Awards to Eastern Members
Casey Colby led the way with Domestic Coach of the Year Award at the USSA Spring Meetings in Park City UT last weekend. Voted by his peers, Colby was in attendance to receive the award.
Also present was long time ESJ&NC supporter Peter Graves, who received the John Clair award for service to the US Ski Team.
A special retiring athlete's award was given to Willy Graves, a nice US Ski Team leather jacket.
Jay Rand and Jeff Byrne were on hand to accept the Paul Bacon award for race organization for NYSEF.
Receiving the Al Merrill award was Joe Lamb, who was not present.
Billy Demong received a standing ovation when he was called up for a special award. He gave a great acceptance speech!
Rex Bell and Dan Warner were there to witness the award presentations.
Business Meetings
Meetings started off with the officials meeting for 8 hours, followed by the coaches, and then the whole voting group to enact any changes. From the Officials side the biggest change is that we are going to be paid for Nationals and JO's. All other USSA sports get paid. The Central Division officials are going to try charging during the season. They think that they will get some younger folks involved in officiating if there is a bit of cash involved. We did this in the East many years ago, but took it out of the cost of events when numbers went down. Officials, don't run out and buy a new house! The TD'S will get $50 per day worked and Judges $25.
A change in scoring was adopted: at the JO level, J2 skiers will get 2 jumps and the start-time behind will be calculated at 25 points per minute. This should and will bring the XC start times closer and provide for better racing. It was felt if you shank the first jump, you would be able to recover on the second. J1's will stay the same at one jump and 15 points per minute.
National Events Scheduled
Ishpeming will host the North American Jr-1 Championships and the World Jr. Team Tryouts in early January. After many years of hosting WJRT Tryouts, our run has ended in Lake Placid. Central has been without for many years -- no "Big" event other that JO's. They put in the request last year, and it was awarded to them. Nationals will be in Park City the last week of July, and Dan Warner has been appointed the TD. We will also have a Judge there (to be named later). Salisbury has been officially awarded the JO's. Art Tokle will be the ADT there, and we will have 2 Judges for that event.
The Ski Jumping Team
Joe Holland, who has just finished his first year as USSA Jumping & Nordic Combined Sport Committee chairman, did a great job of running smooth and efficient meetings. He is the Chairman of Ski Jumping Development USA (a new name and a new structure for Project-X) as well, and he informed the committee of the hiring of Casey Colby and Clint Jones to lead our men’s program into the future. Both of these coaches gave reports, and will be in Lake Placid until July 5 when they will move to Park City to prepare for Nationals. Everyone was very excited. New SJDUSA members Rex Bell and Dan Warner scurried around the halls of the convention, working on a new program that will put money directly into the jumping program and not to USSA. It was received very well and will be announced soon!
I think this was hands down one of the best set meetings I have been involved in and I think we have finally turned the corner of blaming USSA for our woes and are ready to move forward by taking control of our programming. FYI, several other ski sports got the axe or were moved into other sports. The much hyped Skier-cross program that did poorly at the Olympics is now part of Freestyle and lost all of the funding they received earlier. It's a new world and we need to meet the challenges. I see a brighter future for our program with much better lines of communication and programming coming on the horizon. Our new mantra is "GET INVOLVED".
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