Think I should jump back in here.
My comments on "athleticism" are ALL related to the question that people raise all the time: "We're a nation of 300 Million people with some of the most exceptional athletes on the planet; why aren't we dominating alpine ski racing?" It's not a new question. I've probably heard it asked a few thousand times. Insert any name you want, and wrap to around "What if........was a downhiller? He'd KILL it!"
So that leads to the discussion of the reality that being a word class ski racer is absolutely not tied to being a top .01% athlete. In fact many of our current best ski racers, and many recent ones were far from great athletes. And that's world wide. Some are, but they are in the minority. In our own country, Mikaela Shiffrin is NOT a terrific athlete. Lindsey Vonn absolutely is not. Ligety is not. Really great athletes compared to the general population, Yep. Compared to professional athletes in other sports, who are recognized for their athleticism, No.
Hirscher is a great athlete. Bode is often referred to as the most athletic guy to ever ski on the WC. The woman considered to be the best pure athlete to ever to ski for the USA? Mancuso. So one does not lead to another.
I had thrown out NBA players as an example of incredible athleticism. Every one? No. Manute Bol? No. I know an NBA GM pretty well. He happens to have been a pro athlete in two sports, and probably could have played two individual sports as a pro. He knows athletes. I've been able to hang around a bit with him, and I stand by my observation that what these guys can do with their bodies is amazing. BUT, as has been pointed out, these guys begin to develop their skills as soon as they can pick up a ball and shoot at a 6' hoop. They spend their entire lives developing their skills, their coordination, their muscle memory, and on and on. Got it.
Fact is that the same thing happens in ski racing. The people who end up at the top of the sport, which is a tiny pyramid, refine there skills over a life time. And increasingly year round. Yes, culturally there is still enormous difference between this country and the historical powers. Kids here want to be the next Tom Brady, or Lebron, or a leader in any number of other sports. In Austria, they want to be Hirscher.
If you are incredibly talented, and willing to work like a dog on that playground or in the gym, you might aspire to the NFL, NBA. MLB. And you might earn a ton more money and alter the course of your family's lives for generations. I'm watching pretty average NFL players signing $50Mil plus contracts today. That's not happening in skiing! A generation ago, European guys who I knew had grown up in tiny mountain towns, with parents who might farm, or work at the ski station, work for the railroad, run a small guest house. Yes, some actually skied to school. Their dream was to ski on the national team and then retire to their village and build a small hotel. There wasn't Hirscher money in the sport. But it was a huge motivator.
OK, 2018 in the USA. If you ski race, and can aspire to do so at the WC level, it starts YOUNG. You must have mileage. You can't catch up. This is where refining the craft trumps athleticism, assuming that everybody has a great work ethic. So, you either live in a mountain town, or your family puts you into one. Maybe mom relocates. It's no longer "enough" to ski weekends and show up at a ski academy in the 9th grade. Not a chance. You can't catch up. Please don't argue that point. It's fact.
The process involves being on snow as much as possible. "You can't fake mileage." And you can't catch up as nobody else is slowing down. What we know have, in the USA are high potential ski racers who are either from families who have resources, or from mountian towns where they gather a LOT of financial support. Good local kids who the community will rally around. Pretty much one or the other. No middle ground. There were some in a bit of the middle ground 15 year ago, not now. Now, some people scream that we "don't get the best athletes that way." Yep, probably true. Remember, we're looking for the best ski racers. Others scream that it's not fair. Nope. it isn't.
If you are of modest means, and you have a kid with what you think is potential at 8-10 years old, move to the mountainn town with the best program, and a big endowment, and upend your lives. Life very modestly die to the cost of living. Work as many jobs as you need. And make sure your kid{s} eventually grasp what you did.
Now realize that at the very same time, there are people moving to the same town and program who can and will spend whatever they think will "work." $250K a year a kid. Yes, that IS going on.
Right now in the USA we have some incredibly strong, motivated and super fast U14's and U16's. We have really good first year U19's. All of these expenses, year round training, the best in coaching, the best of everything....works. WE could look at international youth race results and you'll see that we are not just good. We are really good.
So, you are probably thinking this is either BS or nuts. If we are that good, then what happens at the WC level? We aren't that good. Are we? what defines good?
No, we are pretty much in a crater, with old skiers at the end of their careers, some youngsters, Mikaela, and a whole lot of birth years where essentially there is nobody to maybe one. The USST went right down the tube in terms of athlete development and planning for the future a number of years ago. I think it's a better since the change in leadership, but it has a long way to go. The way that we selected USST D team athletes, and washed them out, or crapped all over NCAA programs, picked a couple of chosen ones, etc. just.....FAILED. We sucked at it. And a lot of it should have been clear.
The college thing is a huge hot button for me. I'm not going to fly off on that tangent, but for many years NCAA college racing has worked to develop a lot of foreign athletes now in the WC, yet it has always been a red-haired step child to the USST. Horribly so. Very much so at the coaching levels until recently. Dumb.
Another very intersting thing is what many, many savvy coaches refer to as "The Mikaela Effect." So....has Mikaela Shiffrin been good for USST and USSA skiing, or not? Net plus, or not? I'll say that the opinions are very mixed. We have a young lady who is likely going to be the best technical skier in history, at the least, winning medals and WC globes by the ton, in a USST uniform. And we have nobody around her. We have birth years well ahead of her, through hers, where everybody quit. Gone. For a variety of reasons. One was that when she was 14, she was being discussed everywhere by the USST leadership as "the future of the USST." The resources that have gone her way are beyond huge. Very good skiers, who could right now be doing well on the WC just bailed. Some went to college. Some quit. This weird kid, socially awkward, with the intense domineering mother is going to be the future? Now wait a minute, her MOTHER is telling our people what to do? HER mother is telling USST coaches and leadership how I should fit in? Huh. Yeah, we have MS.....and no tech team whatsoever. None.
There was a time a few years ago when we had 3-4 girls who were right on her heels, and nope, all energy into MS, some driven by her mother not wanting anybody else close. Is that how you run a national team? Of course not. We chose to.
I saw this coming when Mikaela had her real coming out party at the Eastern J3 Junior Olympics at Sunday River. I was "working" the race series. My daughter had been at Burke for an Eastern Project the week before; she was a FIS racer. She told me that I should ask the Burke PD about this J3 who was not only training with this elite FIS group, at 5-6-7 years younger, but killing them in SL. GS? No.
So, yeah, that's when she won the SL by almost 12 seconds, beating future NCAA All Americans. There were potential USST athletes In that field, for sure.....and they all left that pipeline. She was exceptional, and the entire team starting drooling over her.
Now, very knowledgeable families and coaches basically made it clear that her upbringing in the sport, and in general was not normal. Or close. What ensued was that the Shiffrins had a plan as soon as their kids could walk, and that to ensure success, you needed to follow a similar path. Maybe not quite as nutty, but basically on snow almost every day of the winter.....in her case at age four. I prefer a lot of skiing and a lot of terrain, to endless drills with Mom. To this day, MS really does not like to free ski. She loves to practice and drill.
The USST has such a hair on fire frenzy about her that there are dozens of very high potential athletes who were essentially left in the shadows. Coupled with that were some pretty lousy development programs, mediocre coaches, and in general.....blahness. So we are completely rebuilding on the womens side.
Now we're doing pretty well in speed. Real well. We won the womens DH Nations cup for their season, yesterday. That's great. The speed team is actually a team. And in addition to the WC group we have 3-4 exceptional young ladies ready to jump in shortly. Breezy Johnson is the same age as MS. She's the real deal. And unlike the tech world of MS, Breezy has teammates, younger and older. That is an area of hope, right now.
On the men's side, similar issues. On the tech side, we put a LOT into Ligety and Bode. "Best in the world." We had some really unfortunate injuries, like Nolan Kasper in SL. And we seem to have a lot of guys who had a LOT of talent at 20, 21, who just never developed. Something went wrong. Right now, on the speed side, we have a lot to be encouraged about. Johno McBride came back to coach them this year. I hope he stays. He's working with these guys, and they are coming on strong. He has a handful that may ski on the EC next year, more than the WC. Again, vis a vis world age group peers, these guys are right there. Bryce Bennett and Goldberg are very good. Sam Morse is going to be great.
I think that Chip Knight is working very hard and doing a god job as the development director. It seems like a lot of good things are going on. We can't basically ignore the big clubs and academies, or be at odds with them. We can't dismiss the NCAA; we should use it. We have a pipeline, but we need to develop these kids. The right way. Fingers crossed.
I personally think that Project 26 and "Best in the World" are a disaster. It's more of the same. I would prefer a team. Right now our athletes are always worried about funding, money, and such....and they are always close to being dropped. It creates an environment where though they publicly state that they are all supportive, they are in fact competing with each other. I think it needs some tweaking.
The issue of funding, and athlete funding? I don't run the USST or USSA. I'm not a kid, though. The organization is slated with headcount, not athletic related jobs, and a lot of salary. Much can be trimmed. On the fundraising, or the "other development" side, they need to make the call to bring in people who are best in class. Not the crew they have. Nice people with connections to the team. The spouse of a former Olympic gold medalist, etc. Get the broom out.
I'm somewhat experienced at this. If you hire a real pro, who would not be cheap, and give him/her an open checkbook to build the right team, and plan, this is doable. Its been half assed for years. Like trying to strong arm your board for big donations. My thinking is that you could spend $2Mil or a touch more, and raise $10Mil, maybe $15Mil. At any rate, I think you could make it all go away.
And then you can actually get a board who have a clue about this, will engage, show up at meetings and help. Right now it's like they want the $50K check, and no more. Make it more about energy, advice, guidance and more and not all about the check. Non Profit boards that fall into it all being about the money tend to suck and accomplish very little. Just saying.......
No reason we can't be very, very good. But this is NOT about better athletes, about finding the right body types, about "late bloomers." Not about the next LeBron being on skis. You can't imagine how many parents have tried to engage me about late bloomers and the awful lessons of early college recruiting in sports like soccer and lacrosse. Not totally uniformed. It's not the same at all.
To have a chance in this sort, you now need to be on snow an awful lot. I would say at least 100 days a year at about 10. I anticipate plenty of people thinking "that's crazy." Not saying it isn't. Mikaela might have been closer to 150 or more at that age.........
Sadly developing world class ski racers and raising kids can have some degree of conflict, IMO and IME.
My $.02