FIS Summer: Training in Argentina
For a high-level alpine athlete, training on snow in the summer is an opportunity to develop strength, slow down and get a feel for the surface – it’s a chance to focus on fundamentals and movement, and to build an athletic base for the upcoming winter season. Seven SVSEF alpine FIS athletes are taking advantage of the fact it’s winter in the southern hemisphere; they’re nearing the end of a three-week training trip in Argentina. The coaching staff is comprised of Scott McGrew, alpine program director, Nate Schwing, FIS head coach and Tanner Farrow, a SVSEF alumni, former U.S. alpine D Team skier and current alpine athlete at University of Denver.
Ushuaia, nicknamed “the end of the world” because of its geographical location (the old exile community sits on the southern coast of the South American continent), has been a collision of beauty and functionality for the FIS group. “The mountains meet the ocean in a ‘raw’ (Tanner’s adjective) display of giant snow covered peaks, stark winter greys, and friendly people,” explained McGrew. “Although it hasn’t been particularly cold, the humidity penetrates everything and creates a magnificent place to train. The snow is hard, and getting harder. The trails are long, with terrain changes; primary slopes are closed for race training; everything culminates with a feeling of total commitment from the resort to support high level alpine training.”
McGrew also commended the high quality of the training venue – French, Italian, Austrian, Slovenian, Russian and other National Ski Federations have poured millions of dollars towards the creation of A-netted training slopes with high water content snowguns lining the sides. To McGrew, who has traveled to a number of places in the southern hemisphere over the years, “this place stands alone with regard to its attention to detail and surface conditions.”
The layout of the trip has been straightforward and focused: the athletes went through specific training blocks in Ushuaia, before moving on to northern Patagonia and Bariloche for training and competition the final week. A daily schedule for the athletes has looked something like this:
7:30 a.m. – Breakfast
8:15. – Depart for the hill
9:30 – Load chair
Warm up for one hour (which, said McGrew, “drives a deeper sense of professionalism and attention to detail. This has been a big objective of the camp…warmups are an essential part of creating a mindset and approach to productive training.”)
10:30-2 p.m. – Train (“Being at sea level,” McGrew pointed out, “we have the opportunity to push hard. Volume and quality are the goals, and this venue affords us the opportunity to pursue both.”)
2:30-3:30 – Lunch at the mountain
4:30 – Arrive back at the hotel, followed by downtime or light dryland and recovery
6:30 – Video review
7:30 Dinner and team meeting
9pm – Rooms and shut down
The first block of training focused on giant slalom, with daily sessions on a full-length GS hill called Las Rocas. This was followed by a day off (and some exploring of the local area), and then the start of a slalom block, where sessions featured paneled slalom and timed training, with an emphasis on intensity out of the gate and speed generation. On monitoring and improving upon the athletes’ progress, McGrew said, “we have timing, splits, and video in the daily lineup, which has provided a solid framework for the athletes to benchmark their progress and compare themselves with their teammates. The pace is fast and the group has done a great job of staying engaged and focused.” Another six-day giant slalom block was followed by a well-deserved day off. McGrew shared this anecdote about a foray into Argentine culture by way of an indoor soccer venue:
This was a special treat and there is no question we were the first foreign ski racers to ever step foot in the facility. Our bus driver, Pepe, and his 16-year old son helped set up the friendly match with a local high school team. It was a unique experience and one that we won’t soon forget (they provided the jerseys). We were the center of a lot of attention; something you eventually get used to…
The athletes and coaches were also able to get a feel for their surroundings with a tour of the Beagle Channel, which McGrew said “was a nice way to get some perspective and appreciate the massive expanse that defines the Tierra del Fuego.”
Another slalom block began, but was disrupted by a stomach bug that made its way through the group. With a strict regimen of good hygiene and rest,, the FIS athletes resumed training and moved onto Bariloche, where there are currently competing at Cerro Catedral (click here for results).
All in all, it’s been an eventful trip, with value that comes not only with training on snow, but with the experience of travel. McGrew summed it up nicely:
The experience of international travel is, and has always been, a test of patience and of one’s ability to focus on finding creative solutions to new situations. Being in Argentina comes with a host of new scenarios – the language barriers, the general dysfunction, and the flair for living in the moment often takes us off guard as we tend to operate on a different set of infrastructural expectations. This is a colorful way of saying that South America is a totally different scenario from what we are used to, and can be unpredictable.
Being comfortable with unpredictability will translate on and off the snow; among other things, this trip has been a lesson in that.
The SVSEF Nordic Legacy Project: Sagewillow Roller Ski Trails and Roller Ski Treadmill Facility
For cross country skiers, the dryland season is a critical time for training, when hours stack up and a foundation is built in anticipation of winter. SVSEF cross country skiers have it pretty good in terms of summer training opportunities – the valley is teeming with trails suited for long runs, and a substantial, well-maintained bike path system features heavily in roller ski workouts. Ask any New England skier who grew up bouncing along on old rough pavement with traffic zooming by, and you’ll realize how ideal this situation is. How does one build upon this and maximize potential? With the Nordic Legacy Project, SVSEF, in partnership with Community School, has taken the initiative to advance the athletic level of its programming. Critical to athlete progression is technical work, calculated fitness assessment and targeted training. Phase One of the Nordic Legacy Project has focused on these facets of the sport in the form of acquiring a state-of-the-art roller ski treadmill and paving a 1.5-kilometer loop, specifically for roller ski workouts. Both elements of the new roller ski facility are located at Community School’s Dumke Family Sagewillow Campus.
THE TREADMILL
As far as Program Director Rick Kapala knows, SVSEF is the only club in the U.S. with its own treadmill at its disposal. There are other treadmills around the country, but they are associated with university testing labs – meaning that club skiers may be able to use them for training, but they are not necessarily readily available.
A primary benefit of the roller ski treadmill is that it enables coaches to effectively assess fitness improvements. As a controlled environment, where speed, incline and length of time can be monitored, the treadmill allows accurate comparisons to be made when looking at an athlete’s fitness over time. Kapala noted that SVSEF has done things in the past like running assessments on normal treadmills, but this sport isn’t running; it’s skiing, and it employs the upper and lower body simultaneously. Therefore, the best way to get a measure of progress during training is to utilize testing protocol on a roller ski treadmill, which most accurately represents the movements made on snow.
Another advantage of the treadmill is the immediacy it brings to focused technique work. On the wall in front of the treadmill is a large mirror, meaning athletes can watch themselves and their body positioning in real time. As a stationary piece of equipment, coaches can now stand beside their athlete and give constructive feedback more effectively. Instead of instantaneously trying to keep up with the athlete, avoid people and cars and dogs, and assess the athlete’s form as they’re wont to do on the bike path, coaches’ attention is solely on the athlete. The adjustment features of the treadmill also make technique work more effective, as parameters may be set; a skier won’t run out of hill while focusing on V1 technique on the treadmill.
A third benefit of SVSEF’s new equipment is the ability to do specific kinds of workouts. Kapala gave the following example:
Let’s say somebody wants to work to improve his or her aerobic threshold. We can put them on a treadmill at exactly the speed and incline that they need to be at to work that particular heart rate zone and develop the capacities they’re focusing on. When you're in an outdoor setting, the terrain is always changing. So it’s a lot easier to dial in exactly what we want to work on.
Kapala and his coaches have already seen the positive effect of having the treadmill for athletes with injuries. As it’s a very safe, flat, reliable surface, athletes on their way to recovery from injury can utilize the treadmill for workouts, both for rehabilitation of that injury and to stay on track. Whereas he or she may not be cleared to train outdoors, the treadmill adds a dependable alternative.
The cross country program is hoping to eventually develop the treadmill in concert with a robust sports physiology testing lab. Kapala explained that, “it will not only benefit our own team in terms of more accurately assessing aerobic and anaerobic development, but also may allow us to provide service to the community. By being able to partner with a university such as Boise State University, we can engage a level of expertise as a resource, and we really think that can help us down the road.”
THE SAGEWILLOW ROLLER SKI TRAILS
In addition to the treadmill, the Sagewillow Campus now features roller ski trails; 1.5 kilometers of paved road, with limitable access to cars in order to provide a safe setting for roller skiers. Without the distractions related to the bike path; namely, other users, dogs, cars at road crossings and unpredictable conditions, athletes and coaches are able to optimize their effectiveness with training. SVSEF, in conjunction with Community School, has already used the loop to this effect; the 2017 Cross Country NNF/U.S. Ski Team National U16 Camp was just hosted in Sun Valley, and featured workouts at Community School’s Dumke Family Sagewillow Campus. Coaches were able to execute high velocity training sessions with a large group of athletes in a safe setting, and were able to conduct some really great workouts. On top of that, the program is seeing that it’s not only the older, experienced athletes who are benefitting from the paving of the new roller ski facility. Said Kapala, “it’s a perfect place to take younger skiers to work on their roller ski skills. The pavement is super smooth, the terrain is very forgiving and there are a lot of terrain elements there that allow coaches to be able to work on V1, work on V2, and have it all be so close that it’s really easy to organize practices there.” He explained that, “it’s hard to manage younger kids on the bike path. With the loop setting at Sagewillow, they are constantly going by. The effectiveness of coaching goes up, because the facility lends itself to this looping, where you get a chance to work with kids in a variety of terrain, frequently.”
Even with the new loop, athletes still utilize the bike path for training, for variety and for specific workout goals. The proximity of the bike path to the athletic complex allows for flexibility; you can pull right out of Sagewillow, and you're on the Elkhorn system. All in all, Kapala believes that the roller ski facility “really lends itself to creative and effective training design.” In looking forward, he noted that there is potential to do additional paving in future phases, which would only broaden the possibilities for that creativity.
Upcoming phases of the Nordic Legacy Project include renovations to the interior of the Lake Creek hut, which hasn’t seen any such improvements since building completion in the early 2000s. Another aim is to purchase both transportation and trail maintenance vehicles. If you’d like to learn more about the Nordic Legacy Project, or if you’re interested in contributing, please contact Rick Kapala (rick@svsef.org), Cynthia Knight (cknight@svsef.org) or Sam Adicoff (sadicoff@svsef.org).
SVSEF would like to thank everyone who has helped make this project a success – from the donors, to the Community School Board of Directors, the SVSEF Board of Directors, and to all of the local businesses – thank you so much for your contributions and support.
Athlete Profile: Sascha Leidecker
SASCHA LEIDECKER
Cross Country Comp Team
AGE
15
SCHOOL
wood river high school
YEARS WITH SVSEF
seven
OTHER ACTIVITIES/HOBBIES
debate, ballet, jazz, school
LUNCH WITH ANYONE
rowan blanchard
ONE FOOD FOR REST OF YOUR LIFE
definitely ice cream
LOOKING FORWARD TO
debate and ski season next year
BEST RICK KAPALA-ISM
"go like a RB"
MOST USED EMOJI
😂
Preview of the 2017 Cross Country NNF/U.S. Ski Team National U16 Camp, Sun Valley, July 23-30
Although the U16 camp is held in a different region and location each year, the focus remains the same. Athletes are here to train hard, walk away with some new sport knowledge and build community; ultimately becoming better athletes in every way. This year’s camp takes place in Sun Valley over the course of seven days, with athletes training at Community School’s Dumke Family Sagewillow Campus, Lake Creek Hut and around the Wood River Valley. Athletes will be staying at the Community School Residence Hall.
The group
The top 50 male and female U16 athletes from across the country are invited to the camp, based on performance at Junior Nationals. Each region is afforded a few discretionary picks, as well.
Rick Kapala, SVSEF cross country program director and U16 camp director: It’s by design this big, unwieldy beast of a camp – we want to capture as many as possible in this talented group of young athletes, and get them to identify with the sport in a really positive way. What we know about younger ages is you can’t really pick winners and losers. You can only really identify a group. So this group is big, because we want to throw as big a net around as big a group as possible. As they move up through the U.S. Ski Team training camp food chain, if you will, the groups that are selected as they get older become inherently smaller. This U16 camp is the first step for many of the kids in the U.S. Ski Team Development Pipeline; that’s why we have 20-25 boys and 20-25 girls from across the country at this camp.
The coaches
RK: I’ve been doing it every year (myself and three other people started the camp and the other three are gone), but there’s another couple coaches who have been, by and large, helping on and off over several years. So it’s a nice mix of people who have been at the camp and know how it flows with some other people. Every year we have eight to ten coaches who come and help with the camp; we have coaches from NCAA institutions, we have top club coaches – and this builds better relationships and fosters more cooperative relationships among them. It’s a little bit less of, “we need to beat them” and a little bit more of, “how can we work together to push the sport forward?” We also oftentimes have a few younger coaches at the camp, and it’s a great coaches educational tool.
The speakers
RK: All of the athletes on national team are so hyper-focused for the Olympic Games that’s it’s really hard for them to put in any extra time for travel, and they have a really big camp coming up in New Zealand in a little bit; we didn’t really want to push that. We have our own Gold Team here and so they’re going to do a panel. The Gold Team that we have is great because we have national champions, NCAA champions, U23 world championship team members and people who have been top 10 at U23s. You get a variety, and just like we have a wide range of kids here who are all different personality types, our Gold Team is a wide range.
The goals
1. Build community
RK: We’re trying to identify talent, and we’re trying to get them to connect to the sport by creating a culture around the U.S. Ski Team Development Pipeline that really fosters the positive messages associated with sport. We have to recognize that many of these talented athletes at this age are also engaged in other sports. So a big part of this is to build community among this group of athletes and get them to identify with the sport so that, as they continue to evolve and grow in it, they ultimately pick cross country. Aerobic talent is aerobic talent, so it’s not surprising that some of our best kids are really good at running, or really good at biking or swimming. And they’re being courted by those other sports as well, so we have to be aware of that.
2. Impart ski knowledge
RK: Every evening is an opportunity for us to give the athletes very very detailed, and hopefully insightful, sport knowledge. We recognize that no camp in and of itself is going to be an adequate substitute for training at home really effectively. You have to be able to utilize your club at home and take the motivation and information that you get from a camp like this, which often is being reinforced by the coach at home. Its not a strategy of the U.S. Ski Team to have the Development Pipeline be a replacement for home programs; we are just simply a support system for those programs. We’re reinforcing messaging, which is really key in a way that is hopefully transformational – that encourages change in behaviors. Because you can message people all day long, but without a consequent change for the better, you’re talking in the breeze.
One of the biggest things that we message regarding sport education is having a flexible, adaptive mindset. When athletes come to something like this, they’re going to see some differences, because they’re shoulder to shoulder with all these other really good kids who they may not really know that well. Being at this camp demystifies the approach that the other kid may be using, but they also may be getting some really poignant, powerful lessons like, “well, that kid isn’t cutting the workout short.” Or, “this kid is actually paying attention when a coach is talking about form.” It’s that sort of learning that occurs organically in this kind of really heightened opportunity.
Not every moment is this opportunity for creative insight. Artists don’t work that way, and neither do people whose work requires a lot of psychological engagement partnered with skill application – not every day is focused or the best day. So one of the things about a camp like this, is it really sort of elevates your psychological readiness and your physical readiness to take a jump forward. And that’s what we hope happens.
3. Challenge athletes to train hard
RK: These kids are starting, through their successes in skiing, to identify themselves as potentially unique athletes that have the set of capacities that will allow them to grow and excel in the sport. A training plan for the week looks like double days every day, except the day we run the Harper’s hill climb time trial, and then they get an afternoon off. So they’ll have five days of double days and two days of single days. What’s really cool about doing the camp in a place like here, surrounded by these beautiful mountains, is we’ll do a long peak-to-peak over distance the final day of the camp. For a lot of kids, they may not have spent any real time in the mountains yet, so that’s a good introduction for them.
The aftermath
RK: We do a lot of tracking with kids in the camp. We see a lot of kids who are in the middle of the selection process elevate, which makes the competitive standard in the country better. This is an important thing to understand - when the camp is big, one of the ways we push skiing ahead is not just by trying to make the faster kids faster, but by trying to make the middle kids faster, because it holds the faster kids to a higher standard. So we’re trying to elevate the whole group, and that’s what we see happening. We see kids in the camp improve during the week, but we’re also seeing that the standard at JNs, which is the primary way we have to assess these athletes, is tightening, is getting better. It’s getting harder to bust into the top 10 now than it was 10 years ago. Is that just because of this camp? Certainly not. There are more coaches doing a better job and who are better engaged, but it’s one of the pieces of the puzzle that’s so important. And for most of the kids, the first really big international opportunity is the Scandinavian series, where the U.S. sends its six best boys and girls to some place in Scandinavia; the oldest kids in this group will become eligible for that trip this coming winter. We’re seeing that the lion's share of kids who go are coming through this camp. And that’s not surprising, because we’re taking the top kids – but we’re also seeing improvement of performance at the Scandinavian series every year, incrementally. And again, it’s all this collective effort on the part of the home coaches and the part of camps like this, and reinforcing the same messages. We’re just trying to create this landscape where there are many opportunities for kids to engage with the sport, challenge themselves, learn and progress.
Athletes arrived last night; training begins today and continues through Sunday, July 30.
SVSEF Marks Olympic Day with Community-Wide Celebration
Olympic Day 2017 did not disappoint as the Wood River Valley community turned out to pay tribute our local Olympians and Paralympians, herald the 2018 Winter Games in PyeongChang, and celebrate the Olympic spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play.
Despite the small town vibe of the valley, we boast big talent on an international level evidenced by the 15 luminaries who graced the stage at Ketchum Town Square Wednesday evening.
On hand to celebrate Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation’s fourth annual Olympic Day were athletes Charles Ferries (1960/1964, Alpine Skiing), Dates Fryberger (1964, Ice Hockey), Terry Palmer (1972, Alpine Skiing), Maria Maricich (1984, Alpine Skiing), Reggie Crist (1992, Alpine Skiing), Greg Randolph (1996, Cycling), Sondra Van Ert (1998/2002, Snowboard), Jonna Mendes (1998/2002, Alpine Skiing), Muffy Davis (1998/2002/2012, Alpine Skiing and Hand Cycling), Hilary Knight (2010/2014, Ice Hockey), Jake Adicoff (2014, Cross Country Skiing), and alpine coaches Michel Rudigoz, Phil McNichol and Ferries.
Also introduced to the crowd was SVSEF’s Gold Team, consisting of elite cross country athletes Mary Rose, Kevin Bolger, Jack Hegman, Cole Morgan and Matt Gelso. Deedra Irwin, Rogan Brown and Kelsey Phinney were unable to attend.
Olympic Day is staged in 160 countries around the world and observed by millions of people who come together to celebrate the Olympic pillars of move, learn and discover. More than 2,100 Olympic Day celebrations were staged nationwide with nearly a million participants.
SVSEF’s incarnation of Olympic Day consisted of a Scavenger Hunt which took 12 participating youth teams throughout Ketchum to find the names of Olympians and Paralympians, everyday items and test their local knowledge. "Team Berrylicious" with Skye Pringle, Scarlett Pringle, Isabella Hattrup, Marley Macco and Channing won the championship with 75 points. "Various Garbonzos" comprised of O.T. Mullen, Walker Pate, Oscar Mullen, Keaton Pate and Paxton Sammis was second with 65 points.
Kids of all ages could also be found testing their physical prowess on Ski Erg cross country trainers, Skier’s Edge, rowing machines, and hockey station with a “shooter tutor,” which received a ton of play with 2018 national women’s hockey team member Hilary Knight in attendance.
Once on the square, revelers partook in food and drink provided by local businesses, including The Cellar Pub, Ketchum Grill, The Haven, Dave’s Smokin’ Meats, Sawtooth Brewery and Leroy’s. Dennis McNamara was the grand prize winner of the raffle, taking home a Mammut avalanche backpack and air cartridge donated by The Elephant's Perch. Event support was also provided by Morgan's Fine Finishes and Swire Coca Cola.
Throughout the night, the five-piece band High Mountain Heard with front men SVSEF coach James Tautkus and Luc McCann (whose daughter, Mykala, wowed the crowd with her impassioned version of “Wagon Wheel”) graced center stage.
Three-time Paralympic gold medalist Muffy Davis cut the ribbon on a new panel on the square that bears the names – including her own – of five Sun Valley Paralympic athletes, four of whom are SVSEF alumni; Jake Adicoff and guide Reid Pletcher and Elitsa Storey, as well as Lacey Heward.
SVSEF Executive Director Sam Adicoff remarked, “Unlike past years, Olympic Day wasn’t just for the SVSEF athletes and families. We invited the entire community to participate and share in the Olympic and SVSEF ideals of sportsmanship, citizenship, and character. Based on the extremely positive feedback, we will continue to host this event for Wood River Valley residents and visitors alike in years to come.”
Alumni Spotlight: Corey Warren '04
Corey Warren '04 has seen multiple sides of SVSEF; he skied on the freestyle team, and returned a few years later as a coach. He now spends his time as a photographer, videographer and visual designer based out of Seattle. Learn more about what Corey has learned from building a business and pursuing an artistic career, and what lessons he's taken with him from the Wood River Valley.
What has your journey since living in the Wood River Valley looked like? How was the transition, from growing up here to attending college and to moving to a city? Did you feel prepared for those changes? How did you get started in art and design?
Since graduating from Community School in 2004, I have lived in Portland, OR, Moscow, ID, Bellingham, WA, Ketchum briefly, and now Seattle, WA. I went to four different colleges and managed to still graduate in four years, which was an entire journey on its own. Immediately after graduating from Western Washington University in Bellingham in 2008, my best friend let me in on a business idea and we started as partners in a skate/snow/gallery/print shop. I wore many hats and co-created INNATE, whose brand mantra was “a natural philosophy,” and encouraged the discovery and implementation of the innate talents of each and every individual for the greater good. We had a five-year run and disbanded in 2013. I had a short stint in Idaho coaching ski team for a season before moving back to Seattle to settle into my new life as a freelance creative. Now I’ve spent almost four years in Seattle and I’m finally finding my rhythm, uncovering the potential of the city and learning every step of the way. The transition from Idaho to Oregon to Washington was pretty natural and I did feel prepared, especially coming from Community School. This probably isn’t the time or place for it but one thing no one seems to be prepared enough about is the reality of finances and credit, which is an immediate and hard-hitting reality for many when they leave for school and become increasingly more independent from their parents. We need to implement more realistic curriculum in addition to the existing stuff.
Did you have a sense for a while that you wanted to start your own business, or is that something that developed over time or with certain experiences?
My whole family is pretty creative and have run their own businesses my whole life, so I think a lot of my creativity comes from being around it all the time and having cultivated it slowly over my entire childhood. I was always starting new businesses and coming up with new products and logos, so it evolved naturally into college when I needed to have a focus. The internet has been an incredible resource for me to get inspiration, post my own work and get feedback, and discover what’s happening in every little facet of art, design, film, etc. I’m a super visual and tactile person, really aesthetically incentivized with an A-type personality, so design and art are really natural outlets for me to make sense of the world.
You’ve got this company, Idahome, which resonates with a lot of locals. You’ve been in Seattle for a number of years – what parts of Idaho did you take with you, in addition to the inspiration for that brand? What are the goals and values of the company?
In regards to Idahome, I try to keep the glory, the grit, and the grandeur alive with the content I post and the products we sell, which are limited. The topography design, the county lines design, and the classic are all mountain/geography inspired and resonate with locals. Idaho is raw and genuine, it’s fresh and clean and represents the center of the universe to me— everything revolves around Idaho in my world; I’ll always gravitate back there, in my mind or physically. I’d like to grow Idahome to the point that it’s self sustaining and I can focus on design and marketing. I’m always trying to find the best products with the smallest ecological and humanitarian footprint, and the content of the work will always remain positive, uplifting and showcase the natural beauty of Idaho. I’d really like to lock in some long term ecological partners to form alliances with people on the ground doing work and speaking up for the environment.
On the most challenging aspect of building a company:
Building a company is an expression of one’s own passions with the caveat of having to make a profit. It’s firstly a challenge to balance the idea of making money on your passions with keeping them separate and pure. Secondly, you can’t be risk-averse and need to be willing to dive head-on into uncomfortable situations and put more on the line than you’re used to, because it’s greater than yourself and affects more people than one. Lastly, momentum and consistency are key, and that takes dedication and persistence. It goes without saying all these qualities are not readily accessible in everyone and running a business separates one type of person from another. Idahome is still in its infancy and should be seeing some growth over the next couple years! Stay tuned.
How do you keep yourself motivated and inspired as an artist?
On motivation and inspiration… it’s a fickle thing! I can’t always conjure it but I’m finding that one has to at least be in touch with their own schedule and what times of day are best for which types of work. I am a night owl and produce a ton of my best conceptual work at night. Newly born creations are best for mornings, and finishing ongoing projects for the evening. I like to use the days to play and exercise/ get errands done so the evening I can lock into my flow and be productive. Schedule is paramount to creativity but so is spontaneity, so again, a balance…. such is life, eh?
Aside from your own businesses, you work for Matador Network; what do you do for them, and what do you enjoy most about working there?
I’m a freelance content producer for Matador Network, which means I travel to destinations around North America for various clients of theirs, and create video and photo content for their brands. Sometimes I cover events, sometimes I create an entire experience for the viewer with a montage of all the activities one can do in a particular area. Sometimes I do more commercial work but the majority is destination marketing content. I love the travel and schedule, and the opportunity it’s afforded me to learn the art of run and gun film making (essentially making short, loosely-scripted documentary films out of your backpack).
How do you describe the value of a program like SVSEF? What aspects of the program have you carried over or applied to your current jobs, or any steps or experiences that have come in between? To life in general?
The SVSEF was an incredible family for me as a child. I can’t think of a better structure for a kid to engage with, or a better organization to grow within. The discipline, autonomy, and self confidence are the biggest things I took away from the program. Knowing I was capable of accomplishing my goals, small or large, is a huge part of my identity and growth into who I am now. We are incredibly fortunate to have a ski culture so accessible to us in the WRV, because it’s such an unrealistic and rare lifestyle to be able to live.
You coached for SVSEF for a bit; what was that like, to return to the program from a different standpoint?
Coaching that one season was an incredible, surreal experience for me. Seeing that program from the coach’s perspective was a trip, with the reversal of roles catching me off guard at first. Coaching ski team is the most fun job ever, and I was just reminded of how incredible both Sun Valley and the SVSEF program are. The role the the SVSEF has in children's’ lives is paramount to their success in life and I mean that wholeheartedly. The structure, experience and character building that happens there is invaluable, and to be packaged in such an encouraging lifestyle is what makes it so unique and special.
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve received?
I can’t be sure that this is the best advice I’ve ever gotten, but here are a few things:
- Never do two illegal things at the same time.
- Be true to yourself and surround yourself with people that make you the best person you can be.
- Enjoy the process and practice gratitude… life slips by quickly and it’s important to remain in a state of awe and amazement at the experience we get to have, uncomfortable or not. Gratitude is the attitude!
- It’s not about staying out of the rain, it’s about learning to dance in the storm!
How have you come to define success?
Defining success takes experience, plain and simple. One has to live life and learn what they resonate with, what makes them tick, what incentivizes them and what challenges them. When our moral framework is developed, we are able to build on a foundation of understanding about the world that informs our choices and how we can stretch ourselves to achieve our goals. Success can be so many things to so many people…to me, success is having true friends, having a healthy mind and body, and continuing to cultivate a sense of awe and wonder about the world until the very end. Success is having a positive and long-lasting effect on people and the world around you.
Congratulations to the Class of 2017
Graduation from high school is a milestone for SVSEF athletes, and not just from an academic perspective. Student-athletes who have participated in SVSEF programming have managed to juggle academic requirements with time-intensive training and competition schedules – not to mention all of the other hobbies and interests they have invested in beyond school and snowsports. This year, SVSEF saw 19 student-athletes graduate from high school and from the organization; 16 from Community School and three from Wood River High School. Of those, 10 athletes have made their way through the programs and teams of SVSEF since they were 12 years old or younger.
Twelve SVSEF athletes are going on to top colleges and universities across the country. Making the transition to higher education programs are Brody Buchwalter (Montana State), Cooper Dart (Bowdoin College), Blake Deilke (University of Denver), Lukas DeWolfe (University of Puget Sound), Addy Jacobsen (Western State University), Kiran Merchant (Brown University), Keene Morawitz (Dartmouth College), Katelyn Rathfon (St. Mary’s College of California), Sage Rheinschild (Santa Barbara City College), Nikki Sabiers (Montana State Honors Program), Alexandra Schaffner (Whitman College), and Peter Wolter (Middlebury College). Keene Morawitz and Peter Wolter will both continue in their sport of cross country skiing at their respective schools; Keene will represent the Big Green at Dartmouth, and Peter will race for the Panthers at Middlebury.
Six graduates will be staying with SVSEF for a post grad year on the alpine FIS team. John Blackburn (deferred at Montana State University), Charlie Lamb, Noah Leininger, Erin Smith, Hayden Terjeson and Spencer Wright (deferred at University of Denver) will continue to train and compete under the tutelage of top FIS coaches here in the Wood River Valley.
The final graduate is Filippo Collini, who attended Community School as an international student and was a member of the FIS team. Filippo will return to Italy for another year of school.
With the graduation of our athletes, we look forward to seeing how courage will supersede conformity, how passion will dispel fear of failure, how a sense of self will bolster resilience, and how all of these qualities will support an inclination to embrace opportunity, gain new perspective and continue to grow as individuals and as community members. Congratulations, Class of 2017!