From the FasterSkier archive — posts syndicated from athletes’ and coaches’ own blogs between 2004 and 2012, kept online as published. Current coverage is at fasterskier.com.
The Department of Athletics at the University of Alaska Fairbanks is seeking applicants to fill the position for the Assistant Coach for the Men’s and Women’s Nordic Ski Teams. The Alaska Nanook Ski Team competes in the Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Ski Association and frequently has all-American level performances at the NCAA Championships. UAF is the ideal place to be a nordic skiing enthusiast with groomed trails right outside the door on the UAF campus and a quick 15 minute drive to the world class Birch Hill Facility. There is consistently good groomed skiing from late October/early November to late March/early April each year.
The position is a 9 month/year salaried position with excellent benefits. The minimum starting pay is $25.82/hour. To learn more about the position or to apply please go to http://careers.alaska.edu/cw/en-us/job/506177/assistant- mens-womens-xc-ski-coach
The position is open until filled with the application review process beginning on June 10th 2018.
The Department of Athletics at the University of Alaska Fairbanks is seeking applicants to fill the position for the Assistant Coach for the Men’s and Women’s Nordic Ski Teams. The Alaska Nanook Ski Team competes in the Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Ski Association and frequently has all-american level performances at the NCAA Championships. UAF is the ideal place to be a nordic skiing enthusiast with groomed trails right outside the door on the UAF campus and a quick 15 minute drive to the world class Birch Hill Facility. There is consistently good groomed skiing from late October/early November to late March/early April each year.
The position is a 9 month/year salaried position with excellent benefits. The minimum starting pay is $25.82/hour. To learn more about the position or to apply please go to http://careers.alaska.edu/cw/en-us/job/506177/assistant-mens-womens-xc-ski-coach
The position is open until filled with the application review process beginning on June 22nd.
For questions about the position or UAF Ski Team please contact head coach Nick Crawford: ncrawford2@alaska.edu
University of Alaska Anchorage freshman Hailey Swirbul races through the stadium at Birch Hill Ski Area in Fairbanks, Alaska, in the Alaska Nordic Cup on Nov 19. (Photo: Zachary Hall/UAA Athletics)
FAIRBANKS, Alaska – Scott Patterson is on a roll. The Alaska Pacific University (APU) skier has now won all of the ski races he entered this year – and over half the ski races held in this country in the 2016/2017 winter to date– after picking up wins on both days of racing in the Alaska Nordic Cup at Birch Hill Ski Area in Fairbanks, Alaska, this past weekend, Nov. 19-20.
APU’s Jessica Yeaton was also a double winner on the weekend. And in the collegiate ranks, the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) maintained its hold on the Alaska Nordic Cup against the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA).
Skiers from both universities competed with a new lease on athletic life, after learning earlier this month that the ski programs would not be cut at either UAA or UAF.
The Alaska Nordic Cup is an early season, relatively low-key (but nonetheless International Ski Federation (FIS) sanctioned) competition between Alaska’s only two NCAA nordic programs. Prior to this season, in which UAF switched its conference affiliation from the Central Collegiate Ski Association to the Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Ski Association (RMISA), it marked the only time outside U.S. nationals that Alaska’s college skiers might compete head to head until, potentially, NCAA Skiing Championships in March.
The Nordic Cup is held each year in November, alternating between the Fairbanks and Anchorage areas. 2016 marked the 13th annual Nordic Cup competition. The UAF Nanooks enjoy a healthy historical advantage over their southern rivals, the UAA Seawolves, entering the weekend with an 8-3-1 all-time record (eight wins, three losses, and one tie) in the first 12 years of the dual meet. Scoring is typically based on an individual race on Saturday plus a relay on Sunday. Lowest combined time wins.
But despite a strong team showing from UAF that carried the Nanooks to victory, and some standout individual performances from UAA, it was APU that owned the top steps of the podium throughout the weekend.
APU’s Becca Rorabaugh (l) and Jessica Yeaton (r) at U.S. SuperTour Spring Series in March 2016. (Photo: John Lazenby/Lazenbyphoto.com)
In the women’s race, Jessica Yeaton, an Australian national-team member who competes for Australia internationally but lives in Anchorage and trains with APU, finished Saturday’s 6 kilometer freestyle interval start in 16:52.1, skiing smoothly in relatively cold and slow conditions. APU’s other entrant, Fairbanks native Becca Rorabaugh, finished second, 34.1 seconds back. Third went to Hailey Swirbul, 1:27 back, in the UAA freshman’s college racing debut. UAF skiers swept the next four spots, led by senior Nichole Bathe, the day’s final starter, in fourth.
Yeaton appreciated the early season racing opportunity. “It was awesome to race up here on good snow,” she wrote to FasterSkier. Yeaton added, “The conditions were thin but still provided a really good opportunity for a race effort. We are lucky to have these early races to help prepare for the Supertour in a couple weeks – the [Nordic Ski Club of Fairbanks] did a great job making them happen despite the lack of snow!”
Swirbul, a Colorado native, echoed Yeaton’s praise for the venue and host club: “Thanks to Fairbanks for using their limited snow and delivering excellent (all things considered) courses and conditions for us to open our season this past weekend,” she wrote in a Sunday email to FasterSkier.
Swirbul added, reflecting on the sensation of putting on a race bib once more: “As usual, it’s an interesting feeling to return to an on-snow race scene after long summer months without one… nerves, waxing, morning jogs and stretching, race strategy, etc. I sure enjoyed being back at it this weekend! I was satisfied with my and my team’s skiing this weekend, considering it is only November, and think we have great things ahead of us. We are all revving our engines preparing for a long winter ahead, ready to establish a new name for our team with many young skiers, and meanwhile prove to the president of our university that we are more than worthy of being part of a long lasting ski team at UAA! I am very excited for what the season has to bring for UAA.”
Bathe, originally from Madison, Wis., was likewise pleased by the strong first-day showing of the UAF team. “I thought today went well especially for our whole women’s team,” she wrote in an email on Saturday. “To have four women right in there is always awesome and makes us excited for the season! It’s nice to see all the summer training pay off and start getting back into race mode again.”
On the men’s side, the top-seeded Patterson took advantage of his position as the final starter to ski to the victory over several of his APU teammates, including David Norris in second.
“Snow instead of ice made coming to Fairbanks [from Anchorage] for races an easy decision,” Patterson wrote. “Although I hadn’t raced here since high school, I have always enjoyed the Birch Hill trails. During the race, I had to remember how to race a little after getting some early splits that I was even with David and knowing his fitness through the summer and fall. Overall it was a great chance to chase out some early season rust and get ready for important races.”
APU teammates and brothers Logan Hanneman (7) and Reese Hanneman (4) lead teammate Tyler Kornfield (17) during their quarterfinal of the men’s 1.5 k classic sprint at 2016 U.S. nationals in Houghton, Mich.
Patterson completed the 8.25 k skate race in 19:36.3. Norris finished 16.7 seconds behind him. Tyler Kornfield rounded out the APU podium, finishing 1:03 back of Patterson.
Patterson and Kornfield grew up in Anchorage. Norris is a Fairbanks native. Their good-natured geographic rivalry stretches back a decade or more, to when they were all competing in Alaska high school skiing. (“We hated the Anchorage guys,” Fairbanks skier Reese Hanneman told the Alaska Dispatch News “with more amusement than venom” in a summer profile. “We were like the rednecks from Fairbanks, out skiing in the woods, going up against the city boys.”)
APU skiers took the top five spots on the day, with Anchorage skier Thomas O’Harra in fourth and Fairbanks local Logan Hanneman in fifth.
The top college skier was UAF junior Max Donaldson, another Fairbanks product, in sixth, 1:37 back of Patterson. The top UAA skier was sophomore Toomas Kollo, from Estonia, 2:35 back in ninth.
At the end of the first day of racing, the combined times of the top three UAA women put them just 23.5 seconds behind the top three UAF skiers. On the men’s side, UAF created a larger gap of 2:14.2 over UAA’s combined times, giving UAF an advantage of roughly 2:38 heading into Sunday’s relays.
Sunday saw more of the same: APU took the easy win, Swirbul shined for UAA, and UAF used its depth and balanced performances to take the overall victory.
APU entered only one team in the relay, but it included the top two finishers from each of Saturday’s individual races. Unsurprisingly, the team of Patterson, Rorabaugh, Norris, and Yeaton posted the fastest time in all four legs of the 4 x 4 k skate relay, finishing in 46:57.4.
UAA skiers Hailey Swirbul (l) and Casey Wright (r), on the UAA campus in October 2016. (Photo: Gavin Kentch)
The top college team was Nanooks A (Donaldson, Sarissa Lammers, Michael Fehrenbach, and Bathe), finishing just over three minutes behind APU in 50:10.1. Donaldson and Fehrenbach posted the fastest male collegiate times of the day in their legs. Seawolves ‘A’ (Kollo, Swirbul, Marcus Deuling, and Casey Wright) was less than eight seconds behind the Nanooks in 50:18. Swirbul was again the fastest collegiate woman on the day, while Wright similarly recorded the day’s fastest anchor leg.
Nanooks ‘B’ was next, followed by Seawolves ‘B’. Ultimately, the time gaps from day one grew, and UAF finished with a 4:08 cumulative advantage over UAA, taking home its ninth Nordic Cup overall and second in a row.
UAF nordic coach Nick Crawford said in a Sunday press release, “The Seawolves had a good day today and it was very exciting to watch the race unfold. The margin between our two teams was much smaller today, so it made it that every skier had to race hard which isn’t always the case in relays. The victory was for sure a team effort today with both the men and the women putting together good races. We really enjoy the collaboration we have with our Anchorage rivals.”
UAF skier Anna Darnell expressed similar sentiments, telling the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, in light of the recent political rollercoaster of threatened cuts to both schools’ ski programs, “We feel a lot closer to the UAA team after this.”
Meanwhile, at the top of the results sheet, Patterson’s brace of victories on the weekend, combined with his easy victory at the Race to the Outhouse #1 outside Palmer, Alaska, earlier this month, meant that the APU skier has now won every single race he has entered this winter, as well as 60 percent of all the ski races held in this country this year. (The Mat-Su Ski Club held a pair of 5 k skate and classic races at Hatcher Pass on Nov. 19 and 20.)
“I’ll have to get a time turner for the coming weekends,” Patterson wrote in an email as he reflected on his current track record, “so I can continue to win every single race in the U.S.”
This particular race was slightly more competitive than the Race to the Outhouse. FasterSkier unofficially calculates the USSA race penalty (a measure of the strength of the field) for Saturday’s men’s race as an impressive 29.03, well below the USSA minimum penalty of 35 for a College Event or Regional Scored Event. (The penalty for the women’s race was unofficially a higher, but still respectable, 60.52.)
Reflecting the cosmopolitan nature of NCAA skiing, competitors in the 45-racer FIS/USSA field hailed from at least eight foreign countries, including Canada, Norway, Germany, Australia, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Italy, and Estonia. They were joined by roughly 200 more skiers in the day’s other races, ranging from kindergartners in snowsuits who skied a 500 meter course without poles to the 60- and 70-year-old age brackets in the community 4 k race.
The strong community support, and college athletes who had finished their race but stayed to cheer on their teammates, combined to make the atmosphere as electric as can be found for American cross-country skiing. Dozens of spectators lined a late-race climb back up to the stadium, where racers were met by an even larger, frenzied crowd cheering them on.
The University of Alaska Fairbanks ski team poses with the trophy for the Alaska Nordic Cup at Birch Hill Ski Area in Fairbanks, Alaska, on Nov. 20, 2016. (Photo: Nick Crawford/UAF Athletics)
Conditions were, as the athletes acknowledged, undeniably snow rather than ice (as on the Anchorage trails these days), but unfortunately not that much of it. Fairbanks has seen approximately five inches of total snowfall so far this winter. The impeccably maintained trails at Birch Hill meant that racers found a base of roughly two inches of compacted snow, with some leaves and sporadic dirt showing through, but no rocks. Most skiers in the FIS race competed on their prior-generation race skis.
Although the official high for the day at the Fairbanks airport was a barely FIS-legal 1° F (-17 degrees Celsius), temperatures at the relatively elevated Birch Hill were comparably temperate, hovering around 10° F (-12 C) throughout the afternoon.
At least in the sunlit stadium. Racing at Birch Hill on clear and cool winter days can be an oddly hellish experience. Not because it is unenjoyable – far from it; the trails are a delight to ski, and the snowy birch forest is sublimely beautiful– but because it evokes the sensation of voyaging into the underworld and back again. The stadium is in the sun, and elevated, and relatively warm; many trails drop down leaving the stadium, sending the skier into the realm of dark and cold. And so one goes from light to dark, sun to shade, warmth to cold, and back again with each new trail, the stadium become a modern-day Cumae (entrance to the underworld in classical mythology) and the skier Heracles or Odysseus, re-enacting the journey between worlds.
RMISA college racing resumes early next year with the Utah Invitational at Soldier Hollow on Jan. 7.
University of Alaska Anchorage skier Casey Wright skis in the Alaska Nordic Cup in Fairbanks, Alaska, on Nov. 20, 2016. (Photo: Max Kaufman)
Alaska Pacific University skier Jessica Yeaton skis the anchor leg of the winning relay team in the Alaska Nordic Cup in Fairbanks, Alaska, on Nov. 20, 2016. (Photo: Max Kaufman)
University of Alaska Fairbanks skier Alex Eckert skis in the Alaska Nordic Cup in Fairbanks, Alaska, on Nov. 20, 2016. (Photo: Max Kaufman)
University of Alaska Fairbanks skier Alex Eckert skis in the Alaska Nordic Cup in Fairbanks, Alaska, on Nov. 19, 2016. (Photo: Max Kaufman)
University of Alaska Fairbanks skiers Sarissa Lammers (464) and Hannah Rowland (462) ski in the Alaska Nordic Cup in Fairbanks, Alaska, on Nov. 19, 2016. (Photo: Max Kaufman)
Second-place finisher Alaska Pacific University skier Becca Rorabaugh approaches the finish line of the Alaska Nordic Cup in Fairbanks, Alaska, on Nov. 19, 2016. (Photo: Max Kaufman)
First-place finisher Alaska Pacific University skier Scott Patterson approaches the finish line of the Alaska Nordic Cup in Fairbanks, Alaska, on Nov. 19, 2016, ahead of UAF skier Max Donaldson (494). (Photo: Max Kaufman)
Alaska Pacific University skier David Norris skis the third leg of the winning relay team in the Alaska Nordic Cup in Fairbanks, Alaska, on Nov. 20, 2016. (Photo: Max Kaufman)
Happy skiers: University of Alaska Anchorage Seawolves skiers celebrate the news that their program will not be cut, on the UAA campus on Nov. 10, 2016. (Photo: UAA Athletics)
Note: This article has been updated to include comments from Andrew Kastning.
***
Supporters of #savealaskaskiing have won a tentative victory, as the NCAA’s decision not to take any action on the University of Alaska’s waiver request has significantly changed the university’s options heading into today’s Board of Regents meeting.
University of Alaska (UA) President Jim Johnsen said in a press release, “As a result of this nonresponse from the NCAA, I will recommend to the Board of Regents that we not reduce teams at this time. Similarly, given the complexity associated with the consortium option as discussed with the Regents, I will recommend against pursuing that option at this time as well.”
The NCAA Division II Membership Committee had met in Indianapolis on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. In order to cut skiing at either Alaska university, the committee would have had to approve the UA waiver request, which sought to bring the number of teams at both the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) and University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) below the NCAA-required minimum threshold of 10 teams per school. The Board of Regents would then have to recommend eliminating skiing at either or both schools.
But the NCAA declined to reach the university’s waiver request, apparently because UA was making a request that was in some way hypothetical or too early. (In legal terms, the waiver request was not yet ripe for consideration.) The problem, in the NCAA’s eyes, was that UA was seeking permission to drop below 10 teams before it actually did so.
As Johnsen wrote in the press release, “the NCAA responded” to the waiver request by “saying that it was neither approving nor denying the university’s request. Rather it declined to take any action at all. The NCAA’s response indicated that it would consider a waiver request only after the university reduced the number of teams below the 10-team minimum. We know that such a step would risk a wide variety of financial and programmatic NCAA sanctions.”
As a result of these implications, Johnsen wrote, he would recommend to the Board of Regents that either team reduction or a consortium model not be pursued at this time.
Johnsen’s proposed alternative seemed to acknowledge the strength and volume of support from the recent #savealaskaskiing movement.
“Instead of those options” of team reduction or a consortium model, Johnsen continued, “I will suggest we tap into the large outpouring of support from our student athletes, our communities and our alumni. It is clear that the ski community strongly supports the programs at UAA and UAF. Of course, much depends on our future budget. But given the volume of voices of support for athletics and the passion of their arguments, we will recommend instead to engage with these supporters to invite and encourage their financial support for the athletic programs they value so much.”
“It is clear that the ski community strongly supports the programs at UAA and UAF. Of course, much depends on our future budget.” — University of Alaska President Jim Johnsen
Johnsen concluded, “I look forward to a full conversation about this approach with the Board of Regents today, and I am confident we will find an appropriate way forward.”
Happy skiers: University of Alaska Fairbanks women’s skiers get together for a photo last season: (from left to right) Hannah Rowland, Anne-Tine Markset, Nichole Bathe, Martina Himma, Ann-Cathrin Uhl, and Sarissa Lammers. (Photo: Nick Crawford)
The Board of Regents meeting began in Fairbanks on Thursday morning, and continues through Thursday and Friday.
The meeting began with the President’s Report first thing on Thursday morning. Skiing supporters currently attending the Board of Regents meeting told FasterSkier, in a paraphrase of Johnsen’s remarks, that the UA President had specifically mentioned the strong outpouring of support from the nordic skiing community, and had explicitly stated that he did not recommend dropping skiing at this time.
UAF head nordic coach Nick Crawford is pleased.
Crawford wrote to FasterSkier, “We received great news today that the University of Alaska administration is not pursuing elimination of sports teams at either UAF or UAA at this time. While the NCAA did not formerly deny the waiver request to drop below 10 sports as we had hoped, their non-action appears to have the same result of maintaining a full sports program here at UAF. If the athletic department drops below the 10 sport minimum the NCAA would likely issue sanctions that would harm all of our sports ranging from reduced scholarship limits, financial penalties and bans on postseason play. With the strong outcry of support from our ski community, it’s clear that the University administration now values collegiate skiing in Alaska much more than it previously did!”
Crawford continued, in reference to the groundswell of support for #savealaskaskiing, “I’ve been overwhelmed with the support for our teams from cross country ski enthusiasts from across the state, country and globe! We’ve always known collegiate skiing in Alaska has had a strong base of support but it’s been incredibly moving over the last two weeks to see everyone coming out to support us in so many different ways! I would like to personally thank the Alaskan and United States skiing community for all of their efforts thus far!”
UAA head nordic coach Andrew Kastning sounded similar notes of relief and gratitude.
As Kastning wrote to FasterSkier, “We are very happy with the announcement to reverse the decision made a few weeks ago and can begin to breathe life into the future of our ski team. We had over 5,000 people sign the petition and who knows how many call and write the Board of Regents. That kind of reaction was impossible to ignore the best possible outcome for the near future has been made. I’m sure we will be tasked with tapping into all the vocal support we’ve garnered to help fund our program which is something I believe we can do given the amazing response we’ve received from all over the skiing world. I can’t thank these people enough, today’s announcement wouldn’t be possible without them.”
The Alaska Airlines Center, home to the University of Alaska Anchorage Seawolves athletics program in Anchorage, Alaska, photographed last month. (Photo: Gavin Kentch)
The University of Alaska system structured its recent waiver requests to the NCAA partially around a presidential directive to preserve men’s hockey at any cost, then backed away from that suggestion in a public explanation of its actions, an analysis of the school’s official waiver documents suggests.
University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) Athletic Director Keith Hackett and President Jim Johnsen announced last week that men’s and women’s skiing at both UAA and the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) were among the sports targeted for elimination in a waiver request submitted to the relevant NCAA membership committee. At the time, Johnsen told the Alaska Dispatch News that “hockey survived largely because the NCAA requires a school to offer two men’s team sports and two women’s team sports,” and that the only men’s team sports at both UAA and UAF are basketball and hockey. (NCAA bylaws consider cross-country skiing to be an individual sport.)
But the official waiver requests submitted to the NCAA were somewhat less circumspect. “The President of the University System has stated that Alaska Anchorage shall make every effort to retain men’s hockey,” UAA’s waiver request stated. And “the President of the University System has stated that Alaska Fairbanks shall make every effort to retain men’s hockey,” UAF’s waiver request stated in near-identical language.
(The waiver requests are substantively identical, but were written, or at least edited, by different people. Run-on sentences, typographical errors, and citations to nonexistent bylaw provisions that are present in the UAA waiver request were corrected in the UAF version of the same document.)
The 13 sports currently sponsored at UAA are as follows:
Table of 13 sports currently offered at UAA, prior to its waiver request to the NCAA this month (Screenshot from UAA waiver request)
The 10 sports currently sponsored at UAF are as follows:
Table of 10 sports currently offered at UAF, prior to its waiver request to the NCAA this month. (Screenshot from UAF waiver request)
The team sports offered at UAA, according to NCAA Division II Bylaws Section 20.10.3.3, are men’s basketball, men’s ice hockey, women’s basketball, and women’s volleyball. This bylaw defines all other sports at UAA (cross-country running, skiing, indoor and outdoor track, and gymnastics) as individual sports.
At UAF, the team sports are men’s hockey, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, and women’s volleyball. Cross-country running, skiing, swimming, and rifle (riflery) are all defined as individual sports.
UAA and UAF are currently both members of the Great Northwest Athletic Conference, or GNAC. UAA and UAF both wrote in their waiver requests that they must sponsor basketball, volleyball, and cross-country running in order to remain a member of GNAC.
University of Alaska Fairbanks women’s nordic-team skiers get together for a photo last season: (from left to right) Hannah Rowland, Anne-Tine Markset, Nichole Bathe, Martina Himma, Ann-Cathrin Uhl, and Sarissa Lammers. (Photo: Nick Crawford)
Waiver options
UAA and UAF are both seeking relief from the requirements of Bylaw 20.10.3(a), which states that a Division II member school “shall sponsor” a minimum of “Five varsity intercollegiate sports, including at least two team sports, based on the minimum requirements of Bylaw 20.10.3.3 and involving all-male teams or mixed teams of males and females; and five varsity intercollegiate sports, including at least two team sports, based on the minimum requirements of Bylaw 20.10.3.3 and involving all-female teams.”
There are therefore two parts to this bylaw: the requirement that a school have at least 10 sports, and the requirement that a school have at least two team sports per gender.
Both UA schools are seeking a waiver solely of the 10-sports-total provision of this bylaw. It is unclear how much attention was paid to the possibility of seeking a waiver of the two-team-sports provision, in addition to or instead of the 10-sports-total provision. Gaining some leeway with regard to the two-team-sports requirement would potentially allow either school to look anew at hockey or basketball, the two most expensive sports at UAA by a substantial margin, as a potential target for cuts.
Hackett, the UAA athletic director, was asked by email, “Did UAA consider seeking a waiver of the two-team-sports requirement, in addition to or instead of the ten-sports-total requirement?” He wrote back, “Yes, many months ago as part of Strategic Pathways. The answer is NO to the second part of your question.”
Hackett was also asked whether men’s hockey could be said to be receiving special treatment from Johnsen, the UA President, when men’s basketball is also a team sport (as well as one required for GNAC membership).
Hackett wrote, “Both waivers stated the same thing with regard to making every effort to retain Hockey at both Institutions as directed by President Johnsen. Both UAA and UAF are members of the GNAC and we wanted to be sure we would be able to maintain our Full membership with our primary Division II Conference. Men’s Basketball was not part of any discussion.”
The budget for the UAA hockey team for the 2016/2017 season is, in round numbers, $1,347,000 dollars. The budget for the men’s basketball team is $467,000. The budget for the women’s basketball team is $446,000. The budget for each of the men’s and women’s ski teams (at UAA, this includes alpine as well as nordic) is $280,000.
While direction from President Johnsen features as a significant part of the official waiver request that was submitted to the NCAA on behalf of both schools, this presidential involvement is not mentioned in the Frequently Asked Questions document posted on the Strategic Pathways website.
“In the waiver application why was hockey named specifically as a sport to keep when it is the most expensive sport?” asks question 2 of the FAQ document.
The answer given there is, “In making these decision [sic], cost was a driving factor, but it was not the only one. We applied a set of reasonable criteria that included keeping specific sports required by GNAC in order to keep our membership in that conference, making sure we are adhering to the gender equity requirements of Title IX, keeping the strong instate rivalry between UAA and UAF and cost.”
Additional surprises?
While all previous reporting on this story, in FasterSkier, the Alaska Dispatch News and elsewhere, has focused on UAA’s announced plan to eliminate four sports (men’s and women’s skiing and men’s and women’s indoor track), the official request submitted to the NCAA actually mentions the possibility of cutting a fifth sport if financially necessary:
Detail from waiver request by University of Alaska Anchorage to NCAA this month. (Screenshot from UAA waiver request)
The language in the footnote – “two (possibly three) male sports and two female sports” – suggests that, if a fifth sport were to be cut, it would be a third men’s sport. Assuming for the moment that basketball and hockey are “protected” (by virtue both of being team sports and of UAA not having sought a waiver to the two-team-sports requirement), that leaves men’s cross-country running and men’s outdoor track potentially vulnerable as a fifth sport to be eliminated.
(Analogous language in the UAF waiver request mentions cutting only two sports, men’s and women’s skiing, alongside reducing scholarships among the remaining eight sports.)
Furthermore, both schools’ waiver requests seek a waiver of the 10-sport requirement for a set period, five years, and promise to “evaluate its options to return to the 10-sport minimum required for compliance with Division II membership criteria” at the start of the 2021/2022 season.
When asked whether he thought that elimination of a fifth sport would be necessary, Hackett wrote, “I certainly hope not. I am not sure there is a timeline in place for making any further team decisions. I have not spent any time considering additional sport team reductions.”
When asked whether he expected that any eliminated sport would be able to return after having been cut for five years, Hackett wrote, “It would be difficult to ascertain.”
Recent developments
Since news of the waiver request first broke last week, supporters of the #savealaskaskiing movement have been busy. There is a website. (The team behind the website includes André Horton, currently a consultant with a lobbying and campaign management group but formerly a member of the U.S. Alpine Ski Team, as well as UAA head ski coach Sparky Anderson, Horton told FasterSkier in an email.) There is a march and public protest planned for Fairbanks next Thursday afternoon, Nov. 10, in connection with the upcoming Board of Regents meeting. And there are alternative budget proposals being advanced that claim to save an equal amount of money through administrative restructuring, while leaving academics and athletics programs unscathed.
Manon Locatelli of the University of Alaska Anchorage double poles out of the start of the 2015 Seawolf Invite at Kincaid Park in Anchorage, Alaska. (Photo: Sam Wasson Photography / http://portfolio.samwassonphotography.com/about)
The University of Alaska Board of Regents heard public testimony for two hours on Monday afternoon. While the teleconference window was technically open to anyone who wanted to testify on any subject, firsthand reports from people who listened to the testimony suggest that the focus was overwhelmingly UAA and UAF skiing, and that all testimony on this subject was in favor of preserving the program.
Nearly all “of the comments were regarding skiing,” wrote third-generation Alaskan, former UAA skier, and former Alaska Pacific University ski coach Charlie Renfro in an email to FasterSkier. The only exceptions were “a couple comments about other university programs that were/are on the chopping block.”
“Something like 50 people were able to comment,” Renfro continued, “and I would say about 48 of them were very constructive and from people who are all very knowledgeable regarding the UAA/UAF programs – both nordic and alpine. Nearly everyone that called in, I knew personally from either nordic or alpine, past, present, athletes, coaches and parents. One girl, a ski alum who said she was calling from Copenhagen (it was 2am there) gave an incredibly concise, heartfelt speech. It was very moving. I hope the [Board of Regents] felt the same way.”
Anchorage resident Ira Edwards, who previously skied on the UAF nordic team and currently works for the State of Alaska, Department of Natural Resources (ski fans may recognize Edwards’s name from his side job – he spent many years as Rossignol’s U.S. race service manager), expressed similar sentiments.
Rossignol tech rep Ira Edwards provides race support at a race at Kincaid Park in Anchorage, Alaska.
“I have called into these before, for various other reasons” unconnected to athletics, Edwards told FasterSkier in a recent phone interview. “Generally, they have an hour and a half for testimony, or sometimes only an hour – they anticipated a higher call volume, so I think they bumped this one up – but I don’t think I’ve ever heard more than five or six people ever call in.”
But on Monday afternoon, Edwards called in roughly a half hour after the public comment window opened, and was caller number 41 in the telephonic queue. He was the last person to be able to speak on Monday; the Board closed testimony immediately after he had finished speaking, after hearing two hours’ worth of comments. Edwards personally knew of a friend who was caller number 91 – that is, there were at least 50 more people after him who had hoped to speak – and suspects that there were a total of “well over 100 people” on the line who called in in an attempt to testify.
Edwards recalls a total of three comments that were not about skiing (and one of those concerned the school’s running program). “There was not a single negative comment [about skiing],” Edwards said.
Next steps
Two things would have to happen for either or both of the UA system’s waiver requests to be approved: (1) first the NCAA Division II Membership Committee must approve the request, and (2) then the University of Alaska Board of Regents must approve the request.
The membership committee holds a regularly scheduled in-person meeting in Indianapolis on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week, Nov. 8-9. Committee chair Kevin Schriver told FasterSkier on Monday that the committee “will see if that [the UA waiver requests] will be a part of our agenda.” An agenda for next week’s meeting is not yet posted online.
The University of Alaska Board of Regents meets the following two days, Thursday and Friday, Nov. 10-11, in Fairbanks. The agenda for that meeting “has not yet been posted,” a Board of Regents representative told FasterSkier in a Thursday afternoon phone call. They said it would be posted on Friday, Nov. 4.
The Board of Regents agenda and related materials should be accessible from here once they have been posted. Information about a live stream of next week’s Board of Regents meeting is available on the same page.
Differing perspectives
While many Alaskans are banding together in support of the ski program at both schools, the specific mood on both campuses seems somewhat different, reflecting differing circumstances and divergent views of the possibility of the NCAA granting the relevant waiver request.
In Fairbanks, ski team supporters are holding out hope that the NCAA 10-sport rule will operate as a bulwark to keep UAF from cutting the relatively low-profile sport of skiing.
UAF head nordic coach Nick Crawford. (Courtesy photo)
As UAF head nordic coach Nick Crawford wrote to FasterSkier last week, “For UAF specifically, I don’t think skiing will be cut as I don’t think the NCAA will grant the waiver to the ‘10 sport minimum requirement.’ One of the NCAA’s core values is to provide sporting opportunities from athletes of many different sports and the 10 sport rule is in effect to protect small sports like skiing. It’s a slippery slope to allow Alaska to cut ‘less well known’ sports like skiing and indoor track to continue to fund their more popular sports, If the NCAA grants this waiver, it sets a precedent to eliminate non-revenue generating sports across the country with fewer and fewer sports offerings and that is not a direction I think the NCAA wants to go in.”
One of Crawford’s athletes, sophomore skier Conner Truskowski, expressed similar sentiments and included a call to action, writing to FasterSkier, “When we first got the news we were all pretty bummed out and mad that something as Alaskan as skiing was being considered for cuts. However, now that we have had time to process what could happen, we are all motivated to prove to the NCAA and everyone else that we are willing to fight for the sport we love and prove that the ski community benefits from having us as a team here. I want to stress that no decision has been made yet and there is still time to let everyone in the decision making process [know] that skiing is valuable. We believe that the waiver will not pass because the NCAA does not generally allow exceptions to their rules. Because of all that has happened, we are training harder than ever to make our season the best one we’ve ever had. Again, I really want to make it clear that no decision has been made yet and to let everyone know that their voice can be heard in the decision. Let the NCAA know that Alaska skiing is valuable to the ski community, both locally, nationwide, and worldwide.”
But at UAA, head nordic coach Andrew Kastning sounded somewhat more resigned, as if the NCAA were less of a bulwark and more of a Maginot Line.
In a recent phone interview, Kastning told FasterSkier, “Ultimately, I have a sliver of hope that the waiver doesn’t pass, that the Regents can be swayed and decide that skiing has to be saved and they need to make another decision. So I feel like there’s a tiny chance for UAA to survive at this point. But it’s obviously a giant hurdle to clear when the athletic director and the president have publicly recommended that this is the route to go to save the school money.”
While Kastning was clearly saddened, he saved his strongest disappointment for his athletes. “I ache the most for my athletes,” Kastning said, “the ones that I’ve coached and the ones that know how special the situation and an experience it is to go to UAA and ski race in Alaska, and travel around the American West. And also for the current team, that has just gotten here and has only been here for a year at most, and they’re really bonding well and working really hard to reach their goals. And because of some short-sighted decisions and a tough budget situation, are faced with having to find another path.”
Manon Locatelli of the University of Alaska Anchorage double poles out of the start of the 2015 Seawolf Invite at Kincaid Park in Anchorage, Alaska. (Photo: Sam Wasson Photography)
An outcome first broached as a possibility this spring became an all-too-concrete reality Thursday afternoon, when plummeting oil prices and a yawning state budget deficit led to the announcement that University of Alaska President Jim Johnsen was targeting nordic skiing for elimination, at both the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) and the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF), in a waiver request submitted to the NCAA. On Friday, the ski community and affected skiers continued to react.
Financial background, or, how did we get here?
As FasterSkier previously reported, the State of Alaska is dependent upon funds from a single source, oil revenue, to an extent unparalleled in any other state. Falling oil prices over the last two years have led to widespread budget deficits, layoffs and reductions of both state and private-sector employees (particularly in the oil and gas industry), and political recriminations over the failure to pass a balanced budget.
When FasterSkier first reported on this story in May 2016, the price of oil was approximately $48 a barrel. At the close of trading on Thursday, oil was at $49.89 a barrel. At these prices, the State of Alaska faces a revenue shortfall equal to approximately two-thirds of its budget. Oil has not been over $100 a barrel in over two years.
Alaska residents have not paid a state income tax since 1980. Although some communities have instituted local sales taxes, there is no statewide sales tax.
Brian Gregg (Team Gregg/Madshus) racing the Davos World Cup 30 k freestyle in Switzerland. (Photo: Madshus/NordicFocus)
Alumni react
Brian Gregg, currently one half of Team Gregg, came to UAA to ski in 2005. He later became a three-time SuperTour distance champion and a 2014 Olympian. When he was first asked, in May, if he would like to answer some questions about what UAA skiing had meant to him, Gregg promptly responded with a 600-word email titled, “UAA Ski Team, a vital part in my pathway to the Olympics.”
Gregg took some time out from preparing for this winter’s first on-snow time trial at Frozen Thunder in Canmore, Alberta, to share some updated thoughts earlier on Friday. Gregg wrote to FasterSkier, “This is very disappointing news to me personally and to the entire skiing community. NCAA Skiing is a major asset in the development of cross-country skiers for our country. The future for skiing as an NCAA sport does not look good. I have seen the programs cut at Western State, University of Nevada Reno, Whitman College, Saint John’s University, College of St. Benedict, Gustavus Adolphus, [Macalaster], and now UAA and possibly UAF. The question now is who is next?”
Gregg continued, with an eye to the future, “I also start to think about whether or not NCAA has a rule on the number of member school which must have programs in order for there to be an NCAA Championship. Currently the Central Division has only 5 Men’s programs and 6 women’s programs, several which don’t even have a Coach who is paid full time. I encourage everyone to be preemptive in showing the incredible value of our existing skiing programs to the administration, student body and community.”
Sadie Bjornsen currently skis for Alaska Pacific University (APU) and is a member of the U.S. Ski Team (USST). But in 2009, she was a freshman for the UAA Seawolves and finished in the top five in five out of eight races and placed third overall in the classic race at NCAA Skiing Championships.
“My year as a Seawolf was one of the most important ‘steps’ of my life,” Bjornsen wrote to FasterSkier on Friday. “I would have never been drawn to AK fresh out of high school, and discovered this incredible state. I see skiing as a big family with many functioning parts. By eliminating one integral part of the ski community, we are cutting off a strong piece of the family!”
Even though Bjornsen moved down the street to APU after one year, she is quick to underscore the important role of the NCAA-affiliated UAA program for American cross-country skiing.
U.S. ski team member, Sadie Bjornsen racing to a 17th overall in the women’s10 k freestyle at Stage 7 of the Ski Tour Canada in Canmore, Alberta. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
“I have always considered Alaska to be the best training for a cross country skier in the US,” Bjornsen wrote. “We have the perfect environment for training, including early snow in the fall, and late snow in the spring. I now race professionally, and am a student at Alaska Pacific University while racing World Cup. I see APU as providing the very best opportunity in the world for myself, but, I know this level is not designed for everyone. It is important to have options, and varied levels so that skiers can choose where they want to go, and have a path to where they are looking to reach. I would never give back that year of racing NCAA at UAA, a year that taught me so many lessons! It saddens me to know that won’t be available for everyone anymore!”
Joey Caterinichio is a local. She attended West Anchorage High School, where in the 1980s she raced on the same ski team as future four-time Olympian Nina Kemppel and current U.S. Ski Team head coach Chris Grover. (Caterinichio herself would later travel to Sochi as nordic program manager for the USST.)
After graduating from West High, Caterinichio originally pursued college skiing at St. Lawrence University in upstate New York. But after two years away, the lure of home brought her back to Anchorage, where she skied another two years for UAA.
Caterinichio, now 46, still lives in Anchorage, where she runs a medical supply company and, with her husband, raises three children. She also runs local community ski training group Alaska Nordic Racing. Caterinichio has attended 20 Junior Nationals.
Joey Caterinichio skiing for UAA, as shown in the 1992-1993 Seawolves media guide. (Courtesy photo)
Caterinichio took to Facebook soon after the news hit Thursday afternoon. (Caterinichio gave FasterSkier permission to share her thoughts.) Posting a historic photo, showing her skiing in a suit she had designed herself, she wrote, “This is me featured on the cover of the Seawolves magazine representing skiing in 92-93. This same picture was featured in the Great Alaska Shootout booklets [a basketball tournament] which loses tons of money every year, yet we are not cutting basketball. The money UAA is saving by cutting these programs is pennies compared to the good they do for the community and the positive role models that move up here or stay here for college because of the sport. These same folks stay and give back to Alaska.”
Reflecting on her personal history, Caterinichio continued, “Not only did I return from St. Lawrence to ski my last 2 years for UAA, I graduated with 2 degrees in science and I taught in the UAA Biology Department. With roots in this community, I stayed in Alaska. I own my own business, Employ others and In addition I have contributed thousands of hours to the sport of cross country skiing at the local level, national level and international level. There are others who chose this same path and who contribute hugely to this community. It’s not just about the sport. It’s about recruiting high quality community members to Alaska who stay and give back. Chasing these types of folks out of our state, cutting these sports in a time where the community is dying for positivity and crime is at its all time high! It’s time to think beyond the dollar. My give back alone for 25 years is an example of what could be lost. And on top of it this is ALASKA! We are a winter sport community. Come on UAA. As an alumni think global, think community!”
In a follow-up phone conversation, Caterinichio noted, “I’m not going to stop with Facebook now … It’s time to move quickly – I don’t know if anything’s fixable right now, but it’s time to try.”
Caterinichio clarified that while her goal was “to save skiing, of course,” she was also aiming “not to disrespect any of the other sports” at UAA. “I believe that all sports are important … and produce highly functional individuals for our community,” Caterinichio said.
Other skiers react
Holly Brooks is a two-time Olympian, recently retired from racing with the USST and APU. Brooks long ago put down roots in Anchorage, buying a house and recently opening a counseling, consulting and coaching practice.
Brooks gave FasterSkier permission to share what she had posted on her personal Facebook page after hearing the news: “It seems a bit ironic that while … our presence (as a country) and success internationally is growing, options in the US for skiers to support and chase their dreams are shrinking. While the NCAA doesn’t represent everyone’s path it’s an undeniable and important part of the ski community at large. The loss [of] NCAA skiing in Alaska is a huge hit to the greater nordic ski family nationwide.”
Holly Brooks (APU), following the Anchorage Tour at Kincaid Park last March. (Photo: Rob Whitney)
Brooks explained that she was hoping to channel her emotions over this recent news into something more positive: “Am I frustrated? Absolutely? Am I mad? You’d better believe it…. But I’ve decided that the best thing to do today is to channel my anger into something positive and that is to pitch in and support developing US skiers via the ‘Drive for 25.’ The National Nordic Foundation (NNF) … is an organization whose sole purpose is to help fund developing skiers. When I was invited to extend my stay on the World Cup to the tune of $140/day (for many months) the NNF pitched in to help. The Drive for 25 is the main fundraiser for NNF and the idea is ‘what if every ski fan in the United States donated $25 dollars – or more?’ By participating, D25 donors show that skiing matters and they are part of Team USA!”
As of earlier this week, 62 donations for NNF’s Drive for 25 program had come from Alaska, trailing only Minnesota (69) and Utah (64).
Kikkan Randall is a four-time Olympian, and a current member of APU and the USST. She did not ski for UAA, but as a lifelong Anchorage resident and prominent supporter of skiing and youth athletics, she feels strongly about the role of local college skiing in supporting the community.
“I just think we’re going to miss out on some really big contributions to the community, our ski teams are all out there working with kids and helping to take care of trails,” Randall told a local television station. “I think the community is really going to take a hit.”
How final is this?
The finality of this decision arguably remained an open question as the dust settled on Thursday and Friday. Despite a statement in the Alaska Dispatch News (ADN), repeated in FasterSkier, that skiing at both UAA and UAF had been “targeted for elimination in a waiver request submitted to the NCAA,” there was hope in Fairbanks that the waiver request would not be approved, and so skiing would be saved at least at UAF.
As UAF head nordic coach Nick Crawford wrote to FasterSkier late Thursday, “For UAF specifically, I don’t think skiing will be cut as I don’t think the NCAA will grant the waiver to the ‘10 sport minimum requirement.’ One of the NCAA’s core values is to provide sporting opportunities from athletes of many different sports and the 10 sport rule is in effect to protect small sports like skiing. It’s a slippery slope to allow Alaska to cut ‘less well known’ sports like skiing and indoor track to continue to fund their more popular sports, If the NCAA grants this waiver, it sets a precedent to eliminate non-revenue generating sports across the country with fewer and fewer sports offerings and that is not a direction I think the NCAA wants to go in.”
The 10-sport rule is contained in section 20.10.3(a)-(b) of the NCAA Division II Bylaws, which provides that “A member of Division II shall sponsor in Division II a minimum of” either five sports for each of men and women, or four sports for men and six for women.
Crawford told the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner on Thursday, “I guess I’d say I’m confident that we’ll be here still. It seems like the 10-sport minimum is designed so that small sports like ours aren’t overridden by larger sports.”
University of Alaska Fairbanks nordic skiers rollerskiing on campus last fall. (Photo: UAF)
Current UAF skier Conner Truskowski expressed similar sentiments to his coach on Facebook, writing, “To clarify, as a student athlete at UAF, skiing has not yet been cut! The universities are submitting waiver to the NCAA to allow for an exception to the 10 sport rule. While things do look very dark for UAA skiing, the waiver will most likely not pass as the NCAA doesn’t really allow exceptions to the rules. Even if the waivers do pass, these programs won’t be cut until next year.”
Truskowski continued, “This is a very dark time for collegiate skiing here in Alaska, but not all hope is lost. We are doing everything we can as athletes to fight for our program, and we can use all the help from the nationwide, and worldwide community we can get. Please help us all support Alaska skiing. Make it know[n] to the NCAA that there is strong opposition to this waiver, it will help us out immensely.”
Three-hundred miles to the south, UAA officials seemed to express a greater sense of finality. As UAA Athletic Director Keith Hackett wrote in an official statement, “at the conclusion of the 2016-17 academic year, UAA Seawolf Athletics will be discontinuing our sponsorship of Men’s and Women’s Skiing and Men’s/Women’s Indoor Track and Field.”
Hackett continued, “Should the NCAA Waiver request not be approved, we will take time to carefully consider which program would be reinstated.”
This presumably means only one program would be reinstated, as opposed to multiple programs. This is because the NCAA waiver would take UAA from 13 teams down to nine. If the waiver were denied, UAA would need to field only the minimum of 10 teams to comply with section 20.10.3(a)-(b) of the NCAA Division II bylaws.
Next steps and opportunities for advocacy
As the ADN reported, “If the NCAA grants a waiver to the university, the Board of Regents would still have to approve the elimination of sports teams. If a decision by the NCAA is made in time, the regents will take up the issue at their next board meeting on Nov. 10-11 in Fairbanks.”
The ADN continued, “No public comment will be allowed during that meeting. Instead, public testimony must be made by telephone on Monday from 4-6 p.m. The number to call is 1-866-726-0757.”
Toby Schwoerer, a five-time All-American in skiing at UAA (plus a sixth time in cross-country running), wrote to FasterSkier that he “would like to see some coordinated effort to write emails to the 11 Board members” of the Board of Regents, linking to contact information for the individual members of the Board.
The budget figures involved
As Crawford, UAF’s head coach, wrote, “One consideration is that skiing is not one of the most expensive collegiate sports in our state. If the state truly wants to save money through sport reductions they would choose to eliminate one of the more expensive sports.”
Crawford’s math seems to be correct. The data suggest that hockey is by far the single most expensive sport, and that skiing is somewhere in the lower middle in terms of overall team cost.
The ADN, citing figures from UAA, has broken down the UAA sports teams’ total budget of $4.33 million for the 2017 fiscal year that began on July 1, 2016.
University of Alaska Anchorage Seawolves logo (Photo: GoSeawolves.com)
Over 31 percent of that $4.33 million total, or $1.35 million, goes to one team, the men’s hockey team. (UAA has only a men’s hockey program.)
From 1985 through 2016, UAA skiing finished in the top 10 at NCAA Championships 31 times in 32 years.
The next most costly programs are men’s and women’s basketball, at approximately $450,000 each. Both programs have enjoyed ample success; the women’s team reached the Division II national championship game in April 2016, losing to national champion Lubbock Christian.
Men’s and women’s skiing are in the middle of the pack financially, at a cost of $280,000 for each of the men’s and women’s teams, or $560,000 total. The ski program costs somewhat less at UAF, $400,000 total, because UAF has only a nordic team and not an alpine team as well, and so has fewer athletes.
The UAA athletics program as a whole finished eighth overall, out of approximately 300 teams with D-II athletics programs nationwide, in the 2015/2016 Directors’ Cup, a season-long competition across all Division II sports programs that awards points for a school’s performance in up to 14 sports. It was the highest overall finish in UAA history. Over one-tenth of the Seawolves’ points for their Directors’ Cup ranking, 63 out of 570.5, came from skiing.
“We have developed an elite Division II program here,” Hackett told the ADN on Thursday. “This inhibits us in so many ways now. You reduce our teams and our budget, and it really impacts our ability to compete at the national level.”
History repeats itself?
Several of the major figures involved unfortunately have relevant experience in this vein.
Hackett most recently held a comparable position at the University of Nevada, Reno. The Nevada ski team was defunded and discontinued under his tenure. The assistant nordic coach until shortly before the program was cut was UAA’s current head nordic coach Andrew Kastning.
Kastning and his now wife, Calisa (Schouweiler) Kastning, moved to Whitman College, where Calisa was hired to coach the men’s and women’s nordic teams at the start of the 2007/2008 season. Fewer than two years later, the Whitman ski program was cut.
Kastning previously told a local radio program that they had thought they would be safe moving to a ski program in Alaska.
Recapping a lifespan
Skiing began at UAA in 1977, near the end of the pipeline boom, and one year following the establishment of the Alaska Permanent Fund. The population of Anchorage would grow from 48,000 to 174,000 during the 1970s, reflecting the pipeline boom. The original 15 kilometers of trails at local ski area Kincaid Park had been laid out a few years earlier. The Italian skier Giorgio Di Centa, who won two gold medals at the 2006 Olympics, was 5 years old.
March 1991: Bjorn Lasserud of Minneapolis at World Masters Championships at Kincaid Park in Anchorage. Lasserud won multiple national and World Masters championships. (Photo: Peter Hale)
If, as appears likely, NCAA-affiliated skiing at UAA comes to an end following the 2016/2017 season, it will be an even 40 years old. It will have survived the first great Alaskan oil recession, of the mid-1980s, but not the second. The Alaska Permanent Fund will have become a political football.
During the lifespan of UAA skiing, Kincaid hosted at least seven U.S. National Championships, five National Masters Championships, one Masters World Cup, and one World Cup weekend. (The World Cup was in March 1983. Gunde Svan won; Americans Tim Caldwell and Bill Koch placed second and third.) The 15 k of trails at Kincaid increased three- to four-fold, depending upon what you measure. Di Centa competed in his first FIS race in 1992, and his most recent, though probably not his last, in March 2016. The population of Anchorage is now approximately 300,000.
UAA nordic skiers recorded six individual NCAA championships (plus another three for alpine skiers) in the program’s first 39 years. The program as a whole (both nordic and alpine combined) had, through last season, a highest finish at NCAA Championships of fourth, in 2009. From 1985 through 2016, UAA finished in the top ten at NCAA Championships 31 times in 32 years.
Notable skiers who recorded All-American performances at UAA include, in chronological order, Dan Fleener, Urban Enkvist, Erik Flora, Frode Lillefjell, Lars Flora, Toby Schwoerer, Eric Strabel, Mandy Kaempf, Nicole DeYong, Brian Gregg, Andy Liebner, Sadie Bjornsen, Lex Treinen, and Erik Bjornsen. Gregg and both Bjornsen siblings would later ski on the 2014 U.S. Olympic Team.
* This article has been edited to reflect the fact that Andrew Kastning was the assistant head coach at the University of Nevada, Reno, when the ski program was cut, not the head coach.
The University of Alaska Anchorage nordic team talks technique with assistant coach Sara Studebaker-Hall (r) during a rollerski session last Tuesday in Kincaid Park. (Photo: UAA Nordic.blogspot.com)
ANCHORAGE, Alaska – The University of Alaska president has recommended two options that could preserve the future of intercollegiate skiing at one or both of Alaska’s NCAA member schools – but both options may be without precedent in modern NCAA history. The final decision will be made by the Board of Regents in mid-November.
The future of college skiing in Alaska has had a bumpy ride since this spring, with alternating suggestions first that there was little cause for concern for ski-team supporters, but then that skiing at either or both of the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) and University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) was under threat. The current status is that the teams are once more in limbo, and awaiting a final decision from the Board of Regents later this year.
At a University of Alaska (UA) Board of Regents meeting in Juneau, Alaska, last Thursday, UA President Jim Johnsen presented his initial directions regarding Phase I of Strategic Pathways, the campus-wide audit aimed at reducing costs in light of reduced oil prices, a decimated state budget, and declining financial support for all aspects of the UA system.
Regarding intercollegiate athletics, President Johnsen recommended:
Pursue with NCAA: (1) waiver of ten team rule, or (2) consortium; BOR [Board of Regents] action would be required
Increase private funding support
If waiver or consortium unsuccessful, consider modifying existing programs to reduce cost and/or elimination of 1 or both programs
The decision is in some ways a non-decision, to the extent that it directs further action but does not make a final decision at this time. (The Strategic Pathways site states, “President Johnsen will appoint teams to begin the implementation workability of each of the options presented.”)
The Alaska Dispatch News, or ADN, reported that the Board of Regents reacted to Johnsen’s Thursday recommendation by expressing that it hoped to avoid any option involving the elimination of an athletic program: “But regents said they were concerned that eliminating UA’s athletic programs would trigger community backlash and create instability for current student athletes, as well as issues with recruiting. They unanimously passed a motion directing university management to develop options to allow UA to avoid eliminating athletic programs.”
The ADN also quoted Alaska Governor Bill Walker as telling the Board, “I feel pretty strongly about athletics. … It would be hard to have a university without athletics as part of it. So I’m a strong supporter of athletics.”
How feasible are these options?
President Johnsen’s team investigating the feasibility of either option may face a tough go of it: it appears that both options are without precedent in modern NCAA history.
The Strategic Pathways team charged with analyzing intercollegiate athletics already recognized as much. As it wrote earlier this year when it first discussed the option of a consortium model, “This model would require an unprecedented exception from the NCAA to allow two athletic programs who are geographically isolated from one another to compete as one program while not duplicating sports in either location.”
The athletics review team added that cons of this approach include, “May be difficult to obtain NCAA approval due to unprecedented exception.” And, “Longest timeline to implementation.”
Christian Dennie, a Texas attorney who has previously worked for Division I athletics departments and whose current practice includes representing both student-athletes and athletic departments in disputes over NCAA waivers and conference rules, mirrored the review team’s skepticism regarding this proposal.
“As far as the consortium model,” Dennie wrote to FasterSkier after hearing the facts of the UA proposal, “it does not seem feasible due to the distance unless all of the athletes were on one campus, which would be more like a consolidation.”
As FasterSkier previously explained, typical examples of schools in a consortium model are much closer to each other than the 360 road miles that separate Anchorage and Fairbanks.
The NCAA Office of Public and Media Relations did not respond to multiple requests for comment regarding whether either proposed option had any precedent.
While examples exist of schools that successfully operate in some version of a consortium model, there may be no other coeducational college or university in existence that has successfully proceeded under President Johnsen’s first option, that is, obtaining a waiver of the 10-team rule.
The reference is to section 20.10.3(a)-(b) of the NCAA Division II Bylaws, which provides that “A member of Division II shall sponsor in Division II a minimum of” either five sports for each of men and women, or four sports for men and six for women. Section 20.10.3.3.11 provides for a probationary period and restricted membership status for a school’s failure to meet minimum sports sponsorship criteria.
While section 20.10.3.3.12.1 discusses the possibility of waivers for a failure to meet the “minimum contests or participants” standards – that is, a school failed to have a sufficient number of ski meets in a year, or to enter sufficient athletes in a meet – this rule envisions “situations beyond the control of the institution (e.g., weather conditions or disaster preventing completion of a scheduled competition, or verified injury or illness at the site of competition preventing the participation of the required minimum number of individuals).”
There does not appear to be any bylaw provision that would allow either UAA or UAF to consistently and purposefully operate an athletics program with fewer than the required number of sports teams, and still maintain its NCAA Division II status.
(Regarding a potential waiver to the 10-team requirement, Dennie wrote, “I know of at least one institution that has less than 10 sports at the D2 level. Texas Woman’s University in Denton, Texas has 5 sports. I am not sure if they received a waiver or not.” But this is likely kosher under bylaw section 20.10.3(c), “single-gender programs.” That section states, “Institutions that sponsor and conduct athletics programs for only one gender must sponsor a minimum of five varsity intercollegiate sports, including at least two team sports.” That is, it may, strictly speaking, be the five-team-per-gender rule that controls this situation, not the 10-team rule.)
The ADN reported that the university system has yet to make any sort of formal request to the NCAA, but quoted President Johnsen as saying, “We have engaged expert counsel to advise us and assist us with this.”
Town hall meetings throughout the state
President Johnsen’s recommendation follows a spate of public meetings and public outreach over the last several weeks.
In early September, a town hall meeting was held in Fairbanks to discuss the Strategic Pathways recommendations, which cover multiple areas within the University of Alaska system, and not just athletics. As the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported, meeting attendees “were nearly united in their mission to protect UAF’s athletics programs. Largely absent from the discussion was nonathlete students.”
University of Alaska Fairbanks nordic skiers rollerskiing on campus last fall. (Photo: UAF)
Reached by email shortly after the meeting, UAF Head Nordic Coach Nick Crawford wrote to FasterSkier, “I didn’t make it to the town hall unfortunately… I’ve been pretty swamped with the first few weeks of the athletes being back in town! Anyhow a few of the athletes went and said we had good support for athletics and the ski team specifically!”
A week later, and 300 miles to the south, a similar meeting was held in Anchorage. UAA Head Nordic Coach Andrew Kastning wrote to FasterSkier soon after that meeting, “It was encouraging to hear all the supporters of athletics speak up, but it was difficult to tell if President Johnsen was swayed at all from up in his podium. I will say that the outpouring of support for college skiing in Alaska from around the world has been tremendous and we very much feel the tight-knit ski community at work. I feel this is a battle we can still win and we as a coaching staff and community of skiers are doing everything we can to that end.”
Kastning added, “Regents meet Sept. 14th to discuss the options and hopefully return to the drawing board. Final decisions reached Nov. 10-11 and announcements made shortly after.”
UAA campus newspaper The Northern Light, mirroring the tone of the News-Miner, reported of this meeting that, “Although the forum was meant to be a place for students, staff, and community members to speak about all things with phase I of Strategic Pathways, the discussion was overwhelmingly focused on the possibility of cutting UAA athletics.”
The Northern Light quoted UAA student-body president Sam Erickson as saying, “I am most concerned with the preponderance of public backlash that has resulted from the athletics suggested cuts. I recognize it’s a highly visible program and that’s why those cuts are going to garner outrage. I’m concerned that that’s drowning other news, just as significant. Things that would significantly change the educational future for all students.”
Lobbying efforts and Winter Olympians
As UAF’s Crawford recently wrote to FasterSkier, “We’ve reached out to our supporters in Fairbanks and around the world in support of skiing both at UAA and UAF and have gotten a very positive response. There was a community forum with UA President [Jim Johnsen] recently and our UAF Skiing supporters had a strong presence in support of Nanook skiing and apparently the online commenting option has gotten some very good responses as well. It’s not too late to write in with your support so we would encourage anyone who hasn’t done so yet to do so!”
Meanwhile, in Anchorage, lobbying efforts were more ambitious. Earlier this month, the Nordic Skiing Association of Anchorage sent an email to all of its members, subject line: “Help Save Collegiate Skiing in Alaska.” The email, signed “The UAA Ski Team,” wrote, “Our program is facing a potential elimination from the University of Alaska-Anchorage Athletics Department. We are fighting for our kids and the future of our team.”
The ski team listed a number of potential talking points that supporters could use, and encouraged them to submit comments to the Strategic Pathways review team. “Bottom line,” the email concluded, “we desperately need your help.”
University of Alaska Anchorage Seawolves logo (GoSeawolves.com)
UAA Head Skiing Coach Sparky Anderson shared a similar message on his public Facebook page, writing to supporters, “Many of my friends are former athletes who I’ve had the privilege to work with from over a decade of coaching at UAA. You are all shining examples of what the ski team does for the state of Alaska. The UAA ski team attracts top minds such as yourself who graduate, excel, enrich Alaska’s community, work and provide employment for other Alaskans.”
Anderson added, “Now, we need your help. Please use and share this Strategic Pathways feedback link to comment about the UAA Ski Team’s mission of fostering a culture of education at UA. It’s imperative that UA President Jim Johnsen understands that our shoulders are up against the same wheel. With your help, I look forward to many more years working with outstanding individuals here at the UAA ski team.”
Finally, UAA brought out a bevy of boldface names in support of its cause. Last week, Holly Brooks, a two-time Winter Olympian recently retired from competitive skiing with Alaska Pacific University (APU) and the U.S. Ski Team, delivered a letter to the UA President, Board of Regents, and Athletic Directors. The full letter makes the case for the benefits of skiing in general, and its suitability to Alaska in particular.
Brooks wrote, “Nordic and alpine skiing are wildly popular recreational sports in Anchorage and the collegiate teams serve as examples or ‘pedestals’ of what many Anchorage citizens aspire to in their own athletics. Anchorage hosts the largest high school ski race in the entire country, the Lynx Loppet. Many youth in Anchorage including the Junior Nordic Program and the ASD high school programs look forward to seeing UAA skiers zip by them on the trails, serving as a ‘real-life’ example of fitness and/or technique. What other sports can recreational or developing athletes literally jump in behind collegiate athletes and hang on for the ride?”
In a follow-up email to FasterSkier, Brooks added, in reference to options for cross-country skiing in the Anchorage area, “choices are healthy and competition is healthy. We need UAA, APU, WinterStars, ANR.”
(The acronyms are references to the collegiate program at the University of Alaska Anchorage, the elite and community program at Alaska Pacific University Nordic Ski Center, the community program at Alaska Winter Stars, and the community program at Alaska Nordic Racing, respectively.)
The letter was co-signed by a dozen other Winter Olympians with strong local ties to Anchorage and/or UAA, including cross-country skiers Erik Bjornsen, Sadie Bjornsen, Lars Flora, Kikkan Randall, James Southam, and Adam Verrier; biathletes Rachel Steer and Sara Studebaker-Hall; Alpine skiers Anna Berecz, Megan Gerety, and Tommy Moe; and freestyle skier Alex Wilson. At least eight of the signers had attended, coached at, and/or skied for UAA. Between them, the signers boasted 24 Olympics appearances, two Olympic medals, and two FIS World Championships medals.
The dollar amounts involved
In 2015, the athletics program at UAA and UAF cost a combined $16 million for a total of 23 varsity sports teams. The ADN explained that $3 million of this came from “private sources, including ticket sales.” The remaining $13 million came from the UA general fund.
The ADN has suggested that the UAA ski team has a budget of “about $500,000.” But this number may be too high, or at least may somehow overstate the cost savings that would result from potentially cutting the team: FasterSkier previously quoted internal documents generated by the UA athletics review team as saying that suspending or eliminating the UAA ski team “would produce an immediate net savings of $272,981.00 based on FY 16 figures.”
But Anderson, the head ski team coach, confirms the higher figure, recently telling Anchorage radio station KSKA that the budget for the entire UAA ski team is “just north of $500,000.” That covers the men’s and women’s alpine and nordic programs, and includes what Anderson said is a total of 12 scholarships for a combined 23 athletes. (UAF has only a nordic program. In 2015/2016, the most recent year for which information is available, it had seven women and 11 men on its nordic team.)
Kastning, UAA’s nordic coach, said in the same radio program that he would far rather cut program costs by, for example, 10 or 20 percent than lose the entire ski program. He mentioned some money-saving steps that the nordic team has already taken for the 2016/2017 season, such as reducing the size of the travel team and eating out less while on the road.
Kastning also said that all schools in the Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Ski Association (RMISA) will be instituting a ban on pure fluoro waxes for all races save championship meets, a move made as much for health reasons as for economics.
Finally, in a poignant nod to his personal history of job loss and displacement, Kastning noted that he left (former RMISA program) University of Nevada, Reno, shortly before it cut its nordic program, and he and his wife went to (former RMISA program) Whitman College, where she was coaching skiing, only to see Whitman cut its nordic program, also. Kastning said they thought they would be safe moving to a ski program in Alaska.
Reactions and next steps
Crawford, the UAF coach, wrote to FasterSkier last Friday following President Johnsen’s statement, “Seeking permission from the NCAA to form a consortium between athletics at UAA and UAF or pursuing an exemption to the 10 sport minimum rule seems to be bad for collegiate skiing at first glance. The 10 sport minimum rule is in place to promote smaller sports like skiing and cross-country so that collegiate athletic departments around the country sponsor more sports than just the big TV sports like football, basketball and to some extent hockey. I’m worried that if the NCAA accepts either the consortium or 10 sport minimum it will create a legal precedence that would be bad news for many of the non revenue generating sports across the country.”
Crawford added, “I was relieved to see that the UA Board of Regents is strongly in support of ‘preventing the elimination of intercollegiate athletics’ as shown by their 10-0-0 vote in favor of [a related motion on this issue]. This gives me confidence that skiing and cross country running will remain at UAF as they are very cost effective for the university and are strongly supported by our local community.”
Kastning did not respond to an email asking for a response to President Johnsen’s recommendation.
UAA Athletic Director Keith Hackett told the ADN last Thursday that he wasn’t yet ready to comment on the recent discussion at the Board of Regents meeting.
Final decisions are expected to be made at the UA Board of Regents meeting on Nov. 10-11. UAA and UAF begin their ski seasons with an informal dual meet at Birch Hill in Fairbanks the following weekend. The ADN recently reported that the UAA hockey team, which faces the same concerns about its future as all UAA sports teams, is still scouting potential recruits for the 2017/2018 season, but is not currently extending scholarship offers.
A University of Alaska Anchorage skier carries the team flag of the Seawolves at the 2016 NCAA Skiing Championships last March at Howelsen Hill in Steamboat Springs, Colo. (Photo: Jamie Schwaberow/NCAA Photos)An internal review group has set forth its options for the future of NCAA-sanctioned college sports in Alaska – and for fans of cross-country skiing, most of the options don’t look very good. That’s the current status of intercollegiate sports in the University of Alaska system heading into three months of meetings and recommendations that will attempt to trim the university budget to respond to failing state finances.
As FasterSkier previously reported, Alaska is a historically oil-rich state that is suddenly not all that rich. The effect on the state’s budget has been pronounced, with calls for drastic cuts to virtually all aspects of state finances. The University of Alaska system, which has flagship campuses in the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) and University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA), has not been spared. Multiple working groups were convened earlier this summer to critically evaluate several portions of the University of Alaska system, including athletics.
Three options, from nuclear to consolidating
The preliminary report from the athletics review team presented three options for the future status and funding of intercollegiate athletics within the University of Alaska system, and therefore within the entire state of Alaska. (UAA and UAF are the state’s only two institutions with NCAA-sanctioned sports teams; most of UAA’s 13 varsity teams, and UAF’s 10, compete in Division II. The state’s best-known ski team, Alaska Pacific University, is associated with a school but does not have NCAA affiliation.) Each option has several subparts.
Option 1 is the most drastic. This option involves eliminating NCAA sports completely at either or both of UAA and UAF. Cutting NCAA sports entirely at one school would reduce the overall University of Alaska budget by 2 to 3 percent. Cutting them at both schools would reduce the overall budget by 5 percent. This is “the most controversial option with the most severe consequences,” the review team wrote. Option 1, as applied to both schools, would leave Alaska as the only state in the country with no intercollegiate sports teams.
Option 2 would be to combine the two campuses of Fairbanks and Anchorage – which at a distance of 360 road miles are an all-day drive or a one-hour flight away from each other – into a single consortium model, operated under the name of only one of the schools. The total sports teams operated between the two schools would be reduced from 23 teams down to 15; only one school would sponsor each sport. A narrative description of the proposed athletics consortium model suggests that men’s and women’s cross-country skiing would operate out of Fairbanks.
The preliminary report acknowledges that it would require “an unprecedented exception from the NCAA to allow two athletic programs who are geographically isolated from one another to compete as one program while not duplicating sports in either location.” Other NCAA schools that operate in an athletic consortium model are much closer to each other than Anchorage and Fairbanks; for example, Columbia University and Barnard College are located across the street from each other in New York City, while Southern Vermont College and Bennington College are separated by five miles in the greater Bennington area.
Option 3 is to keep both programs, but with some modifications, based on switching solely to those sports that are offered by the Great Northwest Athletic Conference, or GNAC. (Currently some of UAA and UAF’s sports have GNAC affiliation, but some do not.)
In one version of option 3, “Both UAA and UAF switch to the GNAC model to decrease funding levels after initial startup costs. Both programs would only have sports that compete at Div. II level in the GNAC conference versus their current model of having some Div. I sports” alongside mostly Division II sports. In another version of option 3, UAF would maintain the status quo, keeping its 10 teams in order to meet NCAA requirements, while only UAA would move to the GNAC model.
Skiing is not a GNAC sport. In order to become a fully GNAC school, UAA would, among other changes, eliminate men’s and women’s skiing as well as gymnastics. For UAF to become a GNAC school, it would eliminate men’s and women’s skiing, among other sports, replacing them with soccer, golf, and/or track.
The review team acknowledged that the drawbacks to option 3 include “Loss of skiing, strong local (Fairbanks) support.”
While the exact number of parts and subparts may be counted in different ways, and some version of both option 2 and option 3 preserve some version of college skiing in the state of Alaska, it is also true that several of the options presented would mean the end of college skiing at one or both of Alaska’s two NCAA schools.
In addition to the three options surveyed above, the review team also offered additional budget reduction options as part of a restructuring plan for fiscal year 2018. These options included the elimination of the UAA men’s ski program (both cross-country and alpine) at the end of the 2016/2017 season. “[Skiing] was the first sport to be introduced at UAA,” the review team acknowledged, “and has been very successful as a member of the NCAA.” But “that being said,” the review team continued, “it is a sport that has very limited external support from Alumni and community members and does not have the ability to generate significant revenue to assist in sustaining the program.”
A decision to cut the men’s ski program – which at this time is simply one of several ideas that have been suggested – “would produce an immediate net savings of $272,981.00 based on FY 16 figures,” the review team wrote.
All sports, at both UAA and UAF, are fully funded through the 2016/2017 academic year. Both schools will begin their race season in the 13th annual Alaska Nordic Cup, an informal meet between UAA and UAF, at Fairbanks’s Birch Hill ski area in mid-November.
Next steps: Public meetings and searching for support
So what’s next? Lots of meetings. As the Strategic Pathways site explains, there will be public forums held with the University of Alaska president during the first two weeks of September. The president will then share initial recommendations with the University of Alaska Board of Regents at its next meeting, on Sept. 15-16. The Board of Regents will then present “final outcomes” at its meeting of Nov. 10-11.
“The State of Alaska is going through a very tough period and there are some very tough decisions that will have to be made,” UAA Athletic Director Keith Hackett wrote in an email to FasterSkier. “That being said, there is still time to provide input before any decisions or final recommendations are made.”
UAA Head Nordic Ski Coach Andrew Kastning is working hard to ensure that the Strategic Pathways review team hears from the cross-country ski community regarding the value of the program that he coaches.
“Today I’m just doubling down on my community PR campaign,” Kastning said on the phone on Monday. “Because there is an online form that allows you to leave comments on the options presented, the pros and cons, and in fact we’ve been sending that link out to everyone we know. We’ve been rallying support from other institutions’ athletic directors and coaches to not just write in on that form, but also call [our athletic director], tell them what a value skiing is.”
University of Alaska Fairbanks women’s nordic-team skiers get together for a photo last season: (from left to right) Hannah Rowland, Anne-Tine Markset, Nichole Bathe, Martina Himma, Ann-Cathrin Uhl, and Sarissa Lammers. (Photo: Nick Crawford)Kastning’s counterpart in Fairbanks, UAF cross-country skiing and running head coach Nick Crawford, is doing the same.
“We’re optimistic that the UA President and Board of Regents will listen to the strong support of our community and will choose to continue funding both ski teams,” Crawford wrote in an email. “I encourage everyone to use the online feedback form to voice their support for UAF and UAA skiing.”
Crawford added, in a nod to the benefit of having two collegiate ski programs in the state, “The UAF and UAA ski teams have a long history of being friendly rivals but also mutually beneficial to one another. It would be a shame to lose either program as both would suffer.”
Back in Anchorage, Kastning speaks with evident pride of the virtues of his program and its athletes. “It seems pretty clear that President [Jim] Johnsen doesn’t understand what he would be losing if he were to decimate the athletic department,” Kastning told FasterSkier. “In regard to UAA skiing, we have perennially the highest GPA of all the sports teams. We have … the highest graduation rate. And we pull in people from out of state that stay and work here.”
Kastning mentioned plans to present his case at the upcoming public forum: “We’re going to be out there in force at the so-called town hall event [in September], asking questions and stating the fact – what I told you about graduation rates and high GPAs and what the community would stand to lose if it lost its collegiate ski team, as well as the loss of the ability to recruit kids from out of state. If they axe an athletic program, it would be so much harder just to get general students to come from out of state.”
“We have perennially the highest GPA of all [our] sports teams. We have … the highest graduation rate. And we pull in people from out of state that stay and work here.” — Andrew Kastning, University of Alaska Anchorage nordic ski team head coach
And speaking of students, what’s next for the student-athletes currently enrolled at and planning to ski for UAA and UAF? Under the NCAA Division II bylaws, Rule 14.5.5.1, a student-athlete transferring from one NCAA school to another must typically sit out his or her next year of competition before playing sports at the new school. But Rule 14.5.5.2.6 provides an exception: this requirement does not apply when the original school “dropped (or has publicly announced it will drop) the sport … from its intercollegiate program.” That is, an athlete currently skiing for an Alaska school that dropped skiing would be eligible to compete for another NCAA skiing program in the winter of 2017/2018, assuming that space and scholarships were available.
The view from inside the UAA and UAF ski programs
“The options from Strategic Pathways, as they’ve been presented so far, are pretty scary for skiing, collegiate skiing in the entire state of Alaska,” Kastning said.
He underscored that funding collegiate skiing at any level less than men’s and women’s cross-country and alpine teams means that “you’re completely out of contention for a national title, which is what we’re trying to do at UAA. We support alpine and nordic.”
Kastning addressed the inherent suitability of skiing for the state of Alaska, contrasting it with some other proposed sports that might seem less apposite for a state where UAF students famously celebrate their membership in the 40 Below Club by posing for bikini photos in front of a temperature sign on campus.
Addressing option 3, which would involve dropping skiing in favor of a move to solely those sports offered by the GNAC (including, for example, soccer and golf), Kastning observed, “It’s like, nobody thought through what it would be like to have a golf team in Alaska. Or if you were to close your eyes and think about Alaska, do you think about golf courses, or do you think about white, snowy mountains, and the possibility of going out to play on skis? And obviously 99 percent of the Lower 48 people will think of skiing and white, snowy mountains, so why wouldn’t you have a ski team in Alaska? Of any state in the entire United States, it fits the most with the Alaskan identity to go outside and go skiing.
“So that was a little bit frustrating,” he continued, “to see the language that wasn’t in there highlighting the great community of skiers we have, not just in Anchorage but in the surrounding area, as well as the option presented that they would take away our program and add a soccer team, or a golf team? It’s borderline ludicrous.”
Crawford, writing separately, expressed near-identical concerns. “The idea of replacing skiing in the University of Alaska system with other sports like golf or soccer that are more suited to warmer climates seems ludicrous to me,” he wrote.
Kastning ended his interview by expressing his concerns about a potential domino effect if skiing were to disappear from one or both of Alaska’s two NCAA programs: “If Alaska didn’t support college skiing, then NCAA might look at the sport as a whole and wonder, What’s the point? If Alaska doesn’t support it, then why should we?”
“It’s scary not just for us,” Kastning added, “but it can start to be scary for the rest of the college ski teams around the country.”
A University of Alaska Anchorage skier carries a Seawolves team flag at the 2016 NCAA Skiing Championships last March at Howelsen Hill in Steamboat Springs, Colo. (Photo: Jamie Schwaberow/NCAA Photos)
ANCHORAGE, Alaska – As the 2016 special session of the Alaska Legislature comes down to the wire, it’s clear that state funding for Alaska’s two National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) cross-country ski programs is going to be substantially reduced as part of widespread cuts to the state university system.
But by exactly how much, and with what effects, and whether there will still be two NCAA ski programs in Alaska once the budget is finalized and the dust clears, are all still up in the air approaching the Wednesday deadline for the end of the session – and may not be resolved until several weeks after that.
That’s where things currently stand, according to representatives of the University of Alaska Anchorage and University of Alaska Fairbanks athletic departments and cross-country ski programs.
Background: Two NCAA programs, lots of oil money
The state of Alaska has two universities whose athletic programs have NCAA affiliation: the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) Seawolves and the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) Nanooks. (The state’s other well-known cross-country ski program is affiliated with Alaska Pacific University, or APU, which is not an NCAA member school and does not receive direct state funding as controlled by the Alaska Legislature.)
UAA is a member of the Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Ski Association (RMISA) along with eight other schools from the western half of the Lower 48.
UAF has historically been a member of the Midwest-based Central Collegiate Ski Association (CCSA), although it may be moving to the RMISA as early as next season, according to UAF Head Nordic Coach Nick Crawford. UAA has 13 varsity sports teams. UAF has 10.
Etienne Richard of the University of Alaska Anchorage at the 2016 NCAA Skiing Championships in Steamboat Springs, Colo. (Photo: UAA)
Historically, both programs have received funding from the University of Alaska system, and have produced successful skiers. UAA boasts six individual nordic championships in its history, and a steady string of All-American performances. UAF claims three individual championships. Both schools have sent skiers to NCAA Skiing Championships virtually every year since 1981.
The schools’ performances have not changed, but their state funding might. The State of Alaska has historically been flush with oil money. There has been no state income tax since 1980, there is no state sales tax, and the state famously – in the form of dividend payments from the state’s sovereign wealth fund, the Alaska Permanent Fund – pays people to live there. As recently as last fall, every qualifying citizen in the state received more than $2,000 dollars. The city of Valdez, Alaska, paid out $10,000 in total prize money for a January nordic ski race, drawing the money largely from taxes on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, whose southern terminus is in Valdez.
But within the last two years, the price of Alaskan oil has plummeted, from (in round numbers) close to $100 per barrel to less than $50. Crude prices are now at a 12-year low. And 80 to 90 percent of state spending has historically come from oil revenues – with no state income tax or sales tax, and relatively few other industries in the state, there have been few other sources of funding. The result is that the state faces a yawning budget deficit, in an amount equal to at least two-thirds of its budget (maybe closer to three-fourths depending on the current price of oil), and few viable options for closing it.
The current session of the Alaska Legislature, which is set to close Wednesday, May 18, has been marked by several months’ worth of partisan dispute over the proper use of Permanent Fund revenue to help close the gap. And publications ranging from NPR to the Alaska Dispatch News (ADN) to The New York Times have documented Alaska’s extremely resource-dependent economy, and the resulting outsized effect of a fall in oil prices. “Oil money no longer pays the bills here,” one Times article began.
The effects of falling oil prices
In this economic climate, everything is on the table when it comes to balancing the state budget, including college sports. (For what it’s worth, it is fair to say that Alaska is hardly Alabama or Tennessee when it comes to college sports fandom. There are no college football teams in the state. College hockey has its fans, but UAA hockey often struggles to draw 3,000 fans in a 6,000-seat arena for its home games.)
The UAA athletic department has an annual budget of $10.5 million. As UAA Athletic Director Keith Hackett told a local television station earlier this year, “We could potentially have a reduction of $1.7 million and that would be about a third of our general dollars that we receive annually, so it’s a significant impact.”
A potential cut of $1.7 million to an overall budget of $10.5 million is a reduction of slightly more than 16 percent. This is the third consecutive year in which the UAA budget has been cut.
Manon Locatelli of the University of Alaska Anchorage double poles out of the start of the 2015 Seawolf Invite at Kincaid Park in Anchorage, Alaska. (Photo: Sam Wasson/Sam Wasson Photography)
As Hackett explained in a recent email to FasterSkier, “I was given my budget reduction amount on April 18 and it was confirmed to me on April 23.”
He stated that he and several athletic-department staff members have been working hard to implement cuts in the least painful manner possible.
“With a reduction of this size we have to look at vertical vs. horizontal reductions to minimize the impact on all teams and programs,” Hackett wrote. (He told the ADN that a “horizontal” cut is one that affects all sports to some extent, as opposed to a “vertical” cut, in which one sport is excised entirely.)
Hackett wrote to FasterSkier that he and his staff are “look[ing] at a wide range of criteria” in working out a reduced budget: “NCAA requirements, conference requirements, Title IX requirements, revenue and expense data, and how we can minimize the impact on all of our teams and Student-Athletes.”
The first three of these requirements, which are presumably non-negotiable if UAA would like to retain its NCAA status and/or its federal funding, are significant. As previously explained in the ADN, the school’s NCAA Division II membership requires a minimum of 10 sports, including at least two “team” sports per gender – that’s men’s and women’s basketball, women’s volleyball, and men’s hockey. And the school’s conference membership in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference means that UAA has to have five specific sports – basketball (men’s and women’s), cross-country running (men’s and women’s), and volleyball.
There’s some overlap there, but the math is clear: “That leaves seven UAA sports unprotected by NCAA and GNAC membership requirements,” the ADN reported. “Those sports are men’s and women’s skiing, men’s and women’s indoor track, men’s and women’s outdoor track, and gymnastics.”
Michael Friess coaches both men’s and women’s outdoor track, men’s and women’s indoor track, and men’s and women’s cross-country running. That’s an impressive six out of 13 NCAA varsity sports, and only one head coach salary. And two of those sports, men’s and women’s cross-country running, are “protected” by virtue of conference membership requirements.
No one is officially saying that this leaves UAA cross-country skiing particularly vulnerable – Hackett and his crew are still working on budget decisions, so there was no official statement on that matter. But UAA Head Nordic Ski Coach Andrew Kastning seems to have seen the writing on the wall.
In early April, Kastning wrote to several dozen members of the local ski community to help solicit support for his program. The email subject line was, “A chance to help the UAA Ski Team.” The recipients were a mix of local UAA ski alumni, club program directors, community supporters, and prominent local nordic Olympians. A copy of the email was shared with FasterSkier.
Kastning explained that falling oil prices had forced the state and university system to “look at making deep cuts to programs and services in order to balance the budget.” He continued: “I have been around long enough to know that this means bad news for ski teams, which are usually the first on the chopping block since we are not a mainstream sport, do not compete in the GNAC, and do not produce revenue.”
UAA’s Hanna Slotte racing at the 2015 Seawolf Invite in Anchorage. (Photo: Sam Wasson/Sam Wasson Photography)
In his email to potential supporters, Kastning requested, “please take a few minutes, and think of a short story, or experience as to why you are a better person thanks to your ski racing experiences in college, how being a part of our ski team helped you be where you are today,” and to write about this to the University president. He suggested that supporters communicate “that you sincerely hope he doesn’t narrow the opportunities of future student athlete ski racers from having the same experiences you did.”
On May 7, the ADN ran an article titled, ‘From Shootout to entire teams, UAA sports are under scrutiny as budget cuts loom.’ On May 9, Kastning again reached out to local supporters. “If you read [this article] then you already know that our ski team is not out of the woods yet,” he wrote, and again asked supporters to speak to university administration about “the value of Collegiate Skiing in Anchorage, Alaska.”
In an email exchange with FasterSkier, Kastning initially declined to comment: “I’m going to delay answering these questions until we know exactly what will happen,” he wrote, referring to the state budget situation and funding for the program.
Kastning later emailed a more detailed statement: “We have been given every indication from our Athletic Administration to move forward with plans for next year. I have six true freshman women and two freshman men arriving on campus next fall and am extremely excited to begin working diligently with them all to become the best college skiers in the country. Though the budget crisis in Alaska will certainly have its effect on all state programs, the future of the UAA Ski Team is strong provided we are given the resources to compete.”
Timeline for budget decisions
It is currently mid-May. The Alaska Legislature is required to finish its session by Wednesday. There will be no final budget set until that time, but it seems safe to assume that, whatever happens, funding for the state university system is not going to be increased in the final version of the budget, nor will new funding sources suddenly arrive to make up for the yawning gap in oil revenue.
Different parties have different understandings of the timeline for budget decisions and potential program reductions or cuts. As Hackett wrote, he had a confirmed budget reduction amount in hand as of April 23 (and has since been working on how to implement a reduction of that amount). For his part, Kastning wrote, “We have heard that a final answer will be given on or after May 20th.”
The next University of Alaska Board of Regents meeting, meanwhile, will be held June 2-3 in Anchorage. The Board of Regents has stated that it will hear an update from Strategic Pathways, a university-wide efficiency and cost-reduction study, and approve the 2017 Fiscal Year budget at that meeting.
Hackett also noted the “New fiscal year begins on July 1. Decisions need to be made in advance of the new FY [fiscal year].”
The 2017 conference schedule for RMISA member schools has not yet been posted.
Relative security in Fairbanks
University of Alaska Fairbanks women’s nordic-team skiers pose for a photo last season: (from left to right) Hannah Rowland, Anne-Tine Markset, Nichole Bathe, Martina Himma, Ann-Cathrin Uhl, and Sarissa Lammers. (Photo: Nick Crawford)
Three hundred miles to the north, Nick Crawford, coming off his first season as UAF’s cross-country skiing and running head coach, feels relatively secure about the safety of his program.
“Our team security might be a little stronger than UAA’s,” Crawford said in a recent phone interview with FasterSkier. Indeed, Crawford said, while UAF is hardly immune to the budget pressures that are squeezing the UAA athletic department, “we’ve been assured that it’s business as usual through 2017.”
The biggest reason for Crawford’s equanimity is simple math: a school must offer 10 varsity sports to have NCAA member status. (The rule is widely understood as preventing a school from offering solely the two revenue sports of football and basketball, and so requiring them to effectively subsidize a broader range of offerings across other, non-revenue sports.) UAA currently has 13, and so, in blunt mathematical terms, has some sports to spare. UAF only has 10 varsity sports. To cut any of them would be to deny NCAA status to the school’s Division I men’s hockey team (as well as all other teams).
As Crawford noted, “With the 10-sport minimum that we’re at, we’re in a fundamentally different place than they are [in Anchorage]. If we go, the whole athletic department goes.”
Crawford also pointed out that, of the school’s 10 sports, “I’m head coach for four of them,” that is, men’s and women’s cross-country running and cross-country skiing. Crawford further stated that UAF has already “been hit much harder by athletic department cuts than Anchorage has,” including a recent 30 percent reduction in ski scholarships, and he felt fortunate that the cut allocated for this year “is not terribly severe.” He said that UAF already receives much less state aid for athletics than UAA: “We’re already operating a lot more cost-effectively for the state, so to speak,” than UAA is.
Crawford cited an independent outside consultant’s report from January 2016, which concluded that “UAF athletics is already far exceeding peer group institutions in terms of generated revenues, and is realistically close to reaching capacity” (this is largely a reflection of the popularity of men’s hockey within the Fairbanks community).
The report also stated, with regard to UAF’s 10-sport minimum for NCAA status, “UAF currently is sponsoring the minimum number of sports. While it would be possible to modify UAF’s sports, realistically the current offerings make the most sense. Eliminating men’s ice hockey is a logical topic for debate given its cost, but as is discussed later there would be significant negative consequences as well.”
As the report’s executive summary concludes, “Given the financial climate in the state of Alaska, it is understandable that there is necessary budget impact for intercollegiate athletics at UAF. However, given the reductions that have already been executed, it is hard to identify additional sources of savings without severely incapacitating the athletics program.”
(A comparable outside consultant report does not seem to exist for the UAA athletic department. This does not necessarily mean that UAA likewise would not be hard pressed to “identify additional sources of savings without severely incapacitating the athletics program.” UAA has also experienced cuts to its athletic department budget in recent years.)
Premature eulogies?
It is important to emphasize that no final decisions have been made about the Fiscal Year 2017 budget, for either the University of Alaska system as a whole or the UAA athletics department specifically. But, as Kastning wrote to supporters, ski teams “are usually the first on the chopping block.” It seems fair to say that there is at least the potential that the UAA nordic ski team will not exist in a few years, or will perhaps exist in a greatly reduced form.
Crawford, the UAF coach, would not welcome such a development. It would be “really unfortunate” if the UAA program were cut, Crawford said. “One thing that’s really hard about these sort of things is, they take a long time to come back. It may be a short-sighted cost reduction … to make a cut like this, but it takes a long time to return to what we have now.”
The first words out of Crawford’s mouth in last week’s phone interview were, “We want UAA to have a team – it’s mutually beneficial to have both teams in Alaska.” Crawford cited the Alaska Nordic Cup, a low-key November weekend race series between the two schools held in Anchorage and Fairbanks in alternating years, as “a great example of why we value having another team in Alaska.” That’s “just a really healthy example of our collaboration between the two teams,” Crawford noted.
As Crawford noted, the “best case scenario for everyone is that athletics remains where it is right now, with the same state funding that it’s had.” Barring that, Crawford suggested that he would prefer to see a joint nordic program operating out of just one school before either school’s ski program got cut entirely, although he made clear that he thought the state of Alaska could support two NCAA programs.
The perennial question of the appropriate role of college skiing
Brian Gregg, a 2014 U.S Olympian and former University of Alaska Anchorage skier, at the Seeley Hills Classic last winter. (Photo: Once in a Blue Moon Studio/Kelly Randolph)
Brian Gregg, a 2014 Olympian and three-time SuperTour distance champion, is one of the more prominent alums of the UAA ski program. When asked whether he would like to answer some questions about what UAA skiing had meant to him, Gregg promptly responded with a 600-word email titled, “UAA Ski Team, a vital part in my pathway to the Olympics.”
Gregg states that UAA played an integral role in his own personal and athletic development. “When I was 15 years old I wrote down my dream of representing the USA as an Olympic ski racer,” Gregg wrote. “I loved skiing, I loved working hard, unfortunately I wasn’t super fast… yet. I transferred to UAA at the beginning of my Junior year and my ski career began to take off. Where I had thought that I was training hard, smart and consistent my coaches and teammates helped open my eyes to the actual work and preparation to become a great skier. I went from fighting my way from being one of the last three finishers at NCAA as a freshman to finishing in the lead pack my Senior year at UAA. UAA helped to teach me the tools and steps needed to turn my dream into a focused goal and an eventual reality.”
Gregg also praises the education he received at UAA, explaining that studying business management prepared him for his current job of managing the two-member Team Gregg.
“Although I am now based in Minneapolis, my bond with Alaska will never break,” he wrote. “I enjoy returning to the state for vacation, racing, and an annual trip to teach cross country skiing for a week in the villages” with the Skiku program.
Gregg believes that it is important to have an NCAA ski program in Anchorage alongside APU.
“Cross country skiing is one of the largest sports in Alaska. With winter arriving early and departing late, Alaska is an ideal place for cross country skiing,” he wrote. “It is important for their to be multiple high level programs in the state as it fosters a healthy competition. The strengths of the programs will ebb and flow. In the early 2000s the UAA team was actually stronger that the APU team and now the APU team is arguably the strongest program in the country. That being said, many of the athletes and staff were students at UAA and several were first exposed to Alaska through their decision to study at UAA.”
(The Bjornsen siblings are two of the more prominent athletes who initially skied for UAA before transferring to APU. Both are current members of the U.S. Ski Team.)
Perhaps unsurprisingly, in light of his personal background (not only did Gregg ski collegiately for UAA, his wife, Caitlin Compton Gregg, skied for Northern Michigan University), Brian believes in the importance of a vibrant NCAA ski program in this country.
“NCAA skiing is a huge opportunity that we have for the development of ski racing in the United States,” he wrote. “Some of the college programs have budgets that are greater than the National teams. Cross country skiing is a sport which requires time to develop. For many skiers, myself included, the path to success requires multiple years of training and commitment. The collegiate system is a way to build that training volume and the training years while also preparing yourself for a career beyond athletics.”
Finally, on the enduring question of the significance of American nordic roster spots often being filled by exchange students from Nordic countries, Gregg explains that he sees the benefit: “When I first began looking into US NCAA programs I found it frustrating the number of foreign athletes. My opinion on this changed quickly though when I realized the tremendous benefit of having different people, thoughts and cultures come together with a common goal. I learned so much about ski racing and life from my foreign teammates. One of the best parts about college is the gathering of many different views and thoughts.”
Back in Alaska, Crawford had similar sentiments.
“College skiing is a huge development pipeline,” he said. “The recent article on Ian Torchia made me smile — I really agree with this. … I think what we’re seeing is our World Cup skiers, more and more as a percentage, are going to college, doing NCAA skiing first.”
Alternate funding sources?
The many virtues of college skiing notwithstanding, it seems fair to say that it is not going to become a revenue sport like football or basketball any time soon. In that light, the fact that the USA Triathlon Foundation recently committed $2.6 million in seed money over several years to help develop triathlon as an NCAA sport came as some interest.
(There are currently eight schools with burgeoning NCAA-affiliated triathlon programs, currently all for women only; college triathlon was funded through the NCAA “emerging sports program … created to help schools provide more participation opportunities for female athletes”). If at least 40 schools sponsor triathlon within the next decade, it can become an NCAA championship sport.)
Luke Bodensteiner, the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA) executive vice president for athletics, applauded these efforts of the USA Triathlon Foundation, but clarified that no comparable source of money exists for collegiate skiing under the USSA umbrella.
“There’s not a bucket or category of funds [within USSA] that would be allocated specifically for NCAA programs,” Bodensteiner told FasterSkier in a recent phone interview. “I would suspect that those are monies that are unrestricted, and that could be spent in any way.” And, Bodensteiner explained, USSA does not have a comparable source of funds.
“I suspect that triathlon undertook this [initiative] with an eye to developing a talent pipeline [for the pro ranks],” Bodensteiner added. He clarified that, “USSA has taken a pretty big interest in NCAA athletes in general.” For example, he said, it has “hired a new liaison, whose role is mostly in optimization of the NCAA athletes, to allow athletes to train and compete” more effectively.
Next steps
While the specifics remain up in the air, some things seem apparent at this time: Alaska Permanent Fund revenue will have to be used to make up much of the state-budget deficit; the UAA athletic department is going to see its budget reduced in some amount; cross-country skiing is generally more vulnerable at UAA than at UAF because UAF cannot cut any varsity sport without losing NCAA status for all sports.
FasterSkier will publish updates on this story as they become available.
***
Full disclosure: The author took math and science courses at UAA in the late 1990s; this was to bolster his high school curriculum, and he has never attended UAA as a full-time student. Also, the author skied in the November 2015 Alaska Nordic Cup Invite as a member of an open relay team not affiliated with either UAA or UAF.
Nick Crawford, 28, who headed the Bogus Basin Nordic program as well as the Lathrop High School ski team, will assume the role of head coach of the University of Alaska Fairbanks nordic and cross-country running teams in July. (Courtesy photo)
After a four-year hiatus from Alaska, Nick Crawford is returning to Fairbanks to take over as the new head nordic and cross-country running coach at University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF).
Originally from Hawley, Mass., Crawford skied for Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, and spent two years in Fairbanks from 2009 to 2011 as the assistant coach for Fairbanks Cross Country and head coach at Lathrop High School. While at Lathrop, he coached Logan Hanneman to the Alaska state Skimeister title in 2011. Hanneman swept the individual freestyle and classic races that year.
Crawford, 28, recently finished a master’s degree in exercise science from Boise State University and applied for the opening at UAF in April. In addition to his studies, Crawford was head coach and program director of the Bogus Basin Nordic Team in Boise, and oversaw its youth ski programs.
“This is really perfect timing for me to return to Fairbanks because it’s a place I really love to be a skier, an excellent community and a fantastic program with Alaska Nanooks,” Crawford said in a phone interview last week.
The coaching position opened suddenly, as Scott Jerome, head coach of the Nanooks’ nordic and cross country teams for 10 1/2 seasons, was put on administrative leave shortly before the 2015 U.S. Cross Country Championships took place in January. His contract expires June 30 and will not be renewed.
Citing confidentiality policies regarding personnel, UAF officials did not comment on the circumstances surrounding Jerome’s departure. In January, UAF spokeswoman Marmian Grimes told the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner that his leave was not a result of NCAA eligibility sanctions placed on UAF last November.
“It’s not related to the past NCAA violations; it’s not new violations that prompted this issue,’’ Grimes said. “It was just us [UAF] needing to go in a different direction with coaching for these teams.”
During his senior season on the team, Jonas Lӧffler told the Nanooks’ Sun Star in February that the skiers themselves vocalized a need for a leadership shift.
“We athletes were involved in the whole process of Scott leaving. We were the initial people to say we needed change,” Lӧffler said.
Scott Jerome, former head coach of the UAF cross-country running and nordic teams. (Photo: UAF.edu)
Jerome was one of several switchups in the UAF athletics department. Also this past winter, volleyball head coach Mallory Larranaga was let go after two seasons “following the self-reporting of violations of NCAA rules on Jan. 13,” according to the Star.
“There are many rumors swirling on why Larranaga was fired on Feb. 12, from the less than stellar record of 7-48, to the NCAA violations that happened with a recruit this past summer [of 2014], which included the filming of visits and practices,” the Star stated.
As of mid-May, UAF was looking to fill the vacancies left by its outgoing women’s basketball assistant coach Greg Bruce, who retired in April after 30 years with the program, and sports information director Drew Desrosiers, who planned to step down when his contract ends June 30, the News-Miner reported.
Jerome, 44, coached 17 All-Americans, including Marius Korthauer, who became the Nanooks’ first national champion at 2008 NCAA Skiing Championships in the men’s 20-kilometer classic race.
More recently in 2014, senior Max Olex placed second in the 20 k freestyle at NCAAs and Nichole Bathe finished fourth as a freshman at the championships. Before joining UAF in 2004, Jerome spent four years heading the nordic and cross-country teams at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minn.
In an email to FasterSkier, Jerome wrote that he was still in Fairbanks and had “begun a PhD program in biochemistry at UAF focusing on human performance, specifically overtraining syndrome.”
Following his departure in January, assistant nordic coach Christina Turman took over as interim head coach, with support from Josh Eide, of Marquette, Mich. She will remain in the position until Crawford officially starts in July.
Christina Turnman came on as UAF assistant nordic coach in 2013. (Photo: UAF.edu)
Turman, 27, did not apply for the head-coach position, but said she felt pressure from university’s administration, friends, family, and athletes to do so. She explained she preferred to remain an assistant, to work and learn under someone else to develop as a coach while preserving time for her family. She will remain assistant coach.
“I’m delighted to have her stay on,” Crawford said. “I think the program has done really well under her tenure as interim head coach. I look forward to working with her. ”
For Turman’s part, she’s excited for the future of the team.
“I think the future is bright. I’m excited to be back with the program for a third season next year, we have some really solid returning athletes and some good ones coming in,” she said in an interview in her UAF office. “There’s no reason UAF shouldn’t have one of the most competitive teams in the nation. We have the resources, we have the trails, we have the climate for it, so I look forward to continuing to be with the program and watch it build and become more and more successful.”
“There’s no reason UAF shouldn’t have one of the most competitive teams in the nation.” — Christina Turman, assistant coach entering her third season with the UAF nordic team
UAF has a young team, with most of its returning women being either sophomores or juniors, and a lot of depth in the men’s team as well. This season, they picked up incoming freshmen Max Donaldson, three-time Alaska state Skimeister and 2015 Junior National champion. Turman coached him while head coach of West Valley High School before starting at UAF.
As for Crawford, he said that he is joining a successful program and doesn’t want to change too much too soon. Both he and Turman said that they have already discussed working together on what to tweak and what to keep the same in order to continue to build on the Nanooks’ success.
“You really want to make sure you have a good philosophical fit with the program,” UAF Athletics Director Gary Gray said in an interview at UAF, referring to Crawford. “It’s also important – this happens sometimes – we’ll hire someone from the lower 48, and in a year they’re homesick. And that’s not completely unusual. So it’s trying to find someone that is that right fit, of someone that we think is going to give that stability to the program.
“Things that attracted us to Nick included his familiarity with this community,” Gray continued. “He has coached here, he has recruited here. He had some successful results with his club program in Boise. … The fact that Nick has been here before and was part of this community, that seems to speak well of his fit to Fairbanks.”
“The fact that Nick has been here before and was part of this community, that seems to speak well of his fit to Fairbanks.” — UAF Athletics Director Gary Gray
Crawford is also a close personal friend of FasterSkier’s former editor, Nat Herz, who also skied for Bowdoin.
“Nick’s decision not to use me as a reference has clearly paid off again,” Herz wrote in an email. “I look forward to testing his mettle when we both race in next year’s Oosik Classic in Talkeetna. Also, his athletes should ask him about that time he tried — and failed — to complete the gallon challenge when we were in college together.”
When does the season start – Thanksgiving camps? First World Cup Races? How about the when the rollerskis are swapped out for actual skis?
This week we received two reports of on-snow skiing. Welcome to winter!
The Auburn Ski Club enjoyed a record-setting summer – just three months without skiing.
Mark Nadell filed this report.
The shortest dry-land training season in recorded history ended yesterday on the Auburn Ski Club “Glacier.” Since the last day of skiing was just a mere 3 months ago, on July 3, 2011 ( http://fasterskier.com/2011/07/auburn-ski-club-hosts-on-snow-sprint-in-july/ ), an earlier-than-normal strong snowstorm drove through the Sierra Nevada this week and left 2 FEET of snow on Donner Summit. Exhibiting a remarkable degree of flexibility, the coaches of the Auburn Ski Club and Sugar Bowl Academy Junior Nordic Teams quickly switched their afternoon rollerski session to one that included a even more “realism” for nordic ski training — a few laps around the trails at Auburn Ski Club.
Harkening back to the good old days, all the tracks for the day were skier-produced, but with over 20 hardcore skiers and coaches, it wasn’t long until tracks were criss-crossing the trails at the Club. While the novelty of skiing on October 6th far outweighed the quality of skiing, smiles and happy faces amongst the crowd abounded. While the rest of Truckee was whining about the early snow, and the shortness of the summer, these nordic skiers were in their element, excited for the harbinger of snow to come. Even though this snow could easily be gone well before Halloween, it could also stick around until July 2013 as a new base for the ASC “Glacier.”
Grooming the old-fashioned way.Looks like midwinter.Kicking and gliding.Does the sun always shine in the Far West when it isn't snowing?It is not a real storm without a snow angel.
Nick Crawford, coach with the Bogus Basin Nordic Team, sent this selection of photos from Galena Pass, up above Sun Valley, Idaho. Last year Nick was coaching in Fairbanks and enjoyed some of the earliest skiing of the year up there as well. Like the Auburn SKi West, Sun Valley skiers had a short hiatus from skiing. SVSEF groomed up at Galena well into the spring.
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2018/05/AK_Nanooks_Abear_R-TM_Blue.jpg")
![University of Alaska Anchorage freshman Hailey Swirbul skis through the stadium at Birch Hill Ski Area in Fairbanks, Alaska, in the Alaska Nordic Cup on Nov. 19, 2016. (Photo: Zachary Hall/UAA Athletics)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/11/TFDHVHVXEZLSQJV.20161121003626.jpg")
![(Photo: John Lazenby/Lazenbyphoto.com)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/03/DSC_2682copyW.jpg")
![APU teammates and brothers Logan Hanneman (7) and Reese Hanneman (4) lead teammate Tyler Kornfield (17), Welly Ramsey (Mountain Endurance Sports) and Fredrik Schwencke of Northern Michigan University (far left) during their quarterfinal of the men's 1.5 k classic sprint on Saturday at U.S. nationals in Houghton, Mich.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/01/IMG_9354-e1452411312711.jpg")
![University of Alaska Anchorage Seawolves skiers Hailey Swirbul (l) and Casey Wright (r), photographed on the UAA campus in Anchorage, Alaska, in October 2016. (Photo: Gavin Kentch)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/10/Hailey-Swirbul-Casey-Wright-UAA.jpg")
![The University of Alaska Fairbanks ski team poses with the trophy for the Alaska Nordic Cup at Birch Hill Ski Area in Fairbanks, Alaska, on Nov. 20, 2016. (Photo: Nick Crawford/UAF Athletics)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/11/IMG_0502-e1479712020649.jpg")
![University of Alaska Anchorage Seawolves celebrate the news that their program will not be cut on the UAA campus on Nov. 10, 2016. (Photo: UAA Athletics)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/11/happy-Skiwolves.jpg")
![University of Alaska Fairbanks women's nordic-team skiers get together for a photo last season: (from left to right) Hannah Rowland, Anne-Tine Markset, Nichole Bathe, Martina Himma, Ann-Cathrin Uhl, and Sarissa Lammers. (Photo: Nick Crawford)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/05/IMG_4233.jpg")
![The Alaska Airlines Center, home to the University of Alaska Anchorage Seawolves athletics program in Anchorage, Alaska, photographed last month. (Photo: Gavin Kentch)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/10/Alaska-Airlines-Center-UAA.jpg")
![Table of 13 sports currently offered at University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA), prior to its waiver request to the NCAA in November 2016. (photo: screenshot from UAA waiver request)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/11/UAA-teams.jpg")
![Table of 10 sports currently offered at University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF), prior to its waiver request to the NCAA in November 2016. (photo: screenshot from UAF waiver request)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/11/UAF-teams.jpg")
![Detail from waiver request by University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) to NCAA in November 2016. (photo: screenshot from UAA waiver request)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/11/UAA-waiver-request.png")
![Manon Locatelli of the University of Alaska Anchorage double poles out of the start of the 2015 Seawolf Invite at Kincaid Park in Anchorage, Alaska. (Photo: Sam Wasson Photography / http://portfolio.samwassonphotography.com/about)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/05/Manon-Locatelli-at-2015-Seawolf-Invite-in-Anchorage.png")
![Rossignol tech rep Ira Edwards provides race support at a race at Kincaid Park in Anchorage, Alaska.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2012/02/332.jpg")
![Nick Crawford, 28, who headed the Bogus Basin Nordic program as well as the Lathrop High School ski team, will assume the role of head coach of the University of Alaska Fairbanks nordic and cross-country running teams in July. (Courtesy photo)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/05/photo.jpg")
![Brian Gregg (Team Gregg/Madshus) on his way to 65th in the Davos World Cup 30 k freestyle on Saturday in Switzerland. (Photo: Madshus/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/12/Brian-Gregg-MadshusNordicFocus-e1477683734851.jpg")
![U.S. ski team member, Sadie Bjornsen racing to a 17th overall in the women's10 k freestyle at Stage 7 of the Ski Tour Canada in Canmore, Alberta. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/03/Bjornsen160311mf057-e1457801846933.jpg")
![Joey Caterinichio skiing for the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) Seawolves, as shown in the 1992-1993 Seawolves media guide. (Photo: courtesy Joey Caterinichio)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/10/14591866_10154630632326419_6234840448512570607_n.jpg")
![Holly Brooks (APU), following the Anchorage Tour at Kincaid Park on March 6, 2016. (Photo: Rob Whitney)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/03/IMG_5342.jpg")
![University of Alaska Fairbanks nordic skiers rollerskiing on campus last fall. (Photo: UAF)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/09/UAF-photo.jpg")
![University of Alaska Anchorage Seawolves logo (Photo: GoSeawolves.com)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/09/1584643.jpg")
![March 1991 Bjorn Lasserud of Minneapolis at World Masters Championships at Kincaid Park in Anchorage. Lasserud, winner of more National and World Masters championships than most people can count, is equally noted for his coaching and inspiration to countless others, to start and stay in Nordic skiing. Photo: Peter Hale](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2010/02/DH000012.jpg")
![The University of Alaska Anchorage nordic team talks technique with assistant coach Sara Studebaker-Hall during a rollerski session last Tuesday in Kincaid Park. (Photo: UAA Nordic)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/09/DSC05722.jpg")
![University of Alaska Fairbanks Nanooks logo (AlaskanaNooks.com)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/09/42954a.jpeg")
![A University of Alaska Anchorage skier carries the team flag of the Seawolves at the 2016 NCAA Skiing Championships last March at Howelsen Hill in Steamboat Springs, Colo. (Photo: Jamie Schwaberow/NCAA Photos)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/05/SCH6371.jpg")
![Etienne Richard of the University of Alaska Anchorage at the 2016 NCAA Skiing Championships in Steamboat Springs, Colo. (Photo: UAA)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/05/AL1A1266.jpg")
![UAA's Hanna Slotte racing at the 2015 Seawolf Invite in Anchorage. (Photo: Sam Wasson/Sam Wasson Photography)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/05/Hanna-Slotte-at-2015-Seawolf-Invite-in-Anchorage.png")
![Brian Gregg at the Seeley Hills Classic (Photo credit: Once in a Blue Moon Studio- Kelly Randolph)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/02/95308d12-bb18-454d-94cd-5bad6a41f062.jpg")
![Scott Jerome, former head coach of the UAF cross-country running and nordic teams. (Photo: UAF/http://www.photos.uaf.edu/keyword/smiling/i-4sjsQSP/A)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/05/jerome.jpg")
![Christina Turnman came on as UAF assistant nordic coach in 2013. (Photo: UAF)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/05/christina-turman.jpg")
![](http://images.fasterskier.com/2011/10/asc-ski-oct2011_skiers1-web.jpg" "Grooming the old-fashioned way.")
![](http://images.fasterskier.com/2011/10/asc-ski-oct2011_grasseschi-be.jpg" "Looks like midwinter.")
![](http://images.fasterskier.com/2011/10/asc-ski-oct2011_reid-espy5.jpg" "Kicking and gliding.")
![](http://images.fasterskier.com/2011/10/asc-ski-oct2011_mcelroy-t.jpg" "Does the sun always shine in the Far West when it isn't snowing?")
![](http://images.fasterskier.com/2011/10/asc-ski-oct2011_larusson-k.jpg" "It is not a real storm without a snow angel.")
![](http://images.fasterskier.com/2011/10/Sun-Valley-skiing-10-7-003.jpg" "Locked and loaded.")
![](http://images.fasterskier.com/2011/10/Sun-Valley-skiing-10-7-009.jpg" "Striding at Galena Pass")
![](http://images.fasterskier.com/2011/10/Sun-Valley-skiing-10-7-010.jpg" "Winter.")