June 14th, 2009
Skiing is freaking small here in America, and I have some questions for you people.
US Nationals are smaller than the Alaska High School State Championships. We’ve got one distance dude that regularly competes on a world level and smokes the rest of the “sprinters” in the country (not to detract from the one sprinter chick that does the same), and otherwise a mix of professionals amateur college kids that are having a good year and manage to break the top ten.
What gives man??????
Anybody that says that nordic skiing isn’t full of well-off rich white kids is smoking crack. I’m a well off rich white kid, you’re a well-off rich white kid, I have ten pairs of skis and boots, you have ten pairs of skis and boots. We’ve got 2nd or 3rd year juniors running around with $500 GPS heart rate monitors and $5000 worth of clothes and equipment. So we’ve got all these rich people and this super rich country, why the hell aren’t we dominating the world like we do in track and basketball?
NO! NO!! Don’t go and say crap like “Well the Norwegians are doing X.Y.Z, whatever blah blah,” because the answer is right here in the U.S. I want all of you to have a look at international running and soccer, and also basketball in the US.
In basketball, poor people across the country play day and night in the streets with their brother’s huge baggy-ass hand me down clothes, and those rich professional NBA’ers CAN’T TOUCH THEM in a nasty 2-on-2 half-court game. Kids SKIP SCHOOL to play basketball, and there’s HUGE testosterone king of the hill sh1t that goes down on the average ghetto court.
Can you imagine a rich white baller kid from Anchorage playing street ball in harlem? No, they literally don’t even fit into the picture.
The thing is that all you need is a ball and your Sunday best, and then there’s a hoop in every playground across the country. Like the Volkswagen, it’s a people’s sport and as a result there’s millions of incredible players here, and no other country will ever be able to touch us.
It’s the same with running and soccer. Look at how huge those sports are. Poor and rich kids alike ACROSS THE WORLD are playing soccer day and night and totally killing it with over-the-top goal fever EVERY GAME. Why? Because all you need is a crappy ball and a couple of t-shirts for a goal, and presto: you got a cultural phenomenon that you can’t pull the kids away from.
If you want to go running, all you need is a pair of shoes and a small piece of big round planet to run on. The former is a stretch for some people, but those guys started running bare-foot to school at an early age, and they turned out fine.
So seriously, what’s the deal with skiing? Why is it that everyone in the country that trains more than 20 hours a week knows each other? Why is it that skiers are a super small population of rich white kids? Because skiing is too freaking expensive and unbelievably inaccessible to the poor people in northern climates, of which we have plenty in the US.
For example, why is it that every native kid off the road system in Alaska is a killer basketball player and has never stood on skis when they can do it right out their front door? They’re building gyms in the bush like the Dems are making “Got Hope?” bumper stickers, but why don’t they all have a cheap ass one-design fish scale ski to use that 30 feet of snow pack that they get for free? Everyone likes to run like little gerbils in gym class and on Field Day, so why wouldn’t they want to SKI and go wherever they want?!?
As it stands they’d need a bunch of coaches and a million pounds of equipment to enter into the glorious world of skiing, when they already have the two most important requirements: A culture with thousands of years of winter experience and infinite snow.
As an exercise, think about how much money goes into your average race week with planes, hotels, food, and gas the next time you are loading your ninth ski bag into a van to go to the airport. Now try not to glaze over when you add up all the gear that you only categorized as “some thousands of dollars” before, and try to imagine a bloody army of recruits to pull from that has the same resources as you do. It will never happen.
Being a pro athlete in a cultural vacuum and trying to win a fight with big dawgs that regularly walk on water in their home town is impossible. Everyone knows that being a pro skier here means becoming a loner to try to fit in with the cool kids across the pond, while remaining a total anomaly on your own turf. To our credit, I think it’s interesting to add that in that context, we have succeeded in showing the world that we can produce the kinds of people that can commit their entire mortal being to the goals in the face of endless defeat.
In that light, every professional skier I know has said “Yes” to the incredible focus, integrity, and resourcefulness that it takes to hang in that impossible world. Now just imagine what they could do if they’re jobs were a little easier because they’re whole country was behind them. If you think nordic skiing is cool enough to give up your entire young life…in the face of any adversity…to a fault, then you probably would also defend the fact that all those other people would like it too if they only had the tools.
Check it:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&c…
(Scroll down to the “*ahem*”:)
http://www.ishkur.com/sports/soccer.php
June 14th, 2009 at 9:31 pm
Oh boy PS,
Anonymous tweet attacks in 3…2…1…
June 15th, 2009 at 12:02 am
Patrick – good post. Speaking of skiing in the bush of AK, here is the story of Jimmy O that you might find interesting …
There was a time in the late 80’s/ early 90’s when school districts in Western Alaska had enough money to buy skis for a ski team. And something amazing happened. A Native kid named James Osuktaruk from White Mountain started skiing. Soon after, thanks to help from USST coach Chris Grover’s family, Jimmy O won the Jr. Nationals. He went from skiing in a town where most homes didn’t have septic systems to being the fastest junior in the US. That was VERY cool to see.
Jimmy O had a chance to get into the sport. But as you can imagine, those days are long gone. Now bush villages are mostly on the brink of financial default due to high costs of fuel. So, no money for skis. And the likelihood of another tough Jimmy O coming out of the Bush to tromp pansy-ass whities is slim to none.
Actually – this story is not that unique. The Canadian National Ski Team once had a core of Native skiers from Inuvik, NWT. Same deal – free skis and coaching to get them started. Back in the 60’s and 70’s lots of po’ whities in the US (like me for example) got into skiing because when you joined the ski team you were handed everything you needed to leave the starting line (skis, poles, boots, uni, wax, coaching, travel). It was a “free” sport. Now it’s a country club sport. It’s as cool as ever. But it’s a bummer that kids can’t play the game if they ain’t got the dough. So instead, kids get a snowboard from WalMart or get an X-Box … it’s cheaper than xc ski racing.