Better Late Than Never

A little shout-out to the unsung heroes behind the heroics

For various reasons—some happy, some sad—I’ve been thinking a ton recently about coaches from my past. As we barrel towards ski season, it seems like a good time to reflect on what makes a coach good or even great. Any athletic career involves many coaches who come and go. Good ones move you along in the right direction, and great ones leave behind something that stays forever.

SETTING THE HOOK

What makes a great coach changes during the course of an athletic career. The very first, and arguably the greatest coach, is whoever puts skis on your feet, or a racket in your hand or a ball at your feet. These are most often parents, just looking to find an outlet for a kid’s energy and adventurous spirit; and—who’s kidding who—making a selfish bid to plant the seed of the sport they love in the next generation so they can continue their favorite weekend pursuits. (Thanks, Dad, for piling us into the station wagon every weekend, and mom for scraping the snow off my tiny boots with your bare hands so I could get into my skis.)

“Coaches” then become whoever you follow everywhere, without question, imitating their technique as they navigate all kinds of terrain, in all conditions at all speeds. Those may be skier parents or whatever saint has signed up to lead your tribe of like-minded urchins through a day of sport. It helps when you are fortunate enough to have a big mountain that serves up all the challenge you can handle, but a tiny mountain isn’t a deal breaker. You do, however, need that next, indispensable element of coaching— a boatload of friends, siblings and teammates who push or pull you along before you have time to rethink questionable judgment. 

TECHNIQUE AND TIMING

After the hook is set, you need coaches who are technical and tactical masters, to teach you the finer points of harnessing all that raw energy and enthusiasm into skills that translate to the clock. The best ones also really know what makes a particular athlete tick. They know when to stand next to you on the side of the hill and talk you off the ledge, and when what you really need is a kick in the ass—and they know when they can’t do both. Some of the greatest coaches I had were part of a good cop/bad cop team, with one serving up hard truths and the other following up to soften the edges of that advice.

I was lucky to grow up in a place where I had all of the above, in spades. It prepped me for being on the national team where coaches came and went with every new regime, and the trick was to take what worked best for your own technique and learning style. Just writing this brings to mind images of so many coaches, many of whom weren’t technically coaches at all. They included support staff—techs, trainers, even doctors—who somehow knew exactly what you needed, right then. For today, I’m only calling out two of them who played entirely different, but important roles along the way.

TRAINING TRAINING TRAINING

Ultimately, regardless of your natural talent and enthusiasm, you need that coach who teaches you the power of discipline. I was thinking about this recently, at the passing of Warren Gibson. “Gibby” “Gibbo” “Hoot” was the first coach of the Squaw Valley Ski Team, the consolidation of what had been four separate ski teams on our mountain. For me at least, he was not a technical coach. I am not sure I ever followed him down the hill, saw him run a single gate or implemented one shred of his skiing advice. In some aspects of coaching, however, he was way ahead of his time. He was the first coach in our community to find sponsors for his teams, which garnered his athletes cool uniforms but also a shared sense of team pride. Those matching Adidas sweatsuits and Silvy Tricot sweaters gave us a touch of swagger.

He also knew the cumulative power of habit, instilling in us a daily routine of après ski calisthenics that I can almost still remember: 600 jump ropes, 100 knee touch jumps, a whole lot of pushups and situps—and the hard and fast rule of taking a minimum of six runs every day, regardless of conditions. Why six? No clue. But it was enough to get good and wet on a miserable day, and make us feel tougher than anyone who wasn’t out there. Mostly what I remember about Warren’s impact is that he believed in us before we believed in ourselves. Without explicitly saying it, he taught us that belief is contagious. I join the many people who have chimed in recently on his lasting impact.

THE MOOD MASTERS

Great coaches at any level are the ones who know that atmosphere is everything in setting the table for peak performance. Just as Warren Gibson knew that at our level we needed mojo to punch above our weight, great coaches at the elite level know the challenge lies in creating calm. Maintaining a chill vibe within a high-pressure environment gives the full gamut of egos and personalities on any team the space needed to thrive. It takes a lot of humor and a bit of magic to maintain that balance. The magicians who do it are not necessarily center stage; often they are in the background, managing the tinderbox than can be team dynamics.

That brings me to Chris Poletis, whose birthday my teammates—along with an all-star crew of former coaches and techs—recently celebrated in Europe. This picture of him, in the background of the starting gate at the 1991 World Champs in Saalbach, Austria, speaks volumes to me about his coaching. The backstory is its own bit of lore amongst those of us in that era. As a team, we had, for security purposes, just been extricated from Europe at the onset of Operation Desert Storm. We had then done a U-turn, traveling all the way back to compete in the World Champs. For some of us that meant stacking more than 40 hours of travel into the week before our biggest competitions of the year. In short, we were smoked before we’d even reached the starting gate.

When I look at my eyes in that picture, I see pure trepidation—understandable considering our team came into the event with the very worst physiological and mental preparation. My own performance expectations for the event, however, had not changed. Athletes are stubborn (delusional?) that way, a personality glitch that gets you into the gate no matter the odds.

And there is Chris in the background. His eyes are saying the same thing I knew rationally, if I’d been able to accept it: “Aiiiiii. Please just get down in one piece!” Moments earlier, however, he had been the voice of calm, assuring me that it was just another day at the races and that, “You’ve got this.” A few minutes later, in the finish, hugely disappointed with my 9^th place finish, I never once thought about how much worse it could have been. What if the coach in the start had telegraphed the anxiety and panic I was feeling? What if he’d whipped me into a mind-set that this race, in which I had zero chance of performing my best, was my make-or-break opportunity? My run could have been disastrous, instead of merely disappointing.

Instead, I survived those World Champs unscathed, got the rest I needed, and finished the season fast, healthy and strong. Youth prevents you from recognizing those small miracles. I know for sure I never thanked Chris for that day. So I’m saying it now, to Chris and to all the great coaches I had at every stage, front and center or behind the scenes. Thank you. In so many different ways, you made a difference that has lasted a lifetime.