Guessing you wanted to respond on the NCAA thread. No big deal. Good post, good points.
My brother raced at the top of the NCAA in the mid sixties, and had a number of Scandanavian teammates. Most, but not all, were nordic skiers.
One of those who really changed the landscape was at DU in the mid 70's, Otto Tschudi. He is Norwegian, and is a tremendous guy. He was a bit unusual at the time, having been a two time Olympian before he came to DU. Legend has it that coach Willy S actually recruited him at the finish of a WC race in Austria, offered him a full scholarship and sealed the deal in about a half an hour. Guess admissions and money were no issue!
Otto had a tremendous NCAA ski career, and he was according to mutual friends an equally talented student. Finance guy. He has gone on to a very, very successful investment banking career. He also has given back a TON to DU. I am quite sure that he is a long time trustee, and I know that he was instrumental with his energy, Rolodex and wallet in resurrecting DU's ski team. As I recall, it was cut for budget reasons in 80's, and then brought back about a decade later. I believe that Otto was one of the driving forces in making that happen.
That experience and story is tremendous. It's also not at all what the Norwegian federation is pushing, to my understanding, today. There are at least five skiing on the WC who came to the US to ski, and prepare for a WC career, at the same time that Norway cut a lot out of their system. Would be like the USST cutting way back on the C team, and most of the B team. Putting almost all of the money on the top performers and the youngest D teamers.
Guys who were winning the Norwegian national championships, started heading to the USA and NCAA. Jonathan Notbotten to UVM, then right to the WC.
One simple answer often offered is that we simply need to produce equally fast skiers, in more numbers, and take advantage of the same college system. Not restrict those coming here. Recognize that it has a lot of pluses, and can be a bigger part of skier development than it has been. The more competitive, the better!
But, yes, skiers from abroad are not new.
Nor is, until VERY recently, the USST making it quite difficult for anybody who has not been in the system since they were a teen, bypassing college, to jump into the program and advance. Chowder has made it work. Huge praise and kudo's. If we put together a list of those who were not truly given the same support, and included a lot of the coach comments, most would be amazed.
A reasonably decent USST alpine skier, name of Miller, has told me more than once that two of them in his opinion could have been as good as anybody in the sport. Like pushing Ligety, and him. Better than Jitloff. But they were outsiders. Late bloomers. Not chosen ones as kids.
Check out Jit's career. He was supposed to be what Ligety became. I think that a number of college guys, given his funding and support might have done better. I am not picking on him.
Hearing a coach complain that he needs to work with an athlete, who made team criteria, because he's a college guy who got lucky, is wrong. It's ancient thinking. Like he's not one of them.
We're still missing the boat on this, or not giving it enough time. Hope change is underway. I know that it is, but it's got to be significant. You bring a kid on the D team at 18, and they will have a lot of time. Bring a 23 year old on the B Team, and you expect him to be scoring WC points almost right away. Then you cut him. That's not a realistic development plan.
Or you make it so expensive that they do it on their own, which is very, very difficult.
Leif Haugen is 30. He graduated from DU at 25. If he were on the USST, he probably would have been cut a few year ago Instead he's a legit podium threat on the WC. Just won a bronze in St. Moritz.
If the NCAA works for the rest, we should figure out how to optimize it for the USST.
Just my opinion, shared by a few, I think.
