Kids in Ski Racing Rant and Therapy Session

[Dantheman]

Track and Field is a very supportive tribe, from HS through College/University. It's completely different from elite level volleyball, softball, baseball, basketball, LAX, etc...

Yeah, in T&F if you PR you won, even if you were actually DFL. Despite totally sucking at it, being on the track team in HS was one of the best things I ever did for myself. You learn basic fundamentals of athletics in T&F in a way that just doesn't happen in other sports. Plus, there's girls in short shorts.

[muted reborn]

I saw it happen a few times as a kid where my friends were driven to tears.

He's in Canada, they are more reasonable.

[Hood26]

[QUOTE=muted reborn;6980304]


I am wondering what the very rich spend to train a kid per year compared to the upper middle class spend. What are you all spending here? Everything is so vague I don't get it.”

For me as an entry level middle classer, $5100 for a two day a week program from Late Dec to Early April for 2 kids, 2 jackets, and two sets of frog togs because we ski in the rain a fair bit.

Other than an extra pair of skis and some slalom gear, most everything else we would be buying anyway.

[oftpiste]

In 30 plus years of hanging around race courses as a tech/fan and parent I can't recall this happening once.

Good! Unfortunately I did. More than a few times. And much disappointment expressed when their 12 year olds' performance wasn't up their parental expectations/desires. That's not how you raise an athlete.

[Canada1]

We moved to the mountains to ski and bike and be with our kids. The drop off parent thing has been my biggest disappointment in our local culture. I’ve had several friends who coach laugh about the 200 kids on the team paying for the one kid who will succeed.
One dad said I pay for this so I won’t have to pay for rehab. I didn’t tell him that the kids at the local ski school are well known for their open campus lunch habits.
Do what is best for you. Be there so you understand who their friends and roll models are. Be hyper aware of who their coaches are. There are good and bad kids and coaches in every sport. You will be their only constant and the only thing you can fully control.

End of my stupid rant for today

[AdironRider]

My kid is three. He can ski and snowboard (both barely given his age) but in general is just stoked on snow. Both his mother and I have spent our lives being dirt bag ski bums mostly, and now are dirt bags at heart since we needed real jobs to pay for said munchkin. We both definitely fear the racer brat syndrome, but appreciate the base level skills a race team can provide long term. There is no way we can afford to provide what we know others will to their kids.

That said, my wife and I both hope he chooses snowboarding. There is just so much less bullshit. Don't get me wrong, it is its own bag of dicks in some ways but I just want him to have fun.

But I will say, god forbid he wants to play hockey. I think that might be the one sport we as parents tell him no.

[muted reborn]

For me as an entry level middle classer, $5100 for a two day a week program from Late Dec to Early April for 2 kids, 2 jackets, and two sets of frog togs because we ski in the rain a fair bit.

Other than an extra pair of skis and some slalom gear, most everything else we would be buying anyway.

Thanks!

We moved to the mountains to ski and bike and be with our kids. The drop off parent thing has been my biggest disappointment in our local culture. I’ve had several friends who coach laugh about the 200 kids on the team paying for the one kid who will succeed.
One dad said I pay for this so I won’t have to pay for rehab. I didn’t tell him that the kids at the local ski school are well known for their open campus lunch habits.
Do what is best for you. Be there so you understand who their friends and roll models are. Be hyper aware of who their coaches are. There are good and bad kids and coaches in every sport. You will be their only constant and the only thing you can fully control.

End of my stupid rant for today

I think absent parenthood is a time-honored, long established tradition in Park City among the super rich. My wife works with troubled teenagers and the only ones that can afford her services (of the company she works for, not her directly) is the ultra rich. Rich parents not being around for their kids is a story she'll never stop hearing and having to sort out.

And PC kids have been notorious for taking drugs in high school and going to rehab for decades. Also what drugs are the kids going to ski school taking during lunch? Not sure what you are trying to say or maybe if you mean the instructors are taking drugs.

[telefreewasatch]

Background.
Kid's grew up in Snowbird employee housing.
Compared to the Econoline van we lived outta in the summer, it was palatial. 800 sq ft.
Had skied most everything inbounds by age 4.
Were able to move 3,000 vert / 10 miles a day, same age.
Blew my shit away and away we went...
Daughter has a real feel for the snow. Which was developed by skiing the bird. Outta the gate. Recognized by myself and others.

Storytime.
Angel is now 8. Never saw a need for a kid to start the race thing til then.
Tell her she's gonna demo the race team. "No dad, please, I don't want to".
You don't have a choice, I say. One week you gotta hang with them. Then say what you want.
Head coach is an old racing buddy and jumped at the opportunity.
Next day was a Thursday. She was off on account of her mother was the one room school at Alta and Thursday afternoons were P.E.
There were no other kids there as it was a school day.
I went with her at her request, met the coach, rode the tram with them and got outta the way as soon as I could.
Jason Gaddis, son of Jim Gaddis of Alta fame was the coach. When she arrives home, and is actually hanging her stuff up instead of the usual trail that began at the front door she says: "I'm really psyched to be on the race team".
Thank you, Jason

I made John join the race team as well, but not til age 12, and only for three years.
It was not his thing at all, but he sure appreciates what it did for his skiing in hindsight.

Being in the industry and living at the bird helped keep costs down, but we spent plenty of our income on our children over the years. Don't regret a dollar of it.

For most kids, I think the mission of a race program is to give them technical skills that they may enjoy the rest of their lives.
Period.
Nothing about being near the podium.
If you burn em out and they quit skiing, then you were your own saboteur.

This is a matter dear to me; seeing kids without much money racing...

[Canada1]

I was not commenting on coaches. The majority of coaches I’ve known seem to be interested in either the sport, the kids, or both. I do not think there is a greater drug problem in that local community. Humans have human problems, coaches included. I would have no problem with my kid traveling with most of them. There are a few, I wouldn’t want to be a role model for my crew.
I am not a perfect parent. I am not a perfect person. My comments on the local ski team are biased, and come from the place of my self interest. My wife and I have thought and talked about this subject a lot as there are many more drop off kids than what we did. It always bummed me out that so many of my kids friends were only skiing with us when the teams were off.

[muted reborn]

Had skied most everything inbounds by age 4.
Were able to move 3,000 vert / 10 miles a day, same age.
Blew my shit away and away we went...
Daughter has a real feel for the snow. Which was developed by skiing the bird. Outta the gate. Recognized by myself and others.

Crazy talent for sure! And thanks for the parenting insights.

I was not commenting on coaches. The majority of coaches I’ve known seem to be interested in either the sport, the kids, or both. I do not think there is a greater drug problem in that local community. Humans have human problems, coaches included. I would have no problem with my kid traveling with most of them. There are a few, I wouldn’t want to be a role model for my crew.
I am not a perfect parent. I am not a perfect person. My comments on the local ski team are biased, and come from the place of my self interest. My wife and I have thought and talked about this subject a lot as there are many more drop off kids than what we did. It always bummed me out that so many of my kids friends were only skiing with us when the teams were off.

I can't quite decipher most of this but that's OK. I'm not in tune to scene there like you are so good to hear things have gotten better with the drugs.

[ski_it]

[QUOTE=
But I will say, god forbid he wants to play hockey. I think that might be the one sport we as parents tell him no.[/QUOTE]

Any more of that talk and I'm dropping the gloves- you wanna go kid?

[XXX-er]

I was riding up the chair with the somewhat obtuse swedish ski coach who told me " I came up in the euro system where if you fuck up you are out but here they fuck up and they get let back in "

[comish]

In 30 plus years of hanging around race courses as a tech/fan and parent I can't recall this happening once.

I have seen it, albeit very infrequently. The kid and family I can think of are now no longer involved.

There are a ton of kids that have quit though. Not exactly sure why. Some choose other sports, some are just unmotivated, some likely never truly loved it so quitting was the right call. That said, they all developed the best fundamentals to be lifelong ripping skiers. I don't agree with the comment that was made about racer form in pow?!?! Racing does teach the best fundamentals.

This is definitely a great topic, thanks everyone for sharing.

I concur on the T&F thing as a college (albeit DIII) runner. My kids want nothing to do with it. Ha. My wife swam and they want nothing to do with that either. At least they all still like to ski!

[SnowMachine]

Both of mine ski raced 7-18. The older one started a bit later at 10, and while he enjoyed it was a middle pack racer at best (except for speed events, he's really good at not turning). Younger one was always on the podium every race but fell back to top 10-15 in high school as comp increased with travel outside the NW for races and she didn't deal with the pressure as well.

You didn't say how old yours, but yes there is generally a big attrition right around age 13 and a lot of pressure to spend money for this camp or that camp, outside coaching etc. No matter how you slice it ski racing is damn expensive, and at a certain level money spent on travel far exceeds the coaching and club fees.

In the end though, throwing money at it doesn't make them better- they ultimately have to want that for themselves and their own desire for developing athleticism goes a long way to making better results. Throwing money at it just makes Dad feel like he is doing everything he should to help give that leg up.

I'm glad they went through it and I'm glad they never lost their desire to ski in the process, it can burn some kids out. I'm also glad those days are over,the money aspect was a drag and I went through all of dad guilt as well of not sending them off for weeks at a time.

Now my girl is a Sr at UofU and still races on the club team and really enjoys it without the pressure to perform. My boy became a ski coach after graduating last yr and logged 159 days, 109 in a row in season and a nutty 4.3 million vert, 100K+ day, hit his double backs and is damn strong all over the hill. But more than that he's also a really well grounded young man and ski racing helped his personal development tremondously.

I was very fortunate to get to ski a metric f-ton of pow with him last year ~70days and both kids still love skiing with their old man. Stick with it as long as you can, but make sure it's because they want it more than you.

Heck yeah!! This is my dream. My oldest is skiing really strong for a 10 yo. Skied his way into the top group of his freeride squad being two years younger than most. He absolutely loves to ski. I took him out of school on his b-day last year and we crushed steep lines all day. I grabbed a great pic of him looking over a gnarly cliff line. It's a highlight of my life to ski with him. My youngest goes for a skills assessment today to place him in his first year of teams.

No racing for my kids. Some of my oldest's best friends race and he has a great time free skiing with them. Not racing certainly hasn't held his skills back on big lines.

As somebody that started down the path of professional athlete (cycling) I understand that nothing crushes a love of the sport like training at that level. If my kids want it I'll support them 100%, but they have to make that call. I want them to love skiing just for skiing. There's plenty of competition in life.

[muted reborn]

I don't agree with the comment that was made about racer form in pow?!?! Racing does teach the best fundamentals

I wouldn't expect any racer to agree with me on that.

[Mofro261]

Watching kids trying to ski pow on race skis, sure I see it. Pow skiing req's a different form and a less aggressive body position. Also in pow you turn wherever you want and not where the gates req it.

The powder technique is much easier to learn imo than proper race technique on hard snow surfaces- both my kids were highly proficient pow skiers by age 5-6 and long before they took up racing, and to some extent skiing pow during the day always f'd up my form for skiing beer league in the evening, I'd have to make a few runs before I got the feel back. After a good pow day and I was skiing late and straight.

But where I'm at all of the kids are expected to have an all mtn or pow ski to compliment the race skis, as you can't train gates in fresh snow, and it snows a bit so they go free ski when it does. Big reason the PNW generally doesn't produce great racers and the top talent usually flees to academies at PC, Vail, SV, or Mammoth.

Our local team also does a free ride program for the 12 and under kids, though the ski area has it's own freeride prog and they don't like that the ski team's in less expensive and more sessions. Yeah the ski area is charging $1280 for 5 days of lessons this year.

[SnowMachine]

Background.
Kid's grew up in Snowbird employee housing.
Compared to the Econoline van we lived outta in the summer, it was palatial. 800 sq ft.
Had skied most everything inbounds by age 4.
Were able to move 3,000 vert / 10 miles a day, same age.
Blew my shit away and away we went...
Daughter has a real feel for the snow. Which was developed by skiing the bird. Outta the gate. Recognized by myself and others.

Storytime.
Angel is now 8. Never saw a need for a kid to start the race thing til then.
Tell her she's gonna demo the race team. "No dad, please, I don't want to".
You don't have a choice, I say. One week you gotta hang with them. Then say what you want.
Head coach is an old racing buddy and jumped at the opportunity.
Next day was a Thursday. She was off on account of her mother was the one room school at Alta and Thursday afternoons were P.E.
There were no other kids there as it was a school day.
I went with her at her request, met the coach, rode the tram with them and got outta the way as soon as I could.
Jason Gaddis, son of Jim Gaddis of Alta fame was the coach. When she arrives home, and is actually hanging her stuff up instead of the usual trail that began at the front door she says: "I'm really psyched to be on the race team".
Thank you, Jason

I made John join the race team as well, but not til age 12, and only for three years.
It was not his thing at all, but he sure appreciates what it did for his skiing in hindsight.

Being in the industry and living at the bird helped keep costs down, but we spent plenty of our income on our children over the years. Don't regret a dollar of it.

For most kids, I think the mission of a race program is to give them technical skills that they may enjoy the rest of their lives.
Period.
Nothing about being near the podium.
If you burn em out and they quit skiing, then you were your own saboteur.

This is a matter dear to me; seeing kids without much money racing...

Angel and John are your kids??? Freaking cool! Thanks for sharing.

I've already said it, my little groms love to ski, so that's what we do. I have 0 ski racing in my background. I became a ski bum in my 40's. I was very casual about snowboarding before that. So, I do with them what they want to do. I've never pushed racing at all, but it's an option if they want it. I think they just want to freeride. If we stay on this path I'm going to push a bit for casual freeride comps. I think competition is important for a kid, but just the mental aspect of getting out there and pushing to ski big lines is so much better than sitting at home. It's a childhood that is incomparable and I get to be there, seeing the look on their faces as they come up with a plan. Man, it's fun.

[SnowMachine]

We moved to the mountains to ski and bike and be with our kids. The drop off parent thing has been my biggest disappointment in our local culture. I’ve had several friends who coach laugh about the 200 kids on the team paying for the one kid who will succeed.
One dad said I pay for this so I won’t have to pay for rehab. I didn’t tell him that the kids at the local ski school are well known for their open campus lunch habits.
Do what is best for you. Be there so you understand who their friends and roll models are. Be hyper aware of who their coaches are. There are good and bad kids and coaches in every sport. You will be their only constant and the only thing you can fully control.

End of my stupid rant for today

Part of why I started coaching. I love skiing with the kids and feel like I can be a positive role model, especially as a Dad that coaches.

Our younger coaches are great. I have nothing but positive experiences with them. Most of them can out ski me, but I've got years of competitive sports on them and just plain life experience that helps with the kids.

We have a lot of parents that just drop their kids so they can ski. I don't see it as a negative unless they never ski with their kids. They get their time to ski, the kids get time with a coach and other kids their age. Win/win.

[EWG]

I'll add one more thought, again, coming from my own experience. YMMV. If you saw my earlier post you probably understood that the expectations in our extended family for athletics are really high. My kids experienced an enormous amount of competition from other sports pretty early. My son played in 3 straight state cup title games for the highest level of club soccer, 2 straight in basketball, all in his early teens. Had both the feeling of scoring a goal in a soccer state championship win and missing the last shot in basketball for the title, all by 14. My daughter turned out to be better than him at soccer, and I think she felt the most pressure playing in front of recruiters and Oly development coaches against older kids, also in her early teens. In retrospect, that's a lot for a kid to handle.

For us, skiing (and mtn biking) was the escape. Family time. No lessons, no coaches, no pressure. Just time on the mountain. They loved it. They still love it. It was a refuge - a place to use their skills and balance and talent with no crowds or teammates or pressure. No ref. No long car ride home when it didn't go well. He skied whatever he could find, in total play mode, and from an early age just loved to jump off stuff. She followed him everywhere, her big brother must know what he's doing, right? Ha.

Point is, with all that success in structured sports, it's the free stuff they chose in the end. Ran away from college sports, and I believe all that pressure at an early age had a lot to do with it. There wasn't any time to just "play" and fall in love with it. It was a job by the time they were 12. It's terrible. But skiing was play. Surfing was play. Biking, for the most part, was play (though having a relatively well-known uncle who's a pro bike coach makes that hard.) Because it was play they fell in love. And because they fell in love they got really, really good at it.

They've both been asked and asked to join the college freeride team. There's no way. They both have ins to get sponsored if they would cultivate instagram accounts. Also no way, they say. They are out there for the love of it. At this point, they are just otherwordly on skis. So fast, so smooth, so strong in the air. And they don't really want anything more from it. It's just for them.

And all that happened because skiing was the sport that didn't have competition, coaches, or results.

Just another viewpoint to keep in mind. I didn't see this when we were going through it. I can see it now that it's over. Every kid is different though. Good luck to each of you.

[Mex]

This is a great thread!
I've got two young kids and we are dealing with some of this to some extent. We are the only family we know of that does not book kids stuff on weekends so we can ski and bike together (or just generally play outside). We've been discussing maybe changing our philosophy, but think we'll stay the course for the time being. We were looking at a ski racing program but he cost and commitment was waaay above what I was expecting. So we just ski.

[carpathian]

Any more of that talk and I'm dropping the gloves- you wanna go kid?

Ha digging through this thread with no mention of hockey until this lol

Debating with guy on the chairlift the other day about what was more expensive/ pain in the ass for parents : ski racing or hockey

My dad was a half decent college player back in the day and he was kind of sad when I dropped hockey for powder skiing in 9th grade or so , as both my parents were complete non - skiers .

Thankfully my two daughters are not into ski racing and would rather free ski the mountain and love it.

[Skirotica]

I’d be interested to hear from the racer parents as to their impression of the team component of ski racing vs a traditional sport like soccer, hockey, baseball, etc.

I grew up playing hockey year round and my fiancé grew up ski racing in the winter and soccer/T&F in the warmer months.

Ski racing seems kind of notorious for fostering brats/douchebags but I also can’t remember a single team I was on that didn’t have a few of those. So why does it get blown out of the proportion more in ski racing than other sports?


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Someone said it best. You gotta be sociable. I agree with that. The kids really need to be teammates. Support each other, watch each other and cheer.
My kid had a couple incidents last year that temporarily alienated him or another from the team and it was very uncomfortable. When he didn't fit in, he didn't want to participate. In practice, He skis with kids he likes and that makes getting up early and training all day feel like fun.

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[detrusor]

There’s a couple parents on our team that are pretty harsh. Also keep their kids home when free skiing and pissed because “ not paying for them to not train”. Yet can’t figure out why their kids dont progress…

[rod9301]

Welcome to the racket that is the Youth Sports Industrial Complex.

So true

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[Wibby]

thank you all for sharing.

( father of 2 young rippers )