Mountain Magic

Photo by Shayne Lynn

On a frigid Saturday afternoon in late January, Middlebury nordic ski coach Terry Aldrich and his skiers were headed across the snow-covered roof of northern New England, on the way back to campus after the first Eastern carnival of the season at Maine's Sugarloaf/ USA.

For Aldrich and his charges, the Colby carnival had been a tremendously satisfying couple of days. The Middlebury nordic skiers had not just survived the punishingly cold weather (daytime highs below 0°F), but thrived, winning three of four events and outpointing chief rivals, the University of Vermont and Dartmouth College.

As the ski-team van thumped across frost-heaved roads in the twilight, most of the skiers dozed. Aldrich was using the time to catch up on some phone calls, including a conversation with Patrick Garrity, a sportswriter at the Burlington, Vt., Free Press. "He asked me, 'How's it feel to win?'" Aldrich recalls. The coach allowed that the nordic team had skied very well.

"And then Pat said, 'No, I mean how's it feel to win the whole thing? To win the carnival?' " Aldrich says.

"I woke up some of the skiers and said, Guess who won the Colby carnival?"

At about the same time, alpine head coach Forest Carey '00 and assistant Brooke Laundon '00, were packing up a van of their own in the Sugarloaf parking lot when Carey decided they should at least find out what the final results were before they hit the road. Laundon ran up to the race headquarters and came back with the astounding news. "We climbed out of the van," Carey says, "exchanged some high-fives, and took a few pictures."

Both Carey and Aldrich will tell you they didn't really know how to react. It's been 30 years since the Eastern Intercollegiate Ski Association (EISA) began combining men's and women's totals to determine an overall winner at each carnival. And Middlebury had never won one of the darned things. Until that weekend up in Maine.

As it happens, that was just the beginning. Inspired by seniors Kate Newick and Kate Whitcomb, sophomore Claire Anderson and the rest of the women's nordic skiers—who won 10 of 11 events during carnival season—the Panthers captured five of this year's six EISA events, including the UVM carnival at Stowe, where the Catamounts had been top cats for 31 straight seasons. "When we won at UVM, I think we all began to understand that this was for real," says Carey.

And then there was the Middlebury Winter Carnival, which doubles as the EISA Championships. On two perfect late winter days at the Rikert Ski Touring Center and the Snow Bowl, Middlebury won its first EISA title, ending another absurdly long UVM streak. The Catamounts had won the Eastern championships for 28 straight years, believed to be the longest conference championship winning streak in college sports.

Emerging from Friday's events with a slim lead, Middlebury won three of the four events on Saturday. A healthy crowd spent the morning reveling in sunshine and temperatures in the 30s, cheering for the nordic teams in Ripton, where the women beat Dartmouth in the 10-kilometer classic race (the men were a close third behind UVM and the Big Green in the 15-kilometer classic). Then it was on to the Snow Bowl for the second runs in men's and women's giant slalom.

Fred Emich '04 won the men's race, and first-year Lindsay Brush took the women's GS.  The men went 1-2-4-6-7 for an easy win. Brush was followed by teammates Jessica Smith '04 in third and Molly Russell '05 in seventh, giving the Panthers that race, as well.

After all the hooting and hollering, after posing for innumerable team pictures, after the seldom-seen EISA trophies had been hoisted aloft, the Panthers and just about everyone else involved in college ski racing were left to wonder, What was that all about?

No great mystery, says Aldrich, who's been coaching at Middlebury for 29 years and was named EISA nordic coach of the year: "Great athletes make coaches look good," he says, "and we have highly talented, highly motivated student-athletes—who stayed healthy all season." He also credited assistant coach Patty Ross for making sure the team got quality training all fall. Says captain Kate Newick, "[Ross] pushed us. . . . We were psyched to race early on in the season, and it stuck with us."

Marshall Greene, a senior cross-country skier, pointed out that the nordic teams are both talented and deep, illustrated by the seven male skiers who qualified to race in the NCAA championships.

Carey, named EISA alpine coach of the year in his first year on the job, says he was similarly blessed with a group of dedicated skiers. Men's captain Andy Peters '04 spoke for many when he called this "the most special season I have ever been part of. Ski racing is such an individual sport, but we broke new ground this year on making ski racing a team sport. . . . Every task we took on this year was a group effort. . . . This attitude trickled down from Forest through every member of the team."

Both Carey and Aldrich say that building one Middle-bury team was part of the plan from the preseason. "We decided to get the kids together whenever we could," Aldrich says. During the season, "we stayed at the same places on the road; we ate together. I think we got to know people on a closer basis than some other teams."

Emich, a Colorado native who came to Middlebury from Ski Club Vail, said that winning the first carnival got everyone thinking more about the team. "When you start to win carnivals," he says, "that becomes your goal.  To win the carnival for your team."

Lindsay Brush, whose father Charlie '69 was both a ski racer and ski coach at Middlebury, was pleasantly surprised by what she found when she arrived from the Green Mountain Valley School, one of the country's top ski academies. She says she quickly discovered that "winning carnivals is where it's at. Winning individually is a bonus."

Late on Saturday afternoon at the Middlebury carnival, Chip LaCasse, the legendary and recently retired coach of the UVM Catamounts, was walking through the base lodge at the Snow Bowl. He stopped to shake a few hands, and a friend said, "Seems like they just couldn't do it without you, Chip."

To which LaCasse replied, "They'll be back."

They assuredly will. So will Middlebury, which had a relatively young and extraordinarily deep team this season. And Aldrich, Carey, their skiers, and Middlebury's many fans will always have that frozen weekend in Maine, and the four wins that followed.

Tim Etchells '74, editor for electronic communications at Middlebury, is a former editor ofSki Racingmagazine