How To Survive in a Vacuous Anti-Nordic-Inclined Culture
By xcskiworld.com Contributing Editor Andrew Gardner
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Begin Early.
Cult like devotion to the sport is important. If possible, be born into a family that has rich Nordic History- barring that, select a birthplace that is heavy with skiing culture: Alaska is good. Norway is better. Avoid places like Hoboken or Texas. Have pictures taken of you in diapers clutching photos of Jackrabbit Johnson or Sixten Jernberg. Show these to your dates in junior high. They’ll leave calling you a loser. This is important suffering to serve you later in your race career. Save this.
Try other sports through adolescence. You are competent but you hate them. One day someone will tell you, “You can be a basketball player or you can be a skier,” in the hopes of strengthening your attraction to basketball. Never pick up a basketball again.
In your youth, your parents will take you skiing. Lay down in the snow about a half kilometer in on the trail. Refuse to move. They will ski away leaving you no choice but to get up and ski again. Celebrate this when you are older and see the same apathy in the juniors you coach.
Race often in your youth. Keep training logs. Pay attention to the color and consistency of your urine. Keep posters of Erling Jevne. Read all that you can about skiing. Skip school to ski. Live a life dedicated solely, myopically, and sadly dedicated only to skiing.
Race.
Race some more.
Keep racing.
Leave the racing scene broke, frustrated and disenchanted with skiing.
Try Real Estate. Investment Banking is good. Find a ‘normal’ life. Go to church on Sundays. Watch football. Try to forget skiing. This will sustain you until the novelty of such a life fades. Usually it will start to -- as Aelin Peterson described of her return to skiing -- “haunt you” in a way. There will be an itch that cannot be scratched anytime white precipitation falls.
Overhear conversations about Lance Armstrong’s VO2 max. Your ears will burn when someone says it is the “highest ever recorded.”
“No.” You will explain calmly. That would be Bjorn Dahlie.
“Who’s Bjorn Dahlie?” Someone will ask with a face as blank as fresh classic tracks.
Mumble never mind. Quit your job. Stumble on a Nordic skiing internet site. They are pithy and isolated: little bits of Nordic news in an otherwise void of the sport.
Look them up every day.
You start to be lonely. Name your cats “Fischer” and “Swix.” Your appearance starts to fade.
While searching the Nordic websites you come across a listing for a “junior coaching position” in (fill in ideal ski location here). You take it.
On your first days of practice, the students are shocked when you suggest the weekly workouts. Suggest that they:
Keep training logs. Pay attention to the color and consistency of their urine. Keep posters of Erling Jevne. Read all that they can about skiing. Skip school to ski. Live a life dedicated solely, myopically, and sadly dedicated only to skiing.
“Who is Erling Jevne?” They will ask. Smile. This is important patience that will serve you in your coaching career. Schedule more intervals. Buy videos from NCCSEF. Buy overboots. Look for the hidden snippets of Nordic talent hidden within each of your skiers. Laugh when students grow, progress and extol the virtues of the new Extra Blue formula over its forty year old predecessor.
Grow old with the sport. Coach at Junior Nationals. Coach at World Juniors. Bring Coffee to coaches at the Olympics. Become a TD. Sit through meetings. When your life flashes before your eyes it will be a haze of ski wax and coaches meetings. Buy a house on the Birkie trail, or in McCall, or better yet in Sweden.
Die penniless and happy clutching photos of Gunde Svan or Bente Skari.
Andrew Gardner skis for Fischer skis, Alpina boots, and Swix poles. He is the Nordic program director for the Colorado Rocky Mountain School.
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