up.”

But it was also fun, many participants agreed.

“It was fun,” said Williams of the Doubleday. “The course here was super awesome, because it was like actually skiing, whereas a lot of roller ski races are on roads. It’s so twisty and turns up and down, it’s a lot like actually ski racing.”

On getting used to the downhills, Williams said, “It took me through mid warm up, to get used to the corners. In the race itself, I didn’t even think about it. It was super nice. I worried about it in the warmup, because there are some really gnarly corners, but when you’re racing, all your focus is on going fast.”

Amy Duclos of Saint Michael’s College in Burlington VT, was the third overall female finisher at the Doubleday.

“I wasn’t really sure about the course going into it, because of the turns, the hills, but it was a lot of fun,” she said. “I thought today was a good warmup to get the legs moving for tomorrow. It’s definitely a different type of race.”

Laura Appleby, of Cambridge Sports Union (CSU), won the junior women’s division at Doubleday and was the fifth junior woman finisher at Climb to the Castle.

“They went really well,” she said of the Doubleday races. “It was super fun. I liked the downhills… The first race was a little bit longer, so I was definitely pacing it a little bit slower. But generally just go out and ski the course, ski the transitions.”

Shilo Rousseau, Chandra Rousseau, and Zoe Pekos, all of Barrie [Ontario] Cross-Country, sat for an interview in a downtown Lake Placid coffee shop following the Doubleday.

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“It was a little scary at first with the safety meeting,” said Shilo, who finished third junior woman both at the Doubleday and C2C. “After skiing the lap a few times, you realize it’s not that bad.  As you go on, your laps get faster. You really have commit on roller skis.”

Did she save energy for the C2C?

“Full send every day,” Shilo replied. “I’m not leaving anything in the tank.”

Chandra Rousseau said, “The last downhill was bad. The prologue wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be.  I probably could have pushed a little harder on the downhills. On the sprint, I was more used to the course.”

Recovering in a bench outside the Castle, a reporter asked the Rousseaus and Pekos, so, did you go full send?

In unison, they replied, “Full send!”

Full Doubleday results

(Press release)

The New York Ski Educational Foundation (NYSEF) has announced that Shane MacDowell will become the new Head Cross-Country Ski Coach effective September 1, 2017. MacDowell replaces Margaret Maher, who has held the position since 2006.

MacDowell, originally from Peru, Massachusetts in Berkshire County, attended Burke Mountain Academy in East Burke, Vermont as a cross-country skier before heading to the University of New Hampshire (UNH). MacDowell competed on their NCAA Division 1 Cross-Country Ski Team for four years while earning a Bachelor’s Degree in English and Journalism. During his college athletic career, he earned multiple top-15 finishes on the EISA Division 1 circuit.

Upon graduation from UNH, MacDowell started his professional career with a position at Boulder Nordic Sport East (BNS), working as a wax technician and sales associate. Simultaneously, he continued his love for skiing and ski racing by serving as Head Ski Coach of the Cape Elizabeth High School Ski Team in Maine and, later, the Head Coach of the BNS Acceleration Project. During that time, he was the Head Wax Technician for the USSA J1 Scandinavian and OPA Cup Finals trips in Europe in 2013.

MacDowell went on to hold several coaching positions throughout the United States, including serving as Gold Team Assistant Coach and Head Wax Technician at the Sun Valley Ski Educational Foundation in Idaho. Later, MacDowell returned East to assume the role of Assistant Cross-Country Ski Coach at the Green Mountain Valley School in Waitsfield, Vermont. Most recently, MacDowell has served as the Assistant Cross-Country Ski Coach at Northern Michigan University in Marquette, MI, one of the nation’s premier collegiate Division 1 programs.

MacDowell says, “I am very excited to be joining such a great program as NYSEF. I look forward to building on the strong program that Margaret has cultivated during her tenure with NYSEF. I plan to use everything I’ve learned over the years with different programs to help each athlete achieve their goals and reach their greatest potential.”

NYSEF Executive Director John Norton notes, “We’re pleased that Shane has decided to join our team. He brings a level of professionalism and dedication to athletic excellence through his experience at both the elite and grassroots levels. I’m excited to see what Shane brings to the already thriving program that Margaret has helped build.”

“Shane moves to Lake Placid with ski coaching experience at the college and junior levels” remarked Margaret Maher, who held the position for over 11 years. “I’m excited to see a fellow UNH Wildcat take over the NYSEF program and look forward to watching the athletes grow and excel to the best of their abilities”. Maher has decided to take a full-time job as a registered nurse in orthopedics and sports medicine starting in September. MacDowell will begin work in early August alongside Maher to finish the summer training season.

MacDowell’s brings a strong level of enthusiasm for the outdoors with him to the Adirondacks. When he’s not focused on cross-country skiing, he canoe races throughout the country and has a passion for building canoes. He also enjoys many outdoor activities like mountain biking, hiking and running.

As the youngest in a family of five, it’s no wonder that Ian Torchia, an incoming junior at Northern Michigan University (NMU), considers himself “scrappy.” It’s also no wonder that, when it comes to sport, Torchia takes on skiing with tooth-and-claw grit. Within the first few hours of being a freshman on the NMU ski team, the Rochester, Minn., native established himself as tenacious if nothing else.

“Watching him ski on the treadmill the first time I worked with him, he was just raw,” Sten Fjeldheim, head coach of the NMU men’s and women’s nordic teams reflected in a phone interview. “His technique was, well, not pretty, but I knew he had a heck of an engine from his running times.”

After Torchia finished his freshman year just outside qualifying for NCAA Skiing Championships, he made it a goal to reach the championships the following year. As a sophomore, he not only qualified for NCAA’s, but he went on to place second in the men’s 10-kilometer freestyle and fourth in the 20 k classic mass start at the 2016 championships in Steamboat Springs, Colo.

By the end of his first two years at NMU, the 20-year-old Torchia had also tapped into another tool: technique. He asked his college coaches ceaseless questions, watched countless ski videos and began to implement what he saw on the screen into his own skiing.

“He’s just really good at being a student of his own sport: skiing,” Fjeldheim said of Torchia’s technical improvements. 

However, the sophomore’s upward climb last season didn’t end with his work on the NMU ski team. In January, he won the junior men’s 10 k freestyle at U.S. nationals in Houghton, Mich. Also at nationals, he placed seventh among seniors in the men’s 15 k classic, and at 2016 Junior World Championships in Romania, he raced to 15th in the junior men’s 15 k freestyle.

Most recently, Torchia discovered he was among 16 athletes nominated to the U.S. Cross Country Ski Team.

“I was on my way to go cliff jumping when Bryan Fish [U.S. Ski Team development coach] called me,” Torchia said on the phone. “The celebratory back flip didn’t go too well.” (According to Torchia, the backflip was more of a “back flop.”)

Though perhaps brazen when it comes to black flips and Lake Superior bluffs, the main sentiment Torchia spoke of was that of humility.  In his eyes, the opportunity to ski for U.S. Ski Team ‘D’ (or development) Team is an opportunity to once again put his tenacity to the test.

“You know, there’s still two more levels of the U.S. Ski Team to go,” Torchia said of the ‘A’ and ‘B’ team levels. “If anything, [the nomination] just motivates me to train harder. I mean, the way I see it, it’s an honor to be named. I get invited to the camps and I get the uniform. It puts a bigger target on my back, but I’m OK with that.”

U.S. Ski Team (USST) Head Coach Chris Grover explained in an email that the team was “looking for athletes who can deliver big results in Europe against tough fields,” he wrote. “Ian was the standout USA male once again at World Juniors and posted his second consecutive top-15 result there.”

At the 2015 Junior World Championships in Kazakhstan, Torchia notched 11th in the 20 k skiathlon.

Moving forward, Torchia plans to accept the nomination and attend the two USST summer training camps, the first one taking place in Bend, Ore., this month and the second in Anchorage, Alaska. According to Fjeldheim, not much will change for Torchia in regards to training.

“He’ll pretty much be on the same training plan that he’s been on,” Fjeldheim said. “But I think the opportunity for him to ski with some other national-team skiers is going to be good.”

Along with accepting the nomination, Torchia also plans to continue attending NMU as a full-time student and eventually earn a degree in exercise science.

“I think my mom would kill me if I wasn’t in school,” Torchia said.

But his reasons for staying in school extend beyond his so-called death sentence, even if it means suffering through organic chemistry finals. To Torchia, continuing his education sends a broader message to other nordic athletes, especially those trying to determine whether skiing in college can lead to a ski career.

“One of the main reasons why I wanted this to happen is to show that you can do it while you’re in college,” Torchia said of his national-team nomination. “It is hard to balance school and skiing, but it’s doable. [College skiing] is a pipeline.”

School, Torchia insisted, also gives him options outside of skiing.

“Make sure to have balance in your life between skiing and make sure skiing isn’t the only thing in your life,” Torchia said of how he found success in sport. “We kind of take that mentality here at NMU. We have the top GPA of all the sports teams here, so it’s both skiing and school. It’s a lifestyle and we love it. It’s hard, but you got to go for it.”

Beyond the importance Torchia finds in education, his NMU teammates and coaches also played a large role in his decision to continue his ski career on the college path. He cited post-practice conversations and training plans his coaches provided as a staple to his success.

“I could not have done this without Sten and [NMU assistant coach] Shane MacDowell,” Torchia said.

“Ian always shows up with a smile on his face,” Fjeldheim said. “Yeah, he like to pull pranks on me and his teammates every now and then and we prank him back, but he’s a great kid to have on your team as far as sportsmanship goes and manners. He’s very humble.”

“It’s a lifestyle and we love it. It’s hard, but you got to go for it.” — Ian Torchia, NMU junior and U.S. Ski Team rookie

With teammates like Adam Martin and Jake Brown, both first-team All Americans at this year’s NCAA Championships, Torchia views his peers as motivation and proof of where they, too, are headed.

“You can never get too big of a head around here because there will always be someone to serve you a piece of humble pie,” Torchia said. “I can say that I won’t be the last one to be named [to the U.S. SKi Team] out of NMU.”

With the nomination, Torchia is undecided as to where his ski career will be drawn after graduation day. Though not currently on the CXC team, joining the program is one potential route for him post-college. 

“Kind of this past year, I guess I really thought about skiing after college,” Torchia said. “Right now, Kyle Bratrud is [in Marquette] skiing for [Central Cross Country] and we’re getting [Dartmouth grad] Oscar Friedman up here. I think we’re going to make a return to the days when CXC was a really a powerhouse. I can see myself here. We’ll see. It’s still a long way away.”

While Torchia’s five-year plan remains flexible, his 14 weeks of summer are at least set to go. This includes attending the two USST training camps, training in Marquette, Mich. (potentially with the likes of Kris Freeman, he said), and wedding crashing.

“I’m going to go home, surprise my mom on Mother’s Day and then head out to Bend for the camp there,” Torchia said. “Then I’ll come back [to Marquette] for June and then go out to Anchorage for that camp. And then it’s my sister’s wedding in Colorado. So it should be a fun summer.”

Particularly fun due to the training crew he plans to surround himself with.

“Basically the entire [NMU] guy’s team is going to be [in Marquette] this summer,” Torchia said. “We call it the Marquette Training Group: MTG. So, MTG 2.0 is kicking off this summer. We’re hoping that a few guest stars show up; there’s rumors that Bird [Kris Freeman] and Tad Elliott and Paddy Caldwell and Brian Gregg might be up here. So it’s going to be pretty kickass.”

While the USST nomination makes him a new training target to many, Torchia remains humble of where he’s been and where he’s headed. For now, he appears to prefer taking it one step at a time up the ski ladder — even when it comes to housing.

“I’ve got the Trailer Park Room,” he said, indicating that as one of the younger athletes, it may have fallen on him to take on the tiny living quarters in the NMU men’s ski house for the summer. “It’s the smallest room in the house, but I kind of like it. It doesn’t have a closet, very narrow and small, but I don’t know, I like it.”

Over the last nine years, Justin Beckwith’s name has become synonymous with the Green Mountain Valley School (GMVS) in Waitsfield, Vt. Now, with the hiring of 2010 Olympian Garrott Kuzzy as nordic director and biathlete Katrina Howe as nordic coach, two other well-known individuals in the ski community have become the new faces of the program, and Beckwith has vowed to help with the transition.

But before Beckwith — a former Middlebury College skier, Junior World Championships coach and wax technician, J1 Scando Trip leader, and the New England Nordic Ski Association’s 2012 coach of the year — started as an assistant coach at GMVS, he built houses.

That’s one of the trades he’s returning to.

In August, Beckwith, 36, decided to step down as Green Mountain’s nordic director, ushering in a new era for the program, which started in 1981 under Jim Fredericks. Muffy Ritz took over as nordic director from 1986 to ’89, after which GMVS Nordic went by the wayside at the ski academy until Norwegian Jon Arne Enevoldsen started a biathlon program in 2002, according to the Vermont Ski and Snowboard Museum.

A few years later, Beckwith came into the picture. In a phone interview on Monday, he recalled how the current GMVS nordic program started with a Norwegian coach and core group of families. Through grassroots efforts, targeting local Bill Koch programs and creating a “viable option for kids from the [Mad River] valley to start taking up cross-country,” the private school’s nordic team began to attract more homegrown skiers from central Vermont. In turn, that spawned interest well beyond the state’s borders.

During Beckwith’s tenure, in which he led the program for the last seven years, he also united with local clubs to develop the Central Vermont Co-Op Race Series to elevate the level of nordic competition. His largest team size was 15. This year, its has seven nordic athletes, including one post grad.

“Over the years, I’ve been able to support some really awesome athletes in the program,” Beckwith said. “To be able to offer that opportunity, helping foster a passion for skiing and then to get to see them become young adults and continue to do amazing things.”

Sometimes, he had to dig into his own pockets to do so. And while he said it was a personal decision to step down, he felt the time was right to put the program into new hands for strategic planning and new energy.

That’s where Kuzzy and Howe came in.

Howe, a former national-development team biathlete who spent the last five years training with the Maine Winter Sports Center (MWSC) Olympic Development Team, joined Beckwith as an assistant coach in July. At 29, she had retired from racing this spring — her decision prompted by a loss of funding at MWSC — but she wasn’t ready to leave the sport.

“I knew I wanted to stay involved and I always knew I wanted to be a coach,” Howe said on the phone last week. “I contacted Justin and it turns out he needed an assistant coach.”

He hired her and the two went ahead planning the summer, including a fall training camp in Italy. Before she started, Beckwith and his then-assistant coach Shane MacDowell hosted an Eastern Regional Elite Group (REG) in June. MacDowell left GMVS to join Northern Michigan University as an assistant coach in July.

“There’s been a lot of change in the program [recently],” Beckwith said.

For the REG camp, Beckwith’s long-term goal had been to boost enrollment. New England has so many summer training options that it’s often difficult to unite the best juniors at a single venue, he explained. The REG camp attracted New England’s entire J1 and J2 teams, he said.

“It was a great success … I think we were missing two to three kids from the junior national team,” he said, adding that there were 38 participants. “I would say we had 95 percent of the best kids in New England together.”

That was a capstone on the previous open training camps GMVS hosted for the last eight summers.

“I just wanted to make sure I was handing it off [to the right people],” Beckwith said of the nordic program. “Katrina was awesome. … I’m really happy that Garrott stepped up,” he added. “We have had some great conversations.”

Howe started working for GMVS when school started, Aug. 17. The day before, she learned Beckwith wasn’t returning as head coach.

“It was a pretty sudden transition,” she said. “We had about two-and-a-half weeks of school and Justin was around so he definitely helped me with a basic knowledge and lay of the land.”

After that in early September, Beckwith, Howe, staff member Jere Brophy, and their athletes traveled to Mals in northern Italy for two weeks of dryland training — including hiking and rollerskiing — and on-snow skiing at the Stelvio Glacier.

When they returned in late September, Kuzzy had been hired as nordic director. In the time since — the last two weeks — he’s been working with Howe.

“This August, when Justin decided he was going to move on, the Green Mountain Valley School reached out to me and I decided it was a great opportunity to get back into the ski world and work with high-school age level kids,” Kuzzy said. “… It’s not a huge life transition. It’s just an opportunity to be more involved in skiing. I think they’ve got a lot of resources and are very dedicated to the nordic program.”

Kuzzy, 32, a Middlebury grad who spent the last several years in Middlebury and will continue to live there, previously served as product director of VBT Bicycling and Walking Vacations. While he explained it was a “very challenging decision to leave” VBT after four years, he always wanted to stay involved in nordic skiing. He did so by launching VBT’s cross-country ski tours and assisting local clubs, including Mansfield Nordic and Frost Mountain Nordic, at their annual camps.

“The experience I gained with VBT is an asset and something I can apply to my role as Nordic Director at GMVS,” Kuzzy wrote in an email. “My role consists of a balance between strategic planning, execution and ski coaching. As Nordic Coach, Kat Howe spends much of her time writing the training plan and training with the team.”

While he and Howe plan to discuss and determine the program’s overarching goals this month, Kuzzy said on the phone last week that they want to further integrate nordic within the GMVS community.

“Traditionally it’s been an alpine-heavy school,” Kuzzy said, explaining that of roughly 120 skiers at the academy, seven are nordic athletes.

Howe pointed out that a couple of alpine students had already shown interest in nordic. “The number may grow before too long!” she wrote in an email.

“At this point, my goal is to provide as much opportunity as possible for skiers who really want to see what they can do with nordic skiing,” Kuzzy explained. “One thing I really like about GMVS is the academic focus; it was recently rated the top academic private high school in Vermont [by the 2015 Niche Rankings]. … And this motto of, skiing is a metaphor for life. My goal is to extend the opportunity, to learn more about life through ski racing.”

Howe said she felt similarly.

“If I didn’t have the interest or the academic [background], I don’t think I’d totally appreciate the experiences I’ve had as a skier,” the four-year University of Vermont skier said. “The trips weren’t always necessarily about the racing. I think that carried over well for me.”

Already, Kuzzy said he’s been having a lot of fun with the athletes.

“That’s been the highlight, the workouts with the kids,” he said. “They’ve been fantastic.”

“They’re just all awesome, hugely motivated [athletes],” Howe said. “They have a huge world sense of adventure. That’s why I fell in love with nordic, and these kids just love that and want to get out there and do new things. It’s not just about specific training for them, and that’s definitely come from Justin.”

“They have a huge world sense of adventure. That’s why I fell in love with nordic. … It’s not just about specific training for them, and that’s definitely come from Justin.” — GMVS Nordic Coach Katrina Howe, on the team’s current athletes

While Beckwith was unsure what his exact role with the program would be this winter, he knew he’d be offering race support. So far, he’s filled an advisory role to help with the transition and was part of the recruiting process for a new director, he said.

Beckwith has also been the lead kickwax technician for New England at Junior Nationals for the last six or seven years, and he plans on doing that again this season.

“It’s definitely open ended and I want it to be a positive vibe,” he said. “It was hard to leave my current kids… [but] I’m not leaving, I’m still here, part of their lives, but it’s definitely a hard transition for sure.”

He’ll continue to live in Warren, near the school, where he can show Kuzzy and Howe the traditional time trial spots, and their starting and ending points.

“I definitely envision doing some workouts with them,” he said.

Meanwhile, he said he’ll be able to spend more time with his new wife, Brie Beckwith, a physical trainer for U.S. alpine skier Mikaela Shiffrin and the U.S. women’s alpine team, whom he married in April. He’ll also continue building with friends.

“It’s pretty fun to get back to that,” he said.

This winter, Beckwith said he’ll groom the Sugarbush golf course and help “the community in areas I was not able to before. … It’s exiting to not have the narrow focus of helping one program, but helping all programs out, and I definitely plan on being a part of the New England waxing staff.

“The last two years I’ve been with the World Junior kickwax staff so I’m leaving all doors open,” he added. “I plan on staying involved as a ski tech.”

Organic development. That’s how Justin Beckwith is describing the new era of the Green Mountain Valley School’s nordic ski team.

Beckwith, who serves as head coach for the rural Vermont academy, is overseeing the addition of an elite and postgraduate program to the team, which has historically found its successes in junior racing.

However, this is no traditional elite team. Instead of partaking in the tedious process of athlete applications, selection, and community placement, GMVS is recruiting from its own ranks.

If anyone is a poster child for the GMVS transition it’s David Sinclair. Sinclair, who graduated from Dartmouth College in May was a product of the GMVS program as a junior. During his time at the school he found much success at the junior level. At Dartmouth College, Sinclair earned several Junior National Championships and attended the 2014 NCAA Championships where his best result was 17th.

Once the Waitsfield, Vt. native graduated from Dartmouth he returned to his roots and joined Beckwith and the rest of the GMVS team.

According to Beckwith, the return of Sinclair is promising for his team of 12 skiers.

“One of the best things for a program is when an athlete returns,” Beckwith said in a phone interview with FasterSkier. “With David it was a natural progression because he was one of our athletes.”

In addition to Sinclair the GMVS program also boasts two postgraduate athletes, Ian Moore and Nick Gardner. The two are taking time to focus on skiing before they attend the University of Vermont and Williams College after the 2014/2015 season.

The three skiers aren’t the only new additions to the team. Earlier this year GMVS hired Shane MacDowell who will serve as the assistant coach to aid in the continued development of its nordic program.

MacDowell, who graduated from the University of New Hampshire in 2009, has a long history in the ski community.

After spending a season coaching the Cape Elizabeth Nordic High School Team he founded the Boulder Nordic Sport Acceleration Team where he served as the Head Coach in 2012.  During the winter of 2013 he was the head wax technician for the J1 Scandinavian Trip in Trondheim, Norway in addition to his duties as a technician for the OPA Cup Finals in Madonna Di Campiglio and Toblach, Italy. Most recently, MacDowell was the assistant coach and wax technician for the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation.

Beckwith said that with the help of MacDowell, the GMVS program has the infrastructure to support both junior and higher-level athletes. For years, the alpine team at GMVS has been providing elite support for athletes and according to Beckwith the nordic team is ready to do so as well. 

The recent developments at GMVS are part of its head coach’s approach toward training and racing. Beckwith explained that a key component of a successful team is its ability to create an environment that promotes skiing as a long-term project. He said that he’s seen too many skiers focus on lofty short-term goals that can make racing tedious and repetitive.

“I want to have kids who want this to be a lifelong sport versus focusing on very specific cross country training when you’re 13, 14, or 15 with the goal of winning junior nationals when you’re a J2 or J1. Sometimes we’re seeing that these athletes get to college and they’re burnt,” Beckwith explained. “We’re obviously trying to make them fast ski racers, but that’s what I want to do to set my program apart from the other programs.”

By adding more adventure and diversity to his training plans Beckwith said his athletes are more likely to continue skiing in college, and are thus more likely to return to his program as high-level athletes.

Beckwith said that takes his athletes to the local alpine areas or explores off-trail training opportunities in the woods surrounding the school.

Sometimes the adventure is further from home. In September, the 12-member team traveled to Italy’s Stelvio Glacier for a two-week training camp. Not only did the team find favorable training conditions, they also befriended 2014 Olympic medalist Ilia Chernousov of Russia, who was one of the only other skiers on the glacier at the time.

As the team continues their fall training, Beckwith said that one of his main focusses will be to create a presence on the national circuit this year. As in years past, GMVS will travel to West Yellowstone and Bozeman, Mont. in November for an extended camp and to race in the SuperTours.

If everything goes according to plan, the team will unveil a new wax trailer in January at the 2015 U.S. Cross Country Championships in Houghton, Mich. GMVS will use the trailer throughout the season for Eastern Cups and other SuperTour races.

For now, however, Beckwith and the rest of the GMVS squad are focusing on building excitement for the sport while working to keep their athletes close to home.