I had the privilege to get stomped by Willie in a few interval sessions while he was skiing there with Ally. He was a stand-out kid that didn’t really fit into the local racing scene. His dad took him to local races and was very enthusiastic about racing in general, and I remember being envious that Willie had a family that was as directly involved in racing as his was. It’s no wonder he skied a shut-out high school career winning 8 Wyoming High School Championships.

Talking to Willie meant always talking about the future – the kid was driven and focused. I heard his decisions to defer a year of college to go ski fast (Sun Valley was it?) and was impressed with how pragmatically he’d laid out his thought process. He was going to go places and do well. We were going to be seeing him on the racing scene for sure, and he was going to be carrying a lot of other accomplishments along the way as well.

I was really looking forward to another chance to thrash Willie when I get back to Jackson Hole in September, but now I am just so sorry for his family and anyone he left behind. Everyone in Jackson knows the kid and I’m sure this will have an impact on the community there.

We had a similar accident up here with a car hitting a local high schooler a couple of years ago while she was roller skiing with her club in Anchorage. She made a full recovery and is still racing fast, but it could have easily been worse.

This kind of stuff makes you think about how well roller skiers, bikers, and runners blend with huge American cars on fast roads without bike lanes and how little the collective margin of error is left after you combine driver error and athlete error. I don’t think that we screwed up sending our kids out for roller skis along our roads, but it’s probably at least a good reminder to coaches and athletes about how defensive you have to be when you are screaming down those hills on an awkward set of sticks with no breaks.

You’ll be missed Willie. My condolences to his family and community. We all knew he was going to do very well.

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