And to all who love it more than seems necessary
It’s birthday season in our household. Today, it’s my oldest son Chauncey’s turn. In the digital world, he is better known as thenotorious.d.o.g_v2. Don’t ask. I have learned that’s best. At any rate, he recently turned the page on his ski racing career, after having milked every last moment out of it that he could. That included an extra NCAA year for Covid and two more for injury. Despite bone spurs the size of doorknobs and periodic back spasms, he crossed his final finish line in April wanting to ski race more. Forever if possible.
I could relate. After a plenty long ski racing career, at age 27, I ended up needing a step-down program to get it out of my system. I found that retirement pre-hab by racing on the NCSA (now USSCA) circuit for Sierra Nevada College while finishing my college degree. I wasn’t the only former World Cup skier doing the same thing. I had teammates from Canada, Slovenia, Norway, Spain and the US who needed a post national team run-out. The thing we all had in common was our unquenchable love for ski racing.
IT’S ALL ABOUT THE DONUTS
I was thinking about that time of life so much recently, when reading memorial tributes to Trevor Wagner. I first met Trevor as a teammate at Sierra Nevada College, when every single one of us was there for one thing: the chance to do this thing we loved a little longer. We were grateful for the opportunity. There was no end game other than that, nothing to prove to anyone, including ourselves. It was ski racing at its best. It was pure freedom.
Whenever I bumped into Trevor, which wasn’t often enough, he brought me right back to that time. His enthusiasm and pure love of the sport—liberally passed along to the scores of kids he coached, and infused by osmosis to his peers and colleagues—made me smile.
In reading the many tributes to Trevor, this one by Julia Mancuso stuck with me
“he reminded me to think of everything but skiing when leaving the start gate. He was the one that said, ‘think of jelly donuts and surfing.’ To this day I think of those things when I’m down- it’s not that I love jelly donuts- but it makes me happy cause it’s so absurd.”
If only everyone knew the importance of thinking about jelly donuts and surfing! That right there is pure coaching brilliance, and I guarantee it didn’t come out of any coaches ed. It’s too simple to be taught and too important to be missed. It comes from knowing the sport and the person, and caring deeply about both.
That little vignette reminded me that we often forget what to celebrate. Usually, it’s not the times captured on camera that shape our experience. It’s the unscripted, unheralded yet indelible moments behind and between the scenes. It also revealed why I especially enjoy writing about people who love the sport–not the business of it, or the fashion of it or the party of it. The IT of it. People who can’t get enough of doing or watching or talking about the sport itself. People like Trevor.
HONORING THE IT OF IT
Shortly after Chauncey crossed his final finish line, he compiled this video below as a farewell to ski racing, and I couldn’t stop smiling every time I watched it. Unlike the typical highlight reel, it captured so much of what IT is about: The growth over time (races on the same hill at three very different ages); the fails, always the fails; the rush and flow of a great run; and all the stuff in between—which is to say, all the good stuff. The friends, the laughter, the singing and dancing, the stupid, stupid shenanigans. The beauty of the sport is the people who find each other in it. Period. Perhaps the lyrics say it best: “My life… would suck…without you.”
I’ve put out some emotional posts about ski racing lately as our family enters a new phase of life. This might be the last, but then again it might not. As we are often harshly reminded, there are no guarantees in life. The same goes in ski racing, and ski racing blogs.
Now that the snow has melted, the good stuff is percolating to the surface, like frost crystals pushing out of a dirt road after a hard winter. I’m reminded of the advice often trotted out at milestone moments: Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.
Oh, and a very Happy Birthday to you, my boy. I’m done embarrassing you for now.
xoxo, Mom
As a ski racing parent, I love this!!
As someone who has done more than your share of spreading the love, I salute YOU!
Happy Birthday to an exceptional young man! Biased because he’s my nephew. Anyway…
Every sport needs someone to chronicle the IT and remind us at o’dark 30, maybe in the rain, or at 30 below why it is we’re doing this thing. You are our IT girl, Edie. Happy birthday, Chauncey. I hope my driver-side passenger window arrived?
Or at o’dark thirty in your garage studio? Thank you Steve…for the read, the thoughts and the on air IT chronicling. And yeah, you might want to try another Uber driver this spring.
“Too simple to be taught and too important to be missed.” A great line and another insightful post. Thanks Edie.
Thanks for reading Pat! And for commenting. And for always getting IT!
As always a great read. I am now on the clock for 4 more years at Babson for Quinn.
I don’t know how I will take it. I am a junkie.
Also, Trevor was the first guy I saw rip slalom in a speed suit. Trailblazer!
Oh excellent! Four more years will fly by…I’m glad you and Quinn have them. And Trevor…I can see him doing that!