The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Former junior racing foes join forces
Years ago Drew Holbrook, skiing for the Crested Butte Junior Nordic team, and Austin Ross of the Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Center were lining up against each other on their skinny skis.
In fact, Ross and Holbrook first lined up against each other when they were eight years old and continued to see each other through high school on the Rocky Mountain Division Nordic racing circuit.
“We go back quite a ways,” says Holbrook.
This winter, the two will join forces to coach the Crested Butte Junior Nordic team. Ross was hired as the head coach and Holbrook will be right there with him as the assistant coach. Fred Sproat, who grew up racing in Duluth, Minn. has been hired as well to run the kids’ after-school program, to be named Sproat’s Squad.
Both Ross and Holbrook qualified for Junior Nationals all four years in high school and went on to race in college.
“When I didn’t have a blown knee or mononucleosis, I had some successful race seasons,” says Holbrook.
Holbrook spent his freshman year racing for the Division I powerhouse the University of Vermont before other interests took him in other directions. Ross was on the varsity racing team at Division I program Colby College.
After college, Ross jumped into the coaching fray, working with the Maine Winter Sports Center as a Nordic coach at a variety of levels, from coaching the New England Junior National team on down.
“A lot of the stuff I did was helping little kids get out on skis,” says Ross.
Ross spent the last two winters Nordic racing professionally out of Fort Fairfield, Maine before retiring from that at the end of last winter. He caught wind of the head-coaching job here in Crested Butte by word of mouth.
“I actually heard about it from my coach who I skied for at Colby College,” says Ross. “I raced in Crested Butte as a junior and know that the skiing out there is pretty awesome.”
Holbrook is new to the coaching world but does have experience working with kids as a ski instructor in Portillo, Chile. He decided it was time to give back to something he enjoyed so much as a kid growing up in Crested Butte.
“I thought it would be a lot of fun,” says Holbrook. “I just remember how much fun I had doing it back in high school, traveling all over and making new friends. I just wanted to be a part of that again.”
Ross’ philosophy toward coaching is pretty straightforward.
“First and foremost, skiing has to be a fun experience,” says Ross. “My goal is to help kids figure out what they love about skiing and maximize that for them and learn about what a great lifestyle Nordic skiing can offer.”
Ross pulls into Crested Butte this Sunday with official workouts starting on Monday. Holbrook already has the more serious racers out for some dry-land training sessions this week.
Holbrook believes they will have a strong contingent of racers this year on the team in a variety of age classes.
“I think we’ll have around eight to 10 kids racing pretty seriously,” says Holbrook. “Five high schoolers and some coming up through the woodwork.”
The first time the coaches will get a really good look at what they have for a team will come November 20-24 when they take the team up to their first big camp, including races in West Yellowstone.
“We’ll be able to get a great feel for where the kids are at, both physically and with their technique then,” says Ross.
