Training & Technique: Cross Country Skiing at xcskiworld.com

In Search Of The Best Basketball-Playing-XC-Skier-In-The-Land (and other adventures on the way to Kansas)

An original Education Archived Feature by xcskiworld.com Editor J.D. Downing

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Foreword: This may seem like a strange edition to the XC Ski Education Journal but I assure readers that this piece has something to say about XC ski education despite the awkward title. In February 1997 I traveled from Oregon out to Lawrence, Kansas on a pilgrimage totally unrelated to XC skiing.

The premise for this unusual trip was actually quite simple. A young fellow from my home town was starting his final three home games for the basketball team at the University of Kansas. Since I had known Jerod since he was two and I had the time and resources to make the trip, I decided that I would head out to the legendary Allen Fieldhouse in Lawrence, Kansas and soak up a little of the hoop hysteria that is midwestern basketball. Along the way I discovered a host of interrelated skiing stories and thoughts I just had to share with other XC ski educators. Thus was born the following....

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The Importance Of Saying You Care

Just before setting out, I was enjoying a pleasant evening chatting with friends when I learned the news of the recent suicide of XC Skier and Biathlete Angie Stevenson. Though I only knew Angie in skiing circles, I still found myself reflecting on the importance of saying you care to those you come in contact with in life.

All too often I have found myself assuming, as many of us do, that the people around me know I care and that I am there for them when they need me. XC Skiing naturally attracts independent spirits but even the most independent individual still can use some help now and then.

As coaches, parents, athletes and teachers, a major part of the ski education process is investment in the human being as much as the athlete. To this end, we have to let others know we care and be really willing to help whenever, however and wherever help is needed. This is, in many ways, far more difficult a task and yet, far more satisfying than describing proper V-1 technique or nailing a perfect wax job could ever be.

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Missing Links

As I headed out across the Great Basin and into the Rockies I found myself contemplating the viability of XC Ski programs in different places along the route. (By the way, I fully realize this is a form of manic-obsessive behavior but then again, this is coming from someone willing to drive 2000 miles to watch college basketball games! :-)

Cruising thru Idaho, Utah and then Colorado I discovered town after town that fit the exact criteria for ideal XC Ski communities put forth in the Club Development Series--many right along the major freeways! Along the sparsely populated I-84 in southern Idaho I passed through three or four cities within 20-30 minutes of perfectly suitable high mountain valleys with plenty of snow and terrain. In Utah I drove through no less than a dozen different communities with the potential for excellent ski programs.

The reality? None of the communities I "discovered"...all with such fabulous natural resources...not a one had a single kilometer of XC trails.

As I continued along I began to reflect on one of the major problems of North American XC development...that being the missing links between solid programs.

Sun Valley, Idaho has what is widely considered to be the best single junior program and community Club in the U.S.. This title is not only based on the truckloads of junior medals Sun Valley garners every year but also on how closely the program matches the "ideal" program outlined in the Development Series. Community ski trails; a Club competition system; community awareness and interactivity; a first-class major event--the Boulder Mountain Tour; a vibrant youth program emphasizing the sport-for-life ethos...Sun Valley seemingly has it all.

Except neighbors.

Look at Sun Valley/Ketchum on a map. Now start drawing a big circle from Pocatello up to Jackson, Wyoming and West Yellowstone, Montana...you're not done yet...now go all the way over to McCall and Boise. That's the nearest neighbors to America's best junior program.

Yet what is truly frustrating is that all around Sun Valley are communities with consistent snow in town or nearby that could easily have excellent ski programs.

This is by no means a unique situation!

An educated guess would put the total number of high school aged skiers in all of California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah and Montana roughly equal to or less than the number of teenage skiers in just the state of Alaska..a state with one of the smallest total population bases in the U.S.!

Missing links are not exclusive to the Western U.S. either.

You can go into the heart of North America and over into New England, Quebec, Ontario, etc. and find literally hundreds upon hundreds of communities that are snowbound every winter...all winter. Yeah, yeah, snow can be inconsistent but the point is that 8 years in 10 there's over 10 weeks of skiing in all those places. The thing that breaks your heard is that many of these places have existing groomed skiing nearby. So where the heck are the ski programs??? If a state like Minnesota currently has 1000 high school kids on snow, another 1000-2000 could be if the programs simply existed for them. Missing links.

Why is distance such a big problem? Here's a theory.

The "island" youth/junior programs expend so much energy, time and money just trying to manage themselves and get to races that they are left exhausted when it comes time to try new ideas for themselves or help new programs get started. The same could be said for adult in the community that have to invest a similar amount to keep themselves in the middle of things.

Missed school days, family disruptions, motel/transportation expenses, staffing/logistical planning and just the sheer effort required to constantly be driving large distances throughout the winter add up over the years. Cross country skiing is the toughest sport going to begin with but when athletes and families add on the increased demands of traveling 20-25 days out of state each winter just to get in a few races...many kids, individuals and families start looking at other activities.

Worse, of the kids we do attract, many of them are so road-weary by 18 that they disappear from competitive circles upon H.S. graduation never to be seen from again. Now that breaks your heart.

Further, even in areas where the logistical demands are not quite as great, even just a one hour gap between towns with ski programs can make a huge difference. Community interest and excitement in young people can only be maintained if people have a viable point of reference. The closer programs are to one another, the greater the likelihood that a strong program is going to "breed" another strong program. Similarly, a strong program can learn "new tricks" from up and coming programs far more readily if they are in constant contact with other coaches, other athletes, other trail systems, and so forth. The fewer the programs, the more physical and philosophical distance between programs...the greater the likelihood we will remain mired in mediocrity.

Solution? Fill in the missing links. Unfortunately this is much easier said than done. As our Development Series outlines, it takes a considerable amount of time and energy to start programs from scratch...especially when you donÕt have an established commercial area or Club tradition to build off of. Few communities are going to have the wealth of a Sun Valley, Idaho for instance. Thus the key, I decided on my journey east, is to start with high potential areas that are closest to strong, existing programs and slowly build and bridge from there.

As I ruminated after leaving the mountain states (believe me, you drive across eastern Colorado and Kansas, you are going to do some ruminating...boy howdy!), I came to a powerful conclusion. Let's call it J.D.'s thereom of "how to succeed in XC skiing".

Depth solves all problems. Cultural bias...lack of money...lack of tradition...lack of media coverage...lack of programs...etc...etc.. There is nothing that depth cannot solve.

Of course, this expansion can only happen if existing programs are willing and able to invest their own time and resources to support new "neighborhood" programs. Not too long ago a major program leader floored me by saying that he didnÕt want to invest in a new race weekend put on by a struggling "neighborhood" start-up program because..."it doesnÕt represent a viable competitive situation for us".

This attitude reflects a major part of the missing link problem since the existing program would rather travel 6-8 hours out-of-state to see supposed "viable competition" than invest one weekend supporting a new local/regional program regardless of the relative value of the competition. Just as athletes must make choices out on the course, so too must program leaders when deciding between short term and long term vision.

Ultimately, the long-term success of any ski nation will lie in the depth and quality of our developmental programs. As hard as places such as Sun Valley work to produce future champions, their best efforts will continually be compromised unless we can find ways to build new programs in the towns just down the road.

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The Best Basketball Playing XC Skier In The Land

Location: Lawrence, Kansas.

As I roll into the Mecca of college hoops, I am reminded of a funny event that occurred back at the 1991 U.S. Nationals in Lake Placid, New York.

Towards the end of the racing week a few of us needed to blow off a little steam and decided to try and drum up a game of basketball in the Olympic Training Center gym. As we entered the gym we realized the only way we could play was if we took on a group of very big and very fast-twitch-endowed fellows in town for the bobsled try-outs (this was back when the bobsled team was recruiting guys like NFL star Herschel Walker and Olympic track and field stud Willie Gault to maximize speed and power in the pushers). To my fellow skiers' dismay and the sledders amusement I quickly arranged for a skier versus sledder full court game with our skier team augmented by a luger that actually turned out to be shorter than my intimidating not-quite-5'8"-frame.

Needless to say, the sledders had an average of five or six inches on all of us skiers. In a weird twist of fate, as the memories came back to me, I recalled that Angie Stevenson was also one of our teammates...which was a good thing since she was one of our best shooters!

At any rate, the sledders proceeded to score 10 or so straight baskets giggling the whole time at how easy this was. But then just as my fellow skiers were getting a little fed up with the beating, the sun started to shine on exactly why you never want to get into a pick-up basketball game with a bunch of elite XC Skiers.

You see, there weren't any time outs in this game and we hadn't set a score limit. Sure we were down 10 baskets but just as fast as the sledders would scor...boom...back down the court we'd go firing up shots right and left, sliding around after every loose ball, and applying full-court, banzai defense everytime the sledders have the ball.

Plenty of jocks and jockettes think they can play hard for a long time but nobody, no...body, can play longer, harder and with more total, absolute, reckless abandon than a group of elite XC Skiers needing to blow off a little steam. You can stick that in your Tubby Smith and smoke it.

As a result...we proceeded to shred the toboggan boys into ground chuck. After a half hour or so, frustration was starting to show up especially after a new group of bobsledders showed up and commenced into a carefully chosen round of, I believe the term is "trash talk", directed at our court victims. We finish out the game and, yep, you guessed it. The exact same thing happens with the new guys. Fall behind big early then we run them into the ground.

As thoughts of the triumph in Lake Placid float thru my road-weary mind, I hit upon the notion that the reason for this whole expedition...my Kansas Jayhawk friend...was in all probability, the very best basketball playing XC Skier in all the land...if not the entire world.

You see, Jerod Haase grew up as the youngest of five children in South Lake Tahoe, California. His eldest three siblings all won individual CNISF (Cal/Nevada) Bi-State XC Skiing Championships and his two sisters both garnered several NCSA All-American honors with the eldest, Mara, winning the 84' NCSA individual title. Jerod tagged along at citizen races for years before being lured into basketball. Nevertheless, he knew how to ski and had skied often in his childhood thus he was eligible to hold the aforementioned title.

My joy at this realization combined with the earlier Lake Placid story led to additional reflections about what makes competitive XC Skiers go. Ever since Jerod started playing basketball, fans from high school to college have been amazed at the hustle, heart and complete emersion in the game he displays night after night. This tied in very nicely with the Lake Placid "bobsledders go quietly" story as it showed the kind of athlete that makes a good XC Skier.

When somebody says "go" to a racer like Bjorn Daehlie or Elena Valbe there is a switch that is triggered that allows the individual to redline effort until the finish line is crossed. Sure Daehlie and Valbe's sheer speed on snow is faster than any other human but that doesn't mean that plenty of other skiers aren't also triggering the same kind of switch at other levels. As a coach, I've long held the belief that all of us have have this switch but that XC Skiing attracts more than its' share.

Team and skill sport athletes, even at very high levels, can often get away with avoiding maximum effort just because their physical skills are so great (i.e. 99.9% of the N.B.A.). Perhaps that is why a player like Jerod stands out so much in the hyper-analyzed world of big-time college basketball.

Here is, at the root of things, a cross country skier out on a basketball court. His natural endless drive enables the skier-turned-hoops-star not only to match up with bigger and faster players but often out-play them on sheer guts and execution. Afterall, in XC Skiing there are no time outs, no out-of-bounds, no free throws, no half-time. Coaches can't re-group the team or fire people up. Once the race starts there is no turning back. Go all out...really all out... all the time. If you don't, others will. The essence of competitive cross country skiing. The essence of the best basketball playing skier in the land.

Rock Chalk Jayhawk.

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Point Number One...From One To Another

Over the past couple decades I have heard just about every kind of excuse imaginable for why non-European countries struggle in Nordic sports. Interestingly I have also been amused to hear many of the very same excuses applied to other endurance sports just barely doing better than XC Skiing in the U.S.. Regardless, I've heard them all but in the end perhaps nothing could be more significant two things I witnessed while in Kansas.

Little kids, parents, grandparents, entire families wrapped up in a single activity....together. Basketball in the U.S. Midwest is as big as comes in the athletic world. Like Brazilian soccer. Like Swiss/Austrian alpine skiing. Like Kenyan running. Like French/Italian cycling. Very much like Scandinavian/Russian XC Skiing. Of course you can list many similarities such as media attention and cultural tradition but the bottom line still comes back to a love and appreciation of the sport being passed down from generation to generation.

What I witnessed in Allen Fieldhouse is absolutely no different than what you can find at the Norwegian Holmenkollen or at the Tour de France or at the Brazilian Soccer Cup Finals. Things like little kids with autographed players jerseys, students waiting in shifts for tickets for up to a week at a time, three and four generation groups watching games together, all of this makes up the heart and soul of success in any sport...any activity for that matter.

How does this apply to the primary ski education mission then? From the very beginning we must focus on ways to get entire families and several generations out experiencing that which we find wonderful about XC Skiing--together. Make no mistake, it is not about making XC Skiing more popular than basketball in the U.S. or hockey in Canada. We are never going to outmatch team sports for public interest. But with quarter billion people in the U.S. alone to choose from, XC Skiing doesnÕt have to compete with any other sport. What we do need is for those that choose to participate to really care about the sport, learn all they can and pass on what they learn to anyone and everyone willing to listen. (We also need everyone to visit xcskiworld.com website five times a week and join the American Cross Country Skiers, but that's another story :-)

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Point Number Two...Use every second like it was gold.

Having connections has advantages and thus I found myself sitting down in a nearly empty Phog Allen Fieldhouse to watch a K.U. basketball practice the day in between Big 12 games. The next two hours proved to be as instructional and illuminating as any book, lecture, event or clinic I ever run or read or attended in the ski universe.

What happens in this huge arena is nothing less than a magical connection between a group of coaches and a group of athletes. As I watched, decade-old undergrad sociology theories started to awaken in the crawl spaces of my imagination. Here was not only positive organizational dynamics as itÕs highest level but also a beautiful display of interactive education. As always, I started to apply what I was seeing into XC Skiing education and the functional similarities blew me away.

I'll pause here for this disclaimer...no doubt many readers are going to be very quick to say that coaching or teaching big-time college basketball is worlds away from getting a group of middle schoolers out on classic skis. In addition, I can already here some folks saying that Kansas Coach Roy Williams and his staff enjoy a ridiculous advantage over even U.S. Olympic XC Ski staffs in terms of resources, media focus and paid help. I also fully recognize that the K.U. facilities and the natural logistical advantages of indoor team sports are worlds away from the cold realities of coaching a XC program. However, what I decided while watching the K.U. practice was that it is precisely because of the challenges and difficulties inherent to effective XC Ski education that XC educators need take any and every lesson they can from proven programs in other sports. People, no matter what age, are people. They will respond to carefully constructed systems and methods no matter what the activity is. We might not be able to exactly emulate the Kansas basketball methodology but we sure as heck can learn from it. That said I shall continue.

From the moment the managers first came out to prepare the court for practice you notice that nothing is wasted in a K.U. basketball practice. Equipment is placed in exactly the same place every day. Every manager, player and coach has a specific role detailed in advance. Even the handful of guests (myself included) are only allowed to sit in a specific section of the upper arena quietly observing in the church-like space. Everyone gets a daily sheet outlining the mission for the day, the practice schedule, objectives and goals--both individual and team. So detailed is the practice plan that one manager is assigned just to keep a countdown clock for each block of time. Since basketball games are carefully choreographed into specific blocks of time, so to are the K.U. practices. 5 minutes for this, 15 minutes of that, water breaks, and so on. You get the message very early on here that practice is taken deadly seriously by all involved.

This is the time that coaches get to really teach. This is the time that conditioning, flexibility, agility, power and speed can be worked on and improved. Screw around now and you can bet somebody else somewhere else has utilized the time more efficiently than you...and it will come back to haunt you.

Yet amongst all the organization and direction, Williams and his staff manage to orchestrate a fantastic balance of focus, intensity, laughter, fun and mission. In a blink of an eye the entire assembly can go from light-hearted banter during shoot-arounds to 100% focus during high-speed passing drills. You can tell that all involved really enjoy this time together. As effective as any professor on campus, Williams and his staff masterfully mix lessons and points of emphasis with the occasional bit of humor...and the occasional raised voice. But always the goal is the same. Use this time to learn...develop...grow.

For any cynic that says competition, particularly at this level, inherently brings out the worst in people I challenge anyone to find the negative in a situation like a Kansas basketball practice. No one sits on the bench at practice. Walk-ons and future NBA stars are on equal footing when it comes to improving even minute parts of their game. If a assistant coach wants to bring up a point the floor is theirs. Students and teachers reflect a deep amount of respect and care for one another that is apparent in everything from body language to the complete attention given to any speaker needing to make a group point. Sure these fellows like to win but that is far from the primary goal here. Individual and group development is paramount.

The actual practice schedule offers a wealth of lessons as well. Every practice starts off with a warm-up consisting of a variety of drills, stretches and exercises that progressively involve more and more muscle groups until the players are fully ready to start going at things. This warm-up is often augmented by a weight session. Once ready to go, a series of drills follow with specific groups of players breaking off with different coaches. Again it must be emphasized that zero time is spent explaining or talking. Certainly more instruction was included earlier in the year but at this point (mid-February) everyone is on the same page. Separate group work is followed by full-court drills which is in turn followed by specific scrimmage situations. All the while Williams and his staff miss nothing and leave nothing to chance. Corrections are swift and pointed. Always an emphasis is placed on what to anticipate in the upcoming game. Tendencies, options and opportunities are presented since the players will need to adjust to the situation as it unfolds. The practice gives them insight as to the challenges ahead and prepares them to be able to perform at a maximal level. Right on time things wind down with a full slate of easy exercises and stretching. A quiet final message is imparted and suddenly two hours has flown by. One of the easiest practices of the year I am told.

How does this relate to the world of XC Ski education?

Repeat: Use every second like gold.

I used an example in the Development Series of a junior program I once saw practicing in Cogne, Italy. The similarities between this Italian XC Ski practice and the K.U. basketball practice are startling. Children and teens from youth to college age quickly getting out of cars, classic waxing, breaking up into prearranged groups...all within a matter of minutes. Once in different groups each coach or group leader had a specific agenda for the afternoon. Just like Kansas basketball and just as effective.

It takes organization. It takes planning. It takes effort. It takes experience. But it can...and must, be done.

Program Suggestions (more in the Development Series)

Teach by Teaching

A big part of the effective communication going on in Kansas, as well as in the Italian junior program, is the experience and knowledge base of the coaching staffs. A good ski coach doesn't need to be at the level of a Roy Williams in basketball to be able to effectively communicate but the more you do know, the better you are going to be able to teach.

You donÕt need to be a past superstar athlete either as I diagram in the Development Series. Roy Williams only played in high school and one year on his college freshmen team yet here he is one of the most admired and respected hoop coaches in the world. Although surrounded by a dozen of the best college players in the world he commands absolute respect simply because this guy knows his stuff--and knows how to communicate with young athletes. It is doubtful that Michael Jordan could accomplish one tenth of what Roy Williams has done as a coach even though Williams probably couldn't dunk on a eight foot basket.

For a good XC Ski coach to create the same situation he or she doesn't have to go out and win a World Cup race--they just have be able to teach a student how to win one.

Skiing 101

Along with effective use of time and improving coaching skills is the lesson offered by the complete practice utilized in Kansas basketball. Again, the Cogne program has adapted the lesson to XC quite nicely.

As soon as the skiers had prepped their skis they were out doing a nifty series of drills, most without poles, on the easy terrain near the parking lot. As with the K.U. basketball team, proper cool-down and complete stretching after the workout were also daily features in Cogne. Compare these situations with a typical ski program scenario where we see skiers aimlessly blasting off in forty-seven directions at warp five only to get 2km out on the trails where they stand and wait 10 minutes for the rest of the group to collect itself. The difference lies in organization and dedication to purpose.

Program Suggestions (more in the Development Series)

Van Loan Training