Wisconsin High School XC Championships
The program grows in spite of three bad winters – as many as 300 young skiers might be at Iola this month By Greg Marr Much like a roller
coaster ski trail, cross country ski racing at the high school level in Wisconsin has had its ups and downs. Back in 1982, when the high school program was started, Wisconsin's population-heavy southern regions had dependable snow and a large number of skiers and ski teams. As the Banana Belt crept slowly northward, however, ski opportunities dwindled in the south, and with that so did the number of skiers and teams.
Despite the fact that winters of old have yet to return to the
southern reaches of Wisconsin, the state's high school program is seeing a somewhat remarkable trend upward, with more teams and more skiers than ever before. A few years ago 150 skiers might attend the annual High School Championships; this year on Feb. 12-13 at Iola, it's possible there might be 300-plus skiers from nearly 20 teams competing in the championships.
While Wisconsin's numbers pale compared to the 2,000-plus skiers in the Minnesota program, Wisconsin's coaches are
delighted with the progress made in recent years. Besides, any comparison between Wisconsin's high school program and Minnesota's is an apples/oranges situation.
Minnesota's program has a 50-plus year history and cross country skiing is a sanctioned varsity sport throughout the state, on a par with basketball, hockey or wrestling in some schools. Wisconsin has few recognized WIAA varsity-level teams. Drummond was the first to the crack that barrier in 1994, but is one of only six to
enjoy that exalted status in 2000. For the most part, cross country skiing is categorized as a "club" activity. This is an important distinction that can best be summed up in monetary terms. In Minnesota, coaches are paid a salary and many schools offer a full range of services provided to other sports: uniforms, equipment, buses and the like. Wisconsin's club-based teams do not have such luxuries: coaches are volunteers; teams ride to races in family minivans; parents and students pay for
equipment. Even the sanctioned teams have fewer resourses available to them than their more established counterparts.
As Ken Schoville, one of the Lakeland team coaches, pointed out in a 1994 story in Silent Sports, "I know one Minnesota coach who has a roller ski budget larger than what we can spend on waxes."
Schoville's dedication over the years is typical of the kind displayed by this legion of volunteer coaches. Last year, as an unpaid volunteer coach, he had one free
weekend from November until March.
While Wisconsin's coaches might occasionally glance to the west with envy, few dwell on the distinctions between the states; rather, Wisconsin's skiers and coaches make the best of what's available to them.
One plus for Wisconsin – this year, anyway – has been snow. While Minnesota's young skiers have been dryland training and watching races cancel due to a lack of snow, Wisconsin's skiers have actually been able to race. Another factor that is
coming into play is lighted trail systems. Not only can many of the young skiers hold regular practice sessions at night, after school, they can also race during the week nights – just like their varsity-level counterparts in the school's sanctioned sports. A Thursday night race at Iola in early January, for instance, featured over 80 skiers representing seven teams.
Iola is a classic example of how the Wisconsin program has grown. A few years ago the ski trails of the Iola Winter
Sports Club at Norseman Hill were popular primarily with area skiers who enjoyed the glaciated terrain, reliable grooming and comfort of a heated chalet. Originally a ski jumping club dating back to 1910 – today there are five jumps including a 130-foot high, 60-meter jump – the cross country trails were more an addendum than a focal point. While Norseman Hill is still a main center for ski jumping in the Midwest (Badger State Games holds their competition at Iola), today more skiers than
jumpers visit the center.
Two things happened to bring Iola's ski trails to prominence: three years ago, 2.5 miles of the trail system was lighted (with more to be lighted next year), and a Pisten Bully groomer was brought in last year. The lights have attracted skiers from Stevens Point to Green Bay and the Fox River Valley. The Pisten Bully brought in skiers from as far away as northern Illinois.
The groomer is thanks to the philanthropy of Chet Krause, founder of the
Iola-based Krause Publications. Krause, a longtime supporter of the ski club, asked what he could do to help out the cross country skiing. Phil Johnsrud, who had been doing a remarkable job of grooming with equipment held together by bailing wire and prayers, said a new groomer would be nice. Krause said get the best, and he offered to pay whatever it cost – at the end of the 1998 season, a new Pisten Bully arrived.
Last year, when much of the state had either brown ground or a coat of
icey snow, the Pisten Bully was able to turn boilerplate ice into a skiable surface. Word spread quickly in the ski community as Iola became the nearest skiable area to southern population centers.
At about the same time the lights were going up at Iola, Jerry Thompson's daughter Heidi was bugging him to start a ski team. Winter sports at many smaller school districts like Iola-Scandinavia are often limited to basketball and, maybe, volleyball. While cross country skiing is "only" a
club activity, for a lot these schools it's also the only alternative to the schools' few organized sports.
Under the guidance of volunteer coach Thompson and several volunteer assistants, in just three years Iola's program has surpassed many long-established programs in terms of numbers. From the sixth grade through high school, Iola's team has 21 skiers.
That the state championships are in Iola, hosted by a fledgling three-year-old team, is a testament to what that ski area
did grooming last year, and the enthusiasm shown by Thompson, his coaches and his team. The championships have bounced around from Wausau and Minocqua to Telemark and Cumberland. Thompson saw this and figured the facilities at Iola were as good as anywhere in the state; he put in a bid and was awarded the event. After the early January meet, several of the coaches said they were very enthusiastic about coming back for the championships: the facilities, course grooming, terrain and volunteer
support all received high marks.
Lighted trails for after-school skiing and state-of-the-art grooming does give the Iola program an advantage – it's obviously easier to maintain interest when you can actually ski – but how the program began is fairly typical of Wisconsin youth ski programs. Often a coach/parent becomes involved because his/her child is skiing; the child brings in friends, and those friends bring in more friends. Before long a few more parents are recruited, vans are
filled and new teams begin traveling around the state from meet to meet.
However, one of the most important aspects of any successful program, notes Schoville, who is a teacher as well as a longtime coach, has less to do with skiing and more to do with socializing.
"When you get between 20 and 40 kids, you start to have the diversity and social interaction, which is real important, between the kids. And you have the skiing diversity. Just like in competitive adult skiing you
have the elites, then everyone else; they're all important. You need that on a high school team, too. There are the stars and then the kids who are just there to socialize, ride the bus, skip school and hang out with other kids in a healthy atmosphere – and there's nothing wrong with that."
Schoville sees that kind of diversity and social interaction among the Minnesota teams, which can easily have 50 or 60 kids in a program (Stillwater alone has 127 skiers in its program).
"When
the Minnesota kids get out of the bus, you can tell just by the apparel and ski gear who the stars are," Schoville says, "but I think 75 to 85 percent of the team is in just sweat shirts and warm-up pants, kids just there to have a good time."
"You like to see both ends of that spectrum develop," Schoville adds. "You want to have those kids who can come out and ski really fast and hard and make the newspapers but it's really important to have the other end, too, the chummy camaraderie."
Another aspect to a successful statewide program is to have events strictly for the kids. For simplicity sake much of the competition for the high school skiers in Wisconsin has been held in conjunction with an adult citizen's race; timing, services, volunteers and support staff are already in place so it's merely a matter of tacking on some youth divisions.
High school only events, however, make the young skiers the stars of the show; friends and family are cheering for them, just
like at a high school basketball game.
"At a high school only event, there's a lot of energy that's not defused by adults," says Schoville. "Its a different deal. We've had that energy at the state championships and to lesser extent Badger State Games. I saw it at Iola."
This year's high school schedule includes more "high school only" events than ever before, including the state championships.
A successful championship event in Iola could also bode well for the future of
high school skiing. Communities that can expect 300-plus young skiers and their family and friends for a weekend will undoubtedly begin to actively campaign to host future championships; Minocqua and Rib Lake have already put in bids for the next couple of years.
It's unlikely that Wisconsin's high school program will ever rival that of Minnesota's – where 2,000 kids gather for their state championships – but continued growth can be expected. There are more separate high school only
events, more night skiing opportunities, more teams being formed and more sanctioned as varsity level sports.
"The problem is that we've had three tough years for early and late season snow," says Schoville. "If you're trying to develop a program, I sympathize with you. You have to be creative; you have to keep the kids involved and focused. It's not easy."
But it's not impossible, either. Iola's team was started at the beginning of those "three tough years" and this year it
will host the state championships. It can be done. While facing perhaps the greatest adversity of all to any ski program, a lack of snow, Wisconsin has seen its program grow during these toughest of times. Minnesota's youth program is recognized as the model for the entire nation; Wisconsin's is a model for perseverance.
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