I’m Alex, a skier from Vail, Colorado. I’ve been on skis since I was two years old, both alpine and nordic, and I have never stopped loving the mountains. I love the views, the quiet early mornings before the sun comes up, and the pure joy of spending a whole day outside doing something I love.
I started nordic skiing when I was 15. My mountain bike coach, who also happened to coach the nordic team, encouraged me to give it a try. I was hooked right away. I loved the pressure and the competition of playing catch-up, of chasing people who were faster than me, and slowly closing the gap.
But racing was never the only reason I stayed. What kept me coming back was the team and the community around it. At Ski and Snowboard Club Vail, the coaches push you to be the best athlete you can be, and they push you just as hard to be the best person you can be. That idea shaped who I am today. When I started looking at colleges where I could keep skiing, I knew I wanted to find that same feeling again. At the University of New Hampshire, I did.
Within my first month here, the team felt like a second family. It was almost as if I had been part of it my entire life. The upper classmen welcome you into the team with open arms, treating every newcomer with just enough respect to make them feel at home, but not enough to make you feel like you still don’t have a lot of work to do to earn your place. So far the team has been a lot of fun outside of skiing. They seem to be just a group of active friends who like to play pick up soccer and watch football every Sunday. They seem very easygoing and never take things too seriously until we get to training and that mind set seems to shift slightly, just enough to make our training session focused but not enough to have us all burnout. In a sport as difficult as ours it’s great to be in an environment where the coaches and the team play hard but work harder, because that makes our heavy training load just a little bit lighter.
What makes UNH so special is that this feeling goes beyond the nordic team and includes the alpine team too. We rarely work out together, and when we do, we are usually doing very different things. Our sports are completely different. But I think that is exactly why we can learn so much from each other. Each team sees things the other doesn’t, and together we feel like one team. The coaches here care about us as people, not just as skiers, and that makes all the difference.
A few weeks ago, we had our annual ski team golf tournament, and it has been one of the most fun experiences I’ve had here so far. I got to meet alumni who still carry on traditions from forty years ago, and who believe that you are always a Wildcat. That meant a lot to me. They also came together to raise money for our new, top-of-the-line locker rooms. Seeing how much they still care about this team showed me that being part of it is something that lasts long after your last race. I’m proud to be a part of it now, and I can’t wait to see what this season brings.