First post

I've been in my usual spring quiet and thinking mode long enough. Once July comes around it's time to start putting the ideas down. Here's to a productive and word-filled summer on my favorite subjects: Ski Racing and coaching it...

First things first... I'm getting ready for an upcoming trip to Chile with five of our athletes from Loon and one from Michigan. Our recently upwardly mobile career coach Nick Foster has signed on.. I think he got me to agree to it over Sushi a few short nights ago, and frankly I'm really psyched. Although I'd like to think my 41 year old body still has some game in the gates... my back tells me not so much when it comes to carrying them. This will be the best athlete-to-coach ratio that we've ever had. It'll be a luxury. Good thing I don't do these trips for much of a profit, though! My sources tell me they've already gotten over 3 meters (that's 10 feet!) of snow, and we still have a month to go. Could I get a little "amen," people?

Keystone, aka Winter Park: On the other end of the spectrum, we've already got 32+ athletes signed up... young group, naturally, owing to the same demographic profile of the Loon Race Team. I changed the venue from Keystone, then changed the hotel, pretty much to suit demand. Fortunately, my constituency is pretty used to these types of changes & seem to trust my judgment. For the most part we've been lucky every time a change is made. I want nothing more than the best fall training camp in the country. Why don't we make it a big commercial offering? Look two sentences back.

Herminator switches to HEAD. OK, I guess that officially makes Head the "Home of the Charismatic later career world-champion-caliber" brand. No doubt the great results Bode got last year on Head's speed skis were not lost upon him. And, of course, there's the $$$. Where Head is getting it I frankly couldn't tell you.