Skiers Just are a Little Different

Skiers just really are little different. 

As I watch one of my skiers work on her final project in my art class it occurs to me.

 

Skiers really are different. 

I walk up to her, stand by here and ask her to tell me more about her image.  She says “well this is how I felt after my broken heart, my mouth is sewn shut because I felt speechless.  I was holding my hand in my heart after I ripped it out of my chest and you see that is why there is bandages around my rib cage.” 

Stunned, I look around the room, I see one student on her phone another talking excitedly about getting out of the high school in just 5 weeks. 

Skiers are just really are different. 

Skiers are self-driven, maybe a little bit socially awkward but smart.  They so are so smart!  I know I am not supposed to tell them that… growth mind set and all that jazz, but they really are smart! 

Is it the time out in the woods, sliding on boards in unstable conditions?  Is it the conversation that hums around every practice riddled with sexy minded topics?  Maybe it is the BDNF that is released in their brains as they work out.  It is like miracle grow for the brain.  Who knows but I am here to say that the LHS ski team alumni list is racking up some seriously impressive accomplishments. 

Just this Sunday I sat at brunch with one of my alumni skiers, he talked excitedly about teaching at the Teton Science school for the summer after graduating with honors with a degree in Biology from MSU.  I ask him how his sister is doing, another alum, and he says “Well she is in her second semester of law school, she is so smart Becca and she isn’t selling out Becca, she wants to go into the good kind of lawering Becca.”  I smile and I am so proud. 

My mind drifts to thinking about this years graduates.  One student body president organizing a blood drive, one getting in to Harvard and MIT after racking up 3 individual state championships in skiing and leading his team to the first team championship, one running NCAA for UW after receiving Gatorade athlete of the year.  Another walking down the hall arm and arm with special needs students and one going on to pursue her dream in acting. Another senior interviews me for his journalism class and asks “Why did you start coaching Becca?  Have there been any funny times or any scary times when you have been coaching? 

I jump in to the story about the time that three skiers who smuggled 100 gold fish on to the bus along with rocks and fake coral and put an entire fish tank into my bathtub in the hotel in Pinedale.  Then I tell him “there haven’t been that many scary times but there have been stressful times.”  Times when I felt that if I missed the kick wax I might wreak my skiers chance at a state championship, times when I have felt like I should have spoken up a little bit more when I felt the conditions were unsafe and one of my skiers suffered from a dislocated hip. 

There have also been those times that bus rides proved to be a bit more exciting than I had planned.  Like the time we broke down outside of Wamsutter and we spent four hours on the side of the road.  There was the time that I had just settled down for a nap and we hit an eagle that broke our windshield that, then for the rest of the drive to Lander I heard glass falling piece by piece on to the bus floor.  When I we got to Lander, the coach asked what took you so long and one ski parent saying you really should write this stuff down Becca. 

Coaching, it’s an adventure most definitely the hardest thing that I have ever done but also the most beautiful, awe inspiring and passionate thing I have done as well. 

And the love, the love for it all.  

That is what makes skiers so different.  The love for the cold dark nights at practices, the burn of the cold air on lungs and in legs, the numb fingers, toes and greenish white noses.  The “after race cough” and yes the changing of wet cloths in cold bus sets. 

It all builds grit.  Grit that is now identified as being the number one quality in highly accomplished people.  Grit that gets you through broken hearts, hard decisions and leadership roles. 

This is where “the stoke” comes from and where dragons are slayed whether you are given Excalibur or a dull pencil.