School for speedy skiers entering its first season

For those aspiring to be the fastest kids in Montana and beyond, the alpine ski racing season begins on the grass at Smith Fields in Whitefish long before the snow starts to fly up in the mountains.

These winter athletes’ training regimen features jumping and plyometric work mixed with speed and agility drills, in addition to time in the weight room, all to prepare for a season of downhill competition throughout the Pacific Northwest and Canada.

“It’s like football practice, but without pads,” said John Steitz, head coach of the newly-formed Montana Alpine Race School (MARS) that will call Blacktail Mountain home this winter. “I’m excited to be at Blacktail. It has some very good, challenging training terrain, which is what these kids need. There’s less traffic and there are several different runs on the mountain that are steep enough for us to use.”

Steitz is an East Coast native and former head alpine racing coach at St. Lawrence University and Northwood School, both in upstate New York, in addition to his career as an engineer. After retiring five years ago, he moved to the Flathead to start a hobby farm where he raises sheep. He will be joined on the slopes by assistant Stefan Zwahlen, who has coached competitive skiing at Jackson Hole, Sugar Bowl and Middlebury College in Vermont.

According to Steitz, the program spun off from the Whitefish Mountain-based Flathead Valley Ski Education Foundation out of a need for a more specialized program for a growing group of teen skiers, ages 14-and-up, who wanted to push themselves to the elite level. For the dozen pupils on board for 2016-17, several of whom Steitz has coached for three or four years, that means more time on the snow and individualized instruction.

While most of the team calls the Flathead home, a racer from Big Sky and another from Helena are spending the winter here to train and compete in the Northern Division of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association circuit and International Ski Federation (FIS) events. Nine of the current team members raced at the regional championship series last year, including a national qualifier, Annika Severn-Eriksson, who went on to place third in the slalom in the U14 level. Others earned development and academic scholarships and sportsmanship awards at the regional level as well. Local U.S. Telemark Team member Cedar Mattole also trains with the team.

The wet, but mild fall, has yet to produce adequate snow at area resorts, so MARS is heading north to Sunshine Village in Banff, Alberta, for a three-day camp and then back to Panorama Springs later in the month for another camp.

But it’s not all play and no work when the kids are in the ski lodge; two hours per day are set aside as a supervised study hall for them to keep up with their schoolwork.

“These are really dedicated students,” Steitz said. “They’re motivated to keep their grades up.”

Once winter arrives in earnest, the season ramps up with USSA-sanctioned races from Whitefish to Red Lodge to Big Sky to Discovery in Montana, to Schweitzer, Idaho, and Alpine Meadows, California. Skiers ready for the next tier of competition can also participate in FIS races in Canada.

“Even if they can’t make every competition, my goal is to get 20 to 30 starts for every kid this season,” Steitz said.

The long road trips together are part of the fun and team bonding, something that Steitz said is a vital part of his philosophy in the highly-competitive world of ski racing, which is often viewed as an individual endeavor.

“In any sport, what do you remember? It’s not as much the medals and the podiums, but the buddies you trained with, the shenanigans, the road trips together. That’s a big part of what we’re about.

“The idea is for them to learn to compete against themselves, and not each other. That’s when you really start to get somewhere.”

MARS will also be starting up an introductory racing program for 10- and 11-year-olds, headed up by Dave Rinehart, a team parent. With a maximum size of 10 kids, the goal is to get them “jazzed about ski racing and see how fun it can be” through 10 training sessions. “This is something we really want to offer to the community and give kids a chance to try new things.”

Students are welcome for a full or partial season. For more information, visit www.montanaalpineraceschool.com.